June 2006

Welcome. On behalf of the committee, can I take this opportunity to
welcome the new angling club members. We had thirteen people
who did not renew their membership at the end of last season. This
represents around 11 % of the membership so is a reasonable turnover.
Some contact details – phone numbers and addresses of those
on the waiting list were out of date so we had a bit of a challenge
tracking some new members. If any of you know friends, neighbours
or relatives on the waiting list, please remind them to let us know if
their contact details change.

On Sunday 4th June at Beat 1, our vice president Paul and other members will be providing an introduction to the club waters. This is a chance for new and old members who have not yet learnt about our beats to find out the peculiarities of fishing in our waters. Our next committee meeting is on the 6th June, 8.00 pm at the Beauly British Legion. Anyone wanting to find out more about the running of the club is invited to pop in for a blether.

River and Fish News. Half way through May we have no reports yet of fish being caught. There are fish about though with both salmon and sea trout having been spotted. Traditionally we don’t have much fishing effort in spring/early summer so now is the chance to get in some undisturbed casting practice. And who knows, you may be like Ewen Robertson who landed the 1st fish in 2004, an 11lb cracker, in early June.

We have recently created more lies in the Mealloch; Beat 4, which will hopefully improve the productivity of this stretch of the river. If you like fishing for brown trout, the Mealloch is one of the more productive brownie beats on our stretch.

On the 11th June at 11am we will be undertaking our annual bank clearance. This involves a small amount of strimming and pruning back overgrown trees. It is also a good chance to meet up with other members and have a blether about all things fish. Some refreshments will be on hand

Competition Updates. The Loch Achonachie club held their annual competition on Loch Meig on the 29th April. Beauly entered two boats on what turned out to be one of the sunniest days of the year. Needless to say the fish went deep to stay out the sunlight and very few fish were caught. The seasoned Beauly pros turned in a blank for the day with the 3 fish caught by Dingwall being enough to win the competition.

The Highland Federation hold their annual competition in Loch Watten on the 27th May. This is one of the best fishing lochs in the north of Scotland with this event always running at full capacity. We have a vacancy in the Beauly boat this year. If you are interest, contact Frank on 782749.

The Lairg Angling Club Highland Wild Trout Challenge takes place on the 15th and 16th July on Loch Shin. Held in association with CASTAG, this competition runs over two days with boats allocated on the Saturday morning. The hospitality of Lairg Angling Club is second to none with competition winners receiving some of the best prizes of any event in this part of the world. Last year Beauly won two prizes so we have a benchmark for this year. Details of the competition can be found on the clubs web site www.lairganglingclub.co.uk

BAC Competition. Each year we run our own club competition. This year we are trying a change of venue. The junior’s event will be on the 22nd of June at Stoneyfield. A minibus will leave Beauly square at 5.30 and return at 9.30 to 10 pm. The seniors event will be held the following one week later at Stoneyfield Lochs 29th June as early as we can all get assembled.

Coaching. The club is fortunate to have two highly qualified casting instructors. We will be running our summer casting coaching event. This is a chance to get advice on equipment as well as new casting techniques and maybe to get rid of this wee kinks in your existing style. With the event being held on a Sunday, we don’t use hooks and are not actually fishing. Dates to be announced – please check Morison’s windows and the web site

Guest Speaker:
We hope to have a visit from Keith Williams who works for the Ness & Beauly Fisheries trustwill be able to attend our September 5th Committee meeting. After the meeting is finished , he will explain what the Trust is all about and how it can help the Club.

Fishy Stories 1. As a keen brownie angler, I often wonder is there a large trout lurking somewhere in our area waiting for me to catch it. A couple of years ago I heard of a 5lb brownie caught by Mike Macdonald near the junction with the Farrar. There was a 7.5 lb brownie caught on one of the Tomich lochs. However as these lochs are stocked, was this beastie of wild origin? I did once see a photo of a 9lb brownie caught on Loch Mullardoch in the late 90s. Could this be the largest brownie caught in our catchment?. Many of the larger waters in our catchment contain pike. Convention has it that any brownies surviving and cohabiting with these voracious hunters are likely to be large, wily old characters. So that once in a lifetime brownie may be lurking out there yet. Or has it already been caught? Have you heard of a larger brownie caught in our area, let me know if you have.

Fishy Stories 2. The Scottish Executive recently announced that 700 salmon had been deliberately released from a Scottish fish farm as part of an international experiment to track their movements. This followed suggestions from Norway that escaped farmed fish from Scotland may be making their way into Norwegian rivers and breeding with wild stocks. Previous experiments though in Norway have indicated that fish released at this time of year do not enter local rivers. The fish being used in the current trial have been tagged for easy identification.

And Finally. A day that someone shined down from above on two highland fishermen. A fishing trip on Loch Shin nearly turned nasty last year when two fishermen decided to nip ashore for their lunch. Pulling their boat up the beach they decided against anchoring it to the shore – surely they’d hauled it far enough out the water. After consuming their lunch the fishers looked round to see the boat had been blown over to the opposite shore of Loch Shin. To retrieve the boat would involve an 8-10 mile hike over rough ground. With no alternative, one of the fishermen angrily set of on the “long walk”. Before he had gone a mile though, the wind began to change direction, eventually changing 180 degrees. And what effect did this have on the boat. It blew it back across the loch, to within a few hundred yards of its original beaching. Yes it is a true story but no names - to protect the guilty.

Happy fishing

Archie Prentice
Newsletter Editor.