Author: Kirsty Allan

We started off 2024 season somewhat licking our wounds from our banks being battered from one of the wettest winters in living memory. Every beat had suffered changes to pools and erosion of banks, some for better and others for worse. Lady Spey will give with one hand but take with the other.

Spring seemed to finally “spring” in early May when the sun finally started to show its face bringing some much-needed heat to both our backs and the water, coinciding with the sun was the start of a late spring run of fish which we are convinced were 3-4 weeks later than usual. On the flip side of this, a solitary grilse (a fish that has spent only one year at sea before returning) of around 3lb was caught on castle water in mid-May which is very early, we usually look for them from mid-June onwards.

June was a great month for quality salmon with numbers building up through the month providing some fantastic sport for our guests. July proved to be the best month of the season with one week seeing catches of over 110 fish for the 4 beats, pleasing both guests and ghillies!! August and September saw catches peak and start to decline as the run of fresh fish started to slow and resident fish grew wise to the fly and generally played hard to get. We finished the season on our 5-year average which was very much needed after a hard season previous in 2023.

October starts with the “bringing in the boats” where all our boats are sailed to the quarry pool on lower water 1 and are then transported back to the estate to be washed and put in the boat shed where any remedial work and repairs will be done and a fresh coat of “Lennox green” will be put on for 2025. We’re often asked as ghillies what we do in the winter, from boats to firewood, hut amenities bank maintenance to clearing the historic 2.5mile lade that supplies water to the estate lake. We will turn our hands to any job, as Angus says, “variety is the spice of life”.

But before we get to the winter work, we’re off for our annual 3 weeks of holiday. Some will go abroad others may push the boat out and visit Forres for a change of scenery.

We hope to see everyone and hopefully some new faces in the 2025 season!

Blog 2 – March 27th 

March started off with the river levels continuing to drop off from the high water in February. With not many guests out on the river, this gave us more time to continue the tidy up from the winter floods and also doing some preparations for the season ahead. We have installed solar power and a log burner into the upper brae hut along with some other minor works to “modernise” the hut.

On Saturday 9th while Angus was dropping off the pictures to finish off the upper brae decorations, Andrew Davie got the estate off the mark for the 2024 season with a cracking 7lb fish from the rock pool. Proving that unless you’ve got your fly in the water, then there’s no chance of getting a fish!

We went into the following week full of hope and with the river looking a perfect height, a fish was sure to be on the cards? Alas mother nature showed us how she dictates our season as a huge landslip on the Rothes and Aikenway beat turned the river into a mix of sand and clay. At times we felt there was more chance of finding an Oompa Loompa wandering by the chocolate river as opposed to some salmon in it! This coloured water lasted all week with it only dissipating on the Saturday afternoon after a small rise helped to wash the worst of it out.

As the month continued, we’ve had a fluctuation of water and weather conditions going from 17 degrees in glorious sun to 4 degrees with a bitter north / easterly wind and now great big dumps of snowflakes are falling, threatening to cover the grass. Whist this made it hard for casting, the conditions made the log burner in the huts all the more welcoming. We have had the odd offer of a fish but nothing that has been confirmed to be Salmo Salar.

It’s encouraging to see fish being caught further up and some fantastic specimens with multiple 20lb+ fish have been caught so there must be some quality fish swimming past us. After all, they aren’t taking the bus!

We still have availability throughout the spring and even a couple of weeks later in the prime season. To find out our availability and to enquire for your trip to Gordon Castle please contact Toby on Factor@gleco.co.uk or search for Gordon Castle on Fishpal to book online.

Look forward to welcoming you soon!

Lewis Webb – Middle Brae Ghillie

After a very destructive off season, with 5 significant storms, which caused considerable damage to our river banks and tracks, we did manage to get fishers on the river for Monday the 12^th of February.  Boats repaired and painted, huts revived, logs chopped and stacked, tracks graded, ghillies refreshed, equipment serviced, river blessed – we were off.

We had a wonderful opening day in which the sun (which we hadn’t seen since September) shone and the river behaved herself as if she hadn’t run rampage for the previous three months.

The storms and associated high waters have changed our pools considerably.  It’s going to take Ian, Lewis, David G and David B the beat ghillies, a bit of time to work it all out.  Actually, I detect an air of optimism for this year.  The challenges of a harsh off season may actually be beneficial!  Otters cave, particularly is unrecognisable – it seems to have turned into Otters Loch and has eaten its way into the left bank by 15-20 metres.

Spring is certainly upon us.  There is evidence of green shoots all around and birds are in abundance.  We have already started this years battle against the Invasive species – we hit the knotweed hard last year and are hoping we can really push it back this year.

Whilst our summer fishing is quite full, we still have opportunities for March, April and May.  All the signs are that this year will be significantly better than last.