On Saturday, I met up with Mick Bell from Bloke Fly Rods for a days fishing on the Little Blackhall and Inchmarlo beats of the River Dee. This was my first time Salmon fishing in Europe so I was a little nervous to say the least as I’d never used a double handed rod.I arrived on the Inchmarlo beat around 9am and was greeted by full time ghillie Terry Paton. After setting up a Bloke 13″6 XL50 we set off down to the river in search of a fish. The conditions seemed to be great and the previous five days had resulted in over one hundred salmon for the river but due to the recent heavy rain the water was peat coloured and the ever increasing sun was out with his hat on!
Mick arrived at the river and spent a fair time guiding and helping me with my double Spey cast and Snake roll and as the wind picked up right at the start of a lovely cast, my fly caught Mick in the middle of the forehead!.. Sorry Mick!We decided to “rest the pool” at around 1pm and drove round to the opposite bank (Little Blackhall) for a spot of lunch, prepared by Mick’s wife Anna. A bowl of soup, sandwiches and some great fishing stories later we found ourselves back down at the river, this time fishing from the Little Blackhall side.
As the evening progressed trout began feeding on surface insects and the odd salmon and sea trout made the odd appearance, surely laughing at us!
At around 10:30pm we decided to call it a day and head home with out a fish to the net but fishing in such a glorious area of Scotland, on such a prolific river and with great company the lack of fish was irrelevant.
Many thanks to Mick Bell from Bloke Fly Rods, his wife Anna and Ghillies’ Martin Hayward and Terry Paton for such a lovely day.
I’ve uploaded a few photographs of the day in the Gallery here.
