The first fish of the season came from the Upper Farm pool on the 25th of February and was estimated at 10Lbs.
27 fish was the running total at the end of March 2 of which were taken in February - 11 out of the 27 came from Beat 4 and none from Beat 1, this is hardly surprising as the water temperature struggled to reach 40F for the entire month. Some really good fish were taken including the heaviest of 16Lbs from the Long pool and also a 15 pounder from Tutim Bridge and Langwell respectively.
The spring fish are looking very good but a few more of them would have been very acceptable, the water fluctuated throughout the month but over all conditions were good; As we got well into April weather forecasts were still for snow from the North East and as promised it dutifully arrived, (what a contrast to last year) everyone would welcome some sunshine on this unusually cold spring, also warmer water temperatures would encourage fish to move up to beat 1 where there are still few fish to be caught;
The heaviest spring fish was 22Lbs and came from Langwell pool on April 17th, conditions remained good until May 3rd, and then, what did I say earlier about some sunshine would be welcome, well yes, but not 6 weeks of it.
After enduring what was almost a record spring drought, at the end of June the Lower Oykel was considerably up on fish numbers compared with 2007; From June 19th the river was at a good fishing height for about 10 days only, and then the weather got warm again and only light showers reaching the north of Scotland made conditions very difficult once again, however the 10 days with water brought the back log of fish from the kyle which produced good sport for anglers and increased the catch by over 100 fish.
At the beginning of July the Grilse are not yet running in appreciable numbers, may be they will be 2 weeks late as they were in the last 2 or 3 years, hopefully the next rise in water will show signs of a more substantial run.
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G R Ross. (For Lower Oykel Fishings) GROykel@btinternet.com
Tel: 01549441259 Mob: 07710754896
If you require more information now, please do contact us at info@kyle.dsfb.org.