Spring Salmon Fishing on the Tay
I like to head up to the Tay in spring. This short film I shot with my chest camera goes some way as to explaining why...
Below is an excerpt from my diary which goes into a bit more detail.
May 2016
I've been up on the mighty River Tay staying at Kenmore for my regular spring salmon trip. Arrived on Saturday, walked the beat looking for signs of fish and to see what if any change had happened over the last year. Wet a line fishing for trout on the Taymouth Castle beat for a few hours on Sunday night and had a nice brownie.
Tuesday
I was off to fish Bolfracks Estate Upper Beat with my son Mat who paid for the ticket as a birthday treat for me, it turned out to be a fantastic day, you could say it was a Red Letter Day.
Met up with Tomas from Custom Tied Flies, good guy if you need any flies give him a call. Bob McIntyre called into the beat to see us, I've known Bob for many years and could spend hours talking to him about the various pools and lies, what he doesn’t know about it isn’t worth knowing. We started on the Point Pool and split the pool between us, Mat started in the middle and myself at the head, set up for both of us was double handed rods. Mat had the first fish of the day - a trout, then it was my turn after a couple of changes of fly I found one that worked – a Willie Gunn produced the goods, a super bar of silver in the shape of a 15lb spring salmon still with sea lice on it.
We saw quite a few fish coming into the pool most of which were silver. Mid way down the pool I had another arm wrenching take, the fight this time was to take a little longer but eventually Mat slid the net under my personal best salmon to date, a cracking 23.5lb beauty.
the day still wasn't done, I'd seen a fish boil a couple of times so I made a few casts in the general area then everything went solid, all I could hear from up the bank was Mat yelling "Are you in again!". He did another fine job of netting the fish this time a smaller fish of about 11.5lbs but bright silver.
Mat was now getting fed up with netting fish for me so I suppose it was only fair that he had the last fish of the day, another fish of around the 11.5lb mark, this time to a Rapala. So that brought then end to a perfect day.
Thursday
My next outing was to the Taymouth Castle beat at Kenmore fishing the Chinese Pool, that again showed me the stamp of fish from this lovely piece of water both at affordable prices, spring fishing at its best.
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