A view of Parsons On Mid Chain

A Common Spotted Orchid In May 2003

Afloat On The Loch At Lower Duart

(Pictures courtesy of Colin Munro)

The 2006 Fishing Season draws to a mellow end with the weather still quite unseasonably warm, although as I write this the wind is round to the North and showers are beginning to be quite wintry, the first frost of the year is forecast for tonight (30th October).

We have had some very heavy rains over the last week with floods in the East and landslides along Loch More onto the road. We are hoping that no serious redd washouts have happened although hopefully (because of the warm temperatures) the salmon and seatrout will not have started spawning yet.

Our fishing returns for the season have been very good with 5516 brown trout recorded in the fishing log. The largest brown trout recorded this year and winner of the Ian Hay challenge cup was 3lb 13oz caught by Phillip Ormonroyd from Dour Beat in June. A bottle of malt will shortly be making its way to the Ormonroyd household with our congratulations.

The total seatrout/finnock recorded for the season was 384. It was interesting to note that a few of these were in the 3 - 4 lb bracket.

Our salmon tally for the season ended up as 65 salmon recorded most of these were returned in the interests of conserving stocks (all hen fish and coloured fish were returned as well as quite a number of cock fish).

The Mac Stephenson, Ghillies Trophy goes this year to Geoff Curry with a cock fish of 14lb 3oz. A bottle of malt will be sent with our compliments and congratulations.

Well that's it for another year, thanks to all our guests, old and new, who made the year so enjoyable and successful.

Tight lines,

Patrick