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With the river sitting at 4ft 6in on Monday we did not catch anything however conditions weatherwise and riverwise improved during the rest of the week. We managed to catch one 8lber from Sandy Bay, which was badly seal marked, on Thursday. Plenty of good condition kelts were caught throughout the week which is a good sign for the river. With the forecast this week looking not too bad hopefully we will connect with a few spring fish.

Cheers Brian

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Hope you have all had a good winter and we wish you tight lines for 2013. On opening day with a good water height and no grue to contend with this year things were looking very favourable for an early spring fish. With a couple of baggots caught in the morning and a dozen kelts the hope of catching an opening day fish were fading but Michael Ritchie from Fraserburgh managed to hook and land a lovely 9 lber from the Colonel with his first cast after lunch and follwed up very quickly with a fish of similar size from the Lower Ferroch and that was the very pleasing tally for opening day. The following day quite surprisingly very few kelts landed but another 2 clean fish were landed, the biggest being a cracking 15 lber caught in Invercannie by Graeme Caton. (pictured below)

Cheers Brian

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On Monday 15th October, the last day of the season, after many attempts David Taylor managed to catch a 6lb cock fish from Lower Ferrochs. The water was a little bit on the high side at 3ft 2in but running crystal clear I was quite surprised we did not get a few more to add to the tally. However I am pleased to say that on my first season at Cairnton we caught 208 Salmon & Grilse and 16 Sea Trout. I have met some lovely parties in my first season and hope to see them back again next year.

p.s. – Keep checking on the Cairnton website through the winter months for the latest pictures and news from the beat.

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We started the week off with the river sitting at 11 inches on the Cairnton gauge and a hard frost in the morning but things quickly warmed up and what fish were there seemed to be a little bit more active. We managaed 1 fish from the Outer Colonel on Monday on a Red Francis tube and a Sea Trout from Invercannie on Wednesday, albeit 2 or 3 fish were hooked but lost. With the forecast for rain on Thursday evening and weather warnings in force we got the rise in water on Friday morning that we were not really needing as it rose to over 8 feet on the Cairnton gauge (picture below taken at 7 1/2 feet on the rise). Saturday it dropped back to 5 1/2 feet and was crystal clear which should have given us a reasonable chance with 1 or 2 seen but nothing taken. Maybe Monday will be a good finale.

Cheers Brian

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The river was sitting at 1ft 6in on Monday morning and within 5 minutes one of the rods had a fish of 12lbs from the Cottage which usually is the kiss of death (getting the fish so early), as it turned out it was, as we only managed 3 for the week. It was not without lack of effort however as we had a Swedish party who fished it very hard and one regular Cairnton rod who knows the water extremely well. He has been fishing the beat for years and could not understand why we were not catching more. The biggest fish of the week, 16lbs, was a lovely cock fish in it's autumn colours, caught by Mattias Helde in the Grey Mare (pictured below with his friend, Swedish casting champion Tellis Katsogiannos). With high pressure sitting on us and with the chance of a few frosts it will hopefully get them switched on.

Cheers Brian

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On Monday the river was at 3 inches on the Cairnton gauge. On Tuesday we got the water we were needing badly with overnight terrential rain. The river was 6 inches and rising quickly and by 5pm it was sitting at 7ft. By Wednesday it had dropped down to 4ft and was still carrying a little peat stain but not impossible. Fish were showing but we couldn't connect. Thursday conditions were near perfect with the river sitting at 2ft 4 inches but again we could not connect. Friday we managed to get one from the Grey Mare, a 12lb coloured cock fish. On Saturday we got a beautiful sea liced 12lber from the Cottage caught by Trevor Telling (pictured below).

Cheers Brian

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This week on Cairnton was quite hard going again. We have not had any significant rain for sometime now although we had a slight rise mid week of a few inches. We have also had a few hard frosts which would normally get a few of the old cock fish on the take at this time of year. However we did manage to land 2 salmon, 4 grilse and 1 sea trout this week which brought the total amount of fish caught this season so far to 201 salmon and grilse. John Marshall started the weeks catch off with a 16lber from the Grey Mare, quickly followed by David Cowie, who was a guest of John Marshall, with a 6lb autumn cock fish from the Grey Mare (pictured below). Hopefully the weather forecast is correct this week with the promise of midweek rain, which we need very badly.

Cheers Brian