Very little to say this week other than "where have all the fish gone"!? Amazingly Paul Smit fishing Kildonan rods is the only angler to land a fish so far this week, and a beauty it was. Lower Caen was the pool beat 1, RS Monkey conehead was the fly and the gleaming fish weighed in at 16lbs before release. The river was dropping settled and clear all week and good things were expected...thats fishing! 11 off the river so far, that's around 25 less than last year to same point.

Luckily I can brighten up the week with some awesome new flies we have designed and are unleashing on the fishing world! An amazing new range of RS SuperSquid doubles (5) and an RS Solar SuperSnaelda range (3). Read all about them individually by clicking through to our homepage right here - http://www.helmsdalecompany.com/

Our Solar Monkey range continues to out sell all other flies right now apart from the ever popular RS SuperSnaelda and that's what has given us the inspiration to add the Solar concept to some of our RS SuperSnaelda. These flies definitely work great, check out the bar of silver tempted below on the first Solar SS trial...

RS Cascade SuperSquid, No 1 in the range of these subtle "Intruder" style flies - http://www.helmsdalecompany.com/new-rs-supersquid-cascade.html

RS Solar SuperSnaelda, No 1 in our new range of 3 with more to come - http://www.helmsdalecompany.com/rs-solar-supersnaelda.html

Check out the Vid here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3KFJeMbngw

Solar SuperSnaelda instantly landed this bar of silver.

Best selling RS Solar Monkey - http://www.helmsdalecompany.com/solar-monkey-black-yellow-pro-choice.html

Stop press!! 2 more fish taken today (Friday 11th ) from beat 5, Martin Grant Kildonan rods (Ewes Neuk ) and beat 6 10lbs Swirl pool Achentoul rods.

There are 8 fish off the Helmsdale. Richard Breakell landed the only fish last week (no 4, 10lbs) on Kilphedir pool at around 2ft. One of our Cascade Alistair Tiger Coneheads did the trick fished off a full intermediate - http://www.helmsdalecompany.com/tiger-tail-cascade-alistair-c/h.html

Richards pristine springer from Kilphedir pool

This week has picked up slightly and another 4 fish have been recorded. Suisgill rods got the week off to a great start with a cracking 19lbs thumper from Lower Caen. Achentoul rods struck again in Oasis beat 3, Alan Shannahan 9lbs and on the same day regular visitor Andrew Thomas nailed a super 15.5 pounder, again from Lower Caen beat 1. Borrobol rods caught up with one in Poachers pool beat 4 to take the tally to 8. The river has been fairly settled all week around the 1ft mark with daily snowmelt keeping things very nicely topped up.

The Association water is yet to produce a fish, I have been dropping in during occasional lunchbreaks but no sign of life, it's just a matter of time as the water is in great shape as you can see from the pic.

Check out our homepage for the latest flies and rods on the market....The new Mackenzie and Loop SX are sure to take the market by storm! and see some of our new Grizzle Monkey flies (below ) which are flying off the shelves! http://www.helmsdalecompany.com/new-willie-gunn-grizzle-monkey.html

As usual, call us for that personal expert service....Ron will set you up with the best gear available and talk you personally through it. If the phones are busy please drop me an email and i'll get right back.

The team from Mackenzie DTX have teamed up with Professor Gary Savage, former Formula One World Team Champion and one of the world’s leading experts in carbon and composites to bring to market what has to be regarded as the most advanced fly rod ever made! With Professor Savage's help, Scott Mackenzie and his team have designed and built a world first - a fly rod incorporating a new super material called Graphene!

So what is Graphene? The Mackenzie FX1 flyrod is the first double-handed salmon rod to use Graphene, a Nobel Prize winning material that is set to revolutionise carbon-composite engineering. Discovered at the University of Manchester in 2004, Graphene is the strongest and stiffest material known to man. It is up to 300 times stronger than steel, even stronger than diamond, and 30 times stronger than Kevlar - the material used for bullet proof vests! Graphene recently revolutionised the tennis world after Head launched a new tennis racket using the material, now used used by Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic.

Single walled Graphene Nanotube                     Multi walled Graphene Nanotube

The way it is used in the manufacture of the Mackenzie FX1 blank is in the form of multi-walled carbon nanotubes - 1 atom thick sheets of hexagonally bonded carbon formed into tubes and added to a state of the art resin. Being 32 times stiffer than steel per unit mass. The sub-microscopic cylinders of carbon on a weight-for-weight basis are at least 120, and up to 300 times stronger than steel and 30 times stronger than Kevlar!

Scanning Tunnel Electron Micrograph of Graphene Nanotubes - red dots are carbon atoms!

Approximately 1/50,000th the width of a human hair, Graphene nanotubes can stretch considerably rather like plasticine before breaking, up to 14 percent of their normal length. Their aspect ratio (length/diameter) can be up to 130,000,000:1. To illustrate this, if we think of a carbon nanotube as a piece of spaghetti (typically 2mm in diameter) then, at this scale, the tube would be 66km long!

The Mackenzie FX1 rod blank is impregnated with this resin incorporating a weave of this new Graphene nanotube material. The rod flexes deeply during the cast and recovers quickly and powerfully. This fast recovery makes it easier to cast further with little effort, yet retains the 'feel' that is so important in a Salmon fly rod, especially if your casting is not on top form.

As well as being the first rod to incorporate Graphene, the blanks are produced using a further unique process where the blanks are cured inside a high pressure Auto Clave, a machine normally used to make parts for the F1 motor racing and aerospace industries. This extra process removes as much air as possible from between the carbon layers in the blank as it is cured that would normally remain trapped during the normal rod making process, creating a much stronger blank which means the FX1 rods are extremely strong and durable. With these new manufacturing processes, the new Mackenzie FX1 Graphene Salmon rods are at the forefront of global design and composite engineering using new materials and techniques currently being developed for aerospace applications 7 to 10 years in advance everyone else!

The Mackenzie FX1 range will be available from late-March and will initially include 13 ft 8 wt, 14 ft 9 wt and 15 ft 10 wt models, covering almost any situation the Salmon angler will find in the UK and abroad. The rods have been designed to handle all types of lines, from longer traditional Spey lines to short Scandi and Skagit style shooting-heads. The rods themselves are made in the UK, and feature the very best craftsmanship and fittings money can buy! Top grade Portuguese cork handles have been specially chosen and are made to a length and style to allow casters of all styles and abilities to use the rod in comfort.

Genuine Fuji SiC stripper rings with an ultra hard, ultra smooth, silicon carbide coating that will never wear and Titanium recoil snake guides that spring back into shape if knocked or bent grace the blank with smart orange tipped, gloss black whippings. A unique custom made ALPS down locking reel seat keeps your favourite reel securely in place. The finish on the FX1 Graphene blank itself features a self healing PTFE silicon coating meaning any scratches can simply be rubbed smooth, and with the addition of the Graphene resin system and high pressure autoclaving process that removes almost all the air from the blank, you wont find a better, stronger blank on the market today!