Things are sounding as bleak as ever on the Pike front in the North East.
Skene used to be fantastic for Pike on the fly - explosive stuff in the shallow water!
Like Rob I stopped fishing it a number of years ago after tiring of arguing with the estate over the value of the Pike fishing they had and their "catch and kill" policy that had no sound reasoning behind it!
If you don't mind a bit of an expedition there are several Lochs around Dingwall and Aviemore. You have Loch Garve, Achonachie, and Ussie near Dingwall. Not far from Aviemore you have Loch Pityoulish, Morlich, Alvie, Beag and Insch.
Have a look at
http://www.nnh.co.uk/highland-coarse/Not much of a site at the moment but the guy who set it up is as busy as the rest of us trying to find time to fish never mind attend to his website! Lots of usful info on there though. I enquired the other day about Loch Bad an Scalaig up near gairloch and got a nice reply from him. I'm up there on business in a couple of weeks and wondered if it would be worth a try - weather permitting! I must be getting desperate now I know.
Hope that's of some use from one frustrated NE Piker to another