PARLEZ-VOUS FRANCAIS?

With great wind came great rain. At times the top of the valley was so black with heavy rain we considered the option to build an Ark. Consequentially the river made it’s way down from nearly 40 cubic metres per second with snow melt and run off. We had a regular team of French fishers and whilst intrepid they did not fish the first 2 sessions.

On the second afternoon a few of the more experienced rods headed out to do battle. The river was still raging and showing all kinds of colour. Snow melt mixed with dust and mud makes for an unusual green brown.

But from this point on we started to catch fish and the numbers and quality of the fish improved as the days went by. The party landed 101 fish for their visit to 18 rods. Every member of the party caught at least one fish with a number of first salmon and quite a few first of many.

The team enjoyed a particularly successful last day with calmer conditions and 37 fish landed and a good few hooked and lost. Almost all the fish have been fresh and many have long tailed sea lice. Much like last year we have had around 40% larger fish so far but whilst we have seen and lost some really big ones the hallowed 20 club has as yet to be cracked.

We currently fish as a charming mixed international team with fishers from Iceland Spain Germany and the UK. We had a good start yesterday afternoon with most beats producing fish and a total of 14 landed including yet another first Salmon.