Fishing for the truth about angling in Scotland
ACTOR and comedian Billy Connolly today formally opened the Aberdeenshire Dee’s salmon season where fishery administrators are optimistic that rod catches will maintain 2009’s record-breaking results. Connolly, who began his interest in fishing as a youngster on the canal in Glasgow, and now owns Candacraig House in Strathdon, toasted the river with a tipple of…
Continue ReadingTHE Scottish Government was today urged to act rapidly to forestall severe increases in sea lice infestation expected to hit marine salmon farms in the West Highlands and islands. Fears also emerged that Scotland could become a “dumping ground’’ for bad practice by multinational salmon producers if our parasite control regulations were not harmonised with…
Continue ReadingSOME OF the most stringent salmon conservation measures ever seen in Scotland are being introduced on the River Tay this season.
Continue ReadingTHE WINNER of this year’s prestigious Savills Malloch Trophy is Fort William angler Sandy Walker with a 32lb sea-liced cock salmon taken on the River Lochy in late June. The veteran Inverlochy AC member caught the fish in the river’s tidal Tailrace pool on a home-tied Waddington. It took him 1.5 hrs to land and…
Continue ReadingIT DIDNT take too long since my last article, to track down the elusive fly-tyer credited with creating one of Scotland’s most famous salmon patterns, the Garry Dog. Also known as the Minister’s Dog, Yellow Dog or simply Garry, a chance meeting with the grandson of a Borders’ minister, brought me the background to the…
Continue ReadingRevealed, the origin of one of Scotland’s most famous salmon flies – the Garry Dog
Continue ReadingHIGHER LEVELS of catch-and-release by sea trout anglers will be called for in Scotland next year following the publication today of Government figures for 2008 rod catches which show the species is still in decline. By contrast, rod catches of salmon at 85,859 were up 5.7% against the 2003-2007 five year average and the number…
Continue ReadingCASTING FOR RECOVERY, the UK charity which provides free weekend angling retreats for women recuperating from breast cancer, hosted its first event in Scotland yesterday. It was an all-round success, both for the particpants and for those who helped to make it happen. The venue was Forbes of Kingennie, the Angus country resort just outside…
Continue ReadingA FURIOUS row has broken out between the head of Scotland’s salmon farming industry and the administrators of wild salmon fishing over a denial that salmon production is to blame for declining stocks in the nation’s rivers. A claim that salmon numbers were already in decline in Scottish waters before the advent of farm cages…
Continue ReadingAN AYRSHIRE farm which allowed 50,000 litres of slurry to escape into the River Irvine and one of its most prolific tributaries, has paid more than £7100 in damages to a Darvel Angling Club for killing thousands of fish and wiping out its juvenile stocks. Adult salmon and juvenile fry, sea and brown trout were…
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