Finavon Castle Bulletin

These bulletin blogs represent news about Finavon and the South Esk, and my views as a riparian owner. They are not the views of any other organisation, nor are they designed to promote the interests of any individual or organisation other than Finavon Castle Water and factors affecting the fishery.  Tony Andrews

After a spate early in the month Finavon continued to produce good quality two-sea-winter salmon until last week, when water levels dropped back and the sun came out. Bright conditions, low river levels and crystal clear water enabled us to see, for the first time this year, how the winter spates had changed our pools. The River is in great order with lots of young salmon and sea trout, good fly and invertebrate life and fish in all the pools. The catch to date is seven salmon and one sea trout.

Yesterday David Parratt, Andrew Howard and I were lying on the top of the Haughs Aqueduct peering vertically down into about four and a half feet of clear water at the head of Haughs pool. We could see every stone on the bed of the river in the bright sunlight. We could also see three salmon lying quietly in a lie beside a large boulder immediately below us. We were not more than thirty feet away from these fish, so we were able to assess their size with some accuracy. and compare each other’s estimates. The smallest of the three salmon was about 14lbs, a really nice spring salmon anyone would be proud to catch and release. The fish lying next to it was much bigger, a longer, deeper fish with tremendous breadth to its shoulder and upper body. We thought this would weigh between 18 and 22 lbs.

About six feet below these two impressive salmon was a very large fish, which we all agreed was somewhere between 30 and 35lbs. With its huge, spade-like tail,  massive head and overall length of about four feet (48”) we took a long time to reach our conclusion, but because there was no refraction from our position directly above the fish, there was no distortion of its size. What we saw therefore was what the fish was. In all the 25 years of my ownership of the Finavon water I have never seen such a big salmon. And to see it at such close quarters and to note every detail on its body was a great experience.

Someone may catch this huge fish, but I hope not. I like to think this is a female that will go on to lay her eggs, probably in  November or December, in a high tributary of the South Esk to ensure that another generation of big fish return to our river.

Haughs Pool Downstream of the Aqueduct