Archive
27 August 14 August 14/08/2007Another good week on the Helmsdale Association water recorded around 25 sea-liced fish last week. The week began with a wash-out spate on Monday but that was soon forgotten as Tuesday provided 5 fish and Wednesday 7, sport continued for the rest of the week with great water holding. Most patterns were working so long as they were quite big and bright especially at the start of the week - Coneheads in particular and my new Tungsten's were fishing great - all over the North. I will be uploading some tied tungsten tubes this week on www.helmsdalecompany.com so get your supply quick as demand is very high for this new product. I will also have new coneheads available this week. We have our highland games this Saturday 18th and a big attraction will be the North of Scotland Open fly casting championships. This year we are very lucky to have 4 special salmon rods from the Carron rod & case company, Carron rods and lines need no introduction as they hold the recently set world record casting distance by Gordon Armstrong and we have the 17"11 competition model set up and ready for our Salmon distance competition - 3 other carron rods will be on demo for you to try in sizes 16 - 15 - 14ft. Carron lines & accessories will be part of the prizes too, trout distance and accuracy casting will also be running. I will have a large selection of my flies on display also in the casting arena + destination selection boxes. The weather forecast is good for Saturday so come along and try out the Carron rods and lines, they really are the best! Tight lines Ron 4 August 04/08/2007Apologies for the lack of information recently, the Helmsdale Community web-site on which this report is hosted has been completely up-graded. As you will see the webmasters have done a magnificent and professional job and all on a voluntary basis - many thanks to Rick Curran and David Mason for their amazing work, and they are not done yet! The site will be under development for the next few months so please be patient as the changes will all be for the better. The Association water sprung into action as expected during the third week of July. 30 salmon were taken with 15 reported on Tuesday 24th. This appears to have been the peak of the grilse run as the following week beginning 30th only recorded 15 fish. As I report today on August 5th the fishing has noticeably slowed down. A constant supply of high water over the last month has resulted in fish flying through most of the lower beats and hardly showing themselves in the process however catches have been good on the upper river on occasion. Salmon have also been caught way out on some of the most remote lochs in the catchment area on Drum and Arachlinie. We would now expect a better quality of salmon to show up over the next few weeks; traditionally early August brings a mix of fresh fish between 4 - 15lbs so the Association water is still well worth a cast. On the whole the quality of grilse so far has probably been slightly better than last season. The lochs have reported some nice brown trout this Summer, excellent fish of 3, 4 & 5lbs have been taken from Badanloch and loch Coire na mang so good sport can be had in the hills as well as on the river. As usual, call me at the shop for an update or any other fishing info and don't forget to buy all your flies on www.helmsdalecompany.com I have a great selection of flies for sale now just a click away. Take special note of the nicely packaged destination selections, they are great gifts for your friends and are fast becoming best sellers. Tight lines Ron. |