Fishing The Fly Scotland
Index => Main Discussion Area => Topic started by: cerbfan on 23/06/2009 at 21:59
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This may be a controversial topic on here, however does anyone know what if any coarse fish are present in the local rivers. I see that the River Don management plan mentions the presence of coarse fish in small quantities and I've heard rumours of roach and perch present on the Ugie close to where I live. If anyone could confirm whether there are any present anywhere is it possible to get permits to float fish for them as I'd love to have a go for them.
Also the rivers look ripe for Chub and Barbel but I'm assuming that these will not be present as never stocked, would be great to hear if there were any though.
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Right..this is the limit of my research....
River Dee..Pike and occasionally Perch. Rumours of the odd Roach but nothing proven.
River Don..Pike, Perch, Dace and Gudgen
What I would say though is you are possibly barking up the wrong tree...there is no way you can get permission to fish for them..and thats me speaking after 25 years of trying.
Although the likes of the ADAA say they are an "angling" club and that all types of angler are welcome, the rules imposed mean targeting coarse species deliberately are impossible.
For example, no float fishing, no ledgering, no maggots, no "minnow" dead or alive which unfortuantly rules out deadbaits as minnow is defined as "fish", no "grounbaiting" which also includes lose feed etc etc.
Targeting by fly is a possibility with the Dace and Pike/Perch but they are hard to find (especially Dace) and some beats wont let you use Pike flies due to the size of the hook and the chance of hooking a salmon.
The other issue is that many of the Pike and Perch that are caught by the game anglers tend to end up on the bank, very dead. This attitude is changing, spearheaded by many of the guys on this website, but the damage has been done and continues to be done by a small minority.
As for Chub and Barbel, wont happen in my lifetime thats for sure! Closest would be the Clyde for both. The Tay still contains big roach but they are hard to find these days. Some big Pike in there too, but you have to be careful what beats you fish as some don't let you deadbait.
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I once caught a BIG perch on the Don in Strathdon, years ago!
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Both the Dee and Don have pike and perch. In some parts they used to be prolific. As a boy my friends and I were allowed to fish the Ardoe beats for both, as long as we killed everything we caught. I can remember catching some huge bags of perch and on occasions several pike.
The Don at Persley Bridge used to have large shoals of perch and pike as well. When we fished there the biggest problem was the amount of eels we caught. In those days the Don had massive eel runs, this was about forty years ago !.