Week Commencing 6th march 2023

Afternoon all

Its a bit dreich here in Elgin, been raining for a good bit of the day but shifting some of the more stubborn snow that is lying around.

A very wintry week gone by with a fair bit of snow about but it did not put people off, with angler out on the river during the miserable conditions.

The river itself is in good shape with ideal fishing conditions apart from the temperatures which are still on the low side and looking forward to the week ahead are not going to improve very much.

Spring cannot be far away now where we see an uplift in temperatures. The early season garden flowers have taken a bit of a hammering this week with the snow but we can live in hope it will be short lived.

Not much to report this week from the river with light angling effort, probably in part to do with the time of year and also current conditions may have deterred people from potentially booking day rods, which I might add are still available on some beats.

The Lower river beats of Fochabers Angling Association, Gordon Castle and Orton report another quiet week with the river lightly fished.

Mark Melville at Delfur reported a week of good conditions to be fishing and luckily enough Donald Morrison, brother of Delfur ghillie Grant landed a lovely 7lb spring fish in Collie on Saturday.

Upriver at Rothes and Aikenway, Robbie Stronach reports 2 fish for the week, noth of which were taken in Bluestone. One fish at 15lb fell to the rod of Kevin James and Stuart Yeats landed a fine 6lb sealiced fish.

Euan Reid, Head ghillie at Arndilly reports that it was a difficult start to the week with the North wind but the rest of the week was cold but lovely to be out. The water temperature was 34f for a large part of the week which made the legs sting after a while. We had a fish on Saturday, David Grant had a 9lb fish from Reids.

Aberlour Angling Club had a fish of their water, with visiting angler Brian Stewart landing a fine 10lber.

Other than that no other landings reported for the river. Hopefully we will see a bit more angling pressure next week.

The conditions next week look very mixed with a lot of rain, sleet and snow showers in the forecast with high winds at times too.

Tightlines to those who venture out

Sandy