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Latest News
Sunday 22nd January 2012.
Grantown has, thus far, experienced a reasonably mild winter. To the best of my knowledge, none of our local lochs have frozen-over, as yet. We have had some snow, but just as soon as it settles, it melts!
Hopefully, we'll have a pleasant Spring and a good start to our 2012 season which commences on Saturday the 11th of February 2012.
For the benefit of any new visitors, fishing permits are now available to buy on-line from www.fishpal.com Fishing permits bought on-line carry a surcharge which covers the commission that our Association has to pay for this privilege. Some anglers from the USA have already booked some fishing on our waters for later this season using the fishpal website.
You can, of course, just buy your permits from Mortimer's Shop in Grantown's High Street. Please remember you can only use cash or cheques to do this as we are charged commission for credit card transaction. Permits are always available during normal shopping hours. However you choose to pay for your fishing, please be aware that you must be in possession of your actual signed permit, (only available from Mortimer's), before you start to fish.
Also for the benefit of new visitors, I have archived most of last year's news page, including pictures, which can be found by clicking here.
For the time being, I have kept some pictures on this page from our 2010 season. These are displayed below.
Regular visitors may already have noticed a few changes to this web-site which is now up-to-date for the start of our new season. If I have any further news, I will post it here.
In the meantime,
With very best wishes,
Jimmy Mitchell
Saturday 7th January 2012.
First of all, may I take this opportunity to wish all of our members and visitors a very happy and healthy new year.
I was informed today that the AGM was held on the 4th of January 2012. Permit prices will remain unchanged for this coming season. Also, the sale of permits on the Fishpal will site will continue permanently.
I am struggling to think of any news about our Grantown waters. The only matter which I think may interest you is that our local Co-op supermarket has now been extended; they now have a greater selection of wines!!
You will be aware that this season commences on Saturday the 11th of February. I am looking forward to the season getting under way.
I think that's as much as I can tell you for the moment.
2010 Pictures
Local member Peter Page with a fish of at least 32lbs which he landed at the Dulnain Mouth Pool on the 10th of September. Peter caught the 43.5 inch long fish on size 10 double fly of his own making. The fish was the largest from our 2010 season and was returned alive.
Above is a fresh 8lbs salmon landed and photographed by local member, John Gray. The fish was caught at 11:30pm in the Dulnain Mouth Pool on Thursday 20th May whilst John was fishing a 2 inch needle tube fly for sea-trout. The fish was returned to the river. Thanks for the photo John.
Above is pictured Stéphane Wuidar from Belgium who caught this 13lbs salmon in the Auckernack Burn Pool on the 11th June. Stéphane caught his heaviest salmon to date, on fly and returned it to the river. I am very grateful to Stéphane for sending us a number of pictures including this one.
You may recall the salmon of 27lbs which was landed at the Old Bridge Pool on the 17th of May by visiting angler, Philip Butcher. The length of the fish was about 41 inches and so the weight of the fish was estimated. Philip sportingly returned the fish to the river. We have been sent some pictures of the action and the fish which are displayed below. Scale analysis showed the fish to have spent two years in the river as a juvenile and just three years at sea.
Above is pictured George Oliver, a regular visitor, who landed the first salmon on fly on our water this season. The fish weighed 10lbs and was caught in the Long Pool on the 14th April.
o O o
We have had a new brochure produced which now includes a detailed map of our fishings on the Rivers Spey and River Dulnain. If you would like a glossy A3 sized copy, please send us your details via the contact us page. Alternatively, our brochure can be downloaded and viewed/printed from the three pdf files as follows. (Remember to set you printer paper orientation to 'landscape'.)
Click on each of the three images above to download our new brochure.
o O o
Some slightly older news.....
Some time ago, I was very fortunate to be invited to join the Spey Fishery Board, (SFB), as they went about their work. Naturally, I took my camera along and took a few snaps. I have singled out ten photographs, ( now on our Photo Gallery page), which should be of interest to you.
You will be aware that, amongst other things, the SFB net and strip some salmon of their eggs and milt and then fertilise the eggs under artificial conditions, (in a bucket!!). This process results in a success rate of over 98% of the eggs being fertilised . This is a whole lot of fertilised eggs when you consider that a hen fish produces over 500 eggs for every pound that she weighs. Of course, this process is far more successful than in the wild where less than 2% of all eggs are reckoned to get fertilised!
The 'donor' fish are always returned to their river of origin after scale and DNA sampling and they are always 'tagged' for future reference.
The fertilised eggs are held in irrigated holding tanks at the SFB Hatchery until they hatch as alevin and are then 'planted' into pre-determined areas of the river of their parents' origin to preserve the genetic integrity of the salmon stocks for that particular river. The SFB release millions of healthy young alevin into the Spey system every year.
Here's an interesting fact for you. The Spey Fishery Board stocked direct tributaries of our own SAIA water in 2008 with 105,000 salmon fry. This was part of the re-stocking programme last year in which they introduced 1,560,000 fry to the Spey and its tributaries!
o O o
Please read the important information, (below), about a parasitic fluke, Gyrodactlyus salaris.
Gyrodactlyus Salaris.
There is grave concern about a parasitic fluke, Gyrodactlyus salaris, (GS), which lives on freshwater fish. It is less than 1 mm long and is barely visible to the naked eye. It can be carried by brown trout, rainbow trout and other fish but is lethal to Scottish Salmon.
GS is native to rivers in Sweden, Finland and Russia where local salmon have evolved a resistance to the parasite. During the 1970's it was accidentally spread to rivers in Norway, Denmark, Germany, Spain, France and Portugal. The U.K. is currently GS free.
GS rapidly infests juvenile salmon causing mass mortality. In Norway, infected rivers lost 98% of their salmon within 5 years. Fishing in infected rivers becomes unfeasible due to lack of fish and restrictions on anglers' movements.
GS is most likely to be introduced to the U.K. by the movement of live fish from the continent. GS can survive for 5 to 7 days without a host, (fish), in damp conditions. The parasite could survive on wet angling clothing, nets, waders or other equipment or on canoes, rafts or boats.
Once a river is infected, all fish must be destroyed to remove potential hosts. The Spey could easily be infected by anglers carrying the parasite from infected countries on their damp clothing or equipment including waders and nets.
If you have fished or canoed on the continent, please, please take the following precautions before visiting the Spey.
You will be asked to declare yourself GS free before you fish on the Spey.
......and finally, some older news.
An article from the Atlantic Salmon Trust deals with the catch and release policy and mortality rates of fish which have been released. It acknowledges that salmonoids are more susceptible to injury/damage than other fish when removed from water - if you can keep your fish in the water whilst removing the hook, the more likely it will be to survive.
Also, older style landing-nets with 'knotted' type nets are believed to harm fish in that they damage and remove scales. This leaves the fish prone to infection. So, if you are treating yourself to a landing-net, make sure that it's of the 'knotless' type.