2006 Salmon Fishing Season Report

The 2006 season opened on the 16th of January with high water (7ft), but the remainder of the month was dry and frosty and the river fell back to quite a low level. A few fish were caught in the first week, mainly fresh fish in the 8 - 10 pound bracket, but towards the end of the month, catches seemed to dry up. About 40 fish are thought to have been caught in total including at least 3 from Loch Tay. The first half of February continued in a similar vein; low cold water and few fish. However, after a spate in mid month, things improved and February ended on a higher note. Approximately 100 fish were caught.

The improvement in catches at the end of February accelerated in March which proved to be a good month overall. It seemed as if most of the winter was packed into this one month during which stiff frosts prevailed along with some significant bouts of snow. At the end of the month was there a thaw and a large spate. About 500 fish are thought to have been caught, the best March for many years. In fact you have to go back to 1980 before the official Government statistics show more. Because of the colder weather the pattern of catches was a little different from recent years with most fish being caught from Stanley up to Dunkeld or in the Isla. A number of fish were even caught in the very lowest beats which have tended to do very badly in recent springs. However, although conditions may have helped some of the lower beats, the general impression was that there genuinely were more fish about.

April proved to be a great month! It started off with quite a bang when around 300 springers were caught in the first week alone. After that catches did slowly tail off but the monthly catch was probably between 800 and 900, again the best April in years. As to conditions, April also remained a relatively cool month, and fish were caught on some lower beats which don't normally fish so well at this time. So, again, conditions may have helped, but there seems little question that there were considerably more fish about, a fact later backed up by the fish counters (page 16).

May was a reasonably good month, not as good as April, but still better than for a few years. In the first half of the month the water was generally quite low, with some hot sunny days but the last ten days were wetter with a return to unseasonably cool weather. In the first half of the month the fish seemed to dry up, but from mid month more fresh fish started appearing again, but fishing conditions were not always good. At least 600 fish are likely to have been caught.

June is usually the doldrum month on the Tay, and in 2006 catches did again slow down, but for June it was still quite good. The water was mainly low with higher water at the start and in the third week. The catch is estimated at around 600, the majority of which were salmon. There was a showing of grilse early in the month, but they never strengthened. For the second year in a row July proved to be a bit of a disappointing month. The grilse run, which normally really gets going in early July, was very slow to materialise, increasingly only gradually through the month. The catch is estimated at about 800.

The grilse run which only really got going at the end of July continued in strength in August, just as it had done in 2005. Some excellent catches were made. Over 2,500 grilse and salmon are estimated to have been caught in August, which when compared with the "official" catch returns, made it the best August since 1989, and double the average catch for the ten years up to 2005. Partly this was because the main grilse run was several weeks late and grilse which should have been caught in July were not caught until August. It was also a dry month with low water helping to keep the grilse in lower and middle Tay beats rather than allowing them to shoot quickly upstream into the tributaries. Despite this, as shown by the fish counters (p. 16), there was a good run of grilse, but notably the average size was unusually small, although by the end of the month this did improve.

After the good fishing of August, September was more mixed. The water was relatively low in the early part of the month, but in the last ten days the river ran high and was rarely settled. Reasonable catches were made throughout the Tay but many beats still caught fish which had entered during August. Catches of fresh fish in the lowest beats didn't really pick up as expected by that time of year. By the end of the month the quality of the fresh fish had improved but some very small specimens were still being caught, much as it had been all summer. Although the biggest catches were on the lower Tay, catches were still well spread and beats from Kercock up to Kinnaird had a greater than normal slice of the action. In total catches are likely to have been of the order of 2,500.

The last two October weeks of the Tay season were not quite as good as hoped. Water conditions were never really good for long because of spates, and by the end of the season it was apparent that true autumn fish hadn't arrived in big numbers. Most of the fresh fish were grilse, with some larger salmon in the high teens of pounds, but not as many as usual. The total catch for the month, including the Earn and Eden may not have exceeded 1,500.

The 2006 season may be summarised as having an excellent March/April (the best for many years), an average late spring, a poor July, but a great August once the grilse arrived three weeks late. The autumn was moderate. The overall catch is likely to have been around 10,000 for the third year running. The most successful individual beat was again Islamouth where for the full week 746 salmon / grilse were reported, followed in second place by Coupar Grange with 633.