River Don in low water

[Jon Ogborne]

Hi All,

Newbie here heading up to the Don from Bristol in a couple of weeks.

Currently the weather forecast doesn't suggest there will be a lot of rain, so I'm wondering which beats would fish best for trout in low water?

Thanks in advance.

Jon

[Sandy Nelson]

Hi Jon

I've been thinking about how Best to answer your questions. The river is at summer levels and with no rain to come anytime soon then I really don't know what to expect.
It's still a good temperature at around 12 degrees yesterday which helps.
However I presume you are coming for the dryfly sport which is why folk visit the Don. The river has been runnning around 2 weeks ahead of normal for hatches and that has included the smolt hatch which is well underway so most of the big dryfly feeders have been preoccupied with them for the last week or so. You can pick them up on nymphs and streamers but they aren't bothering with the dries. For obvious reasons.
The good fish are still holding in all the beats but mostly in the deeper faster bits. The further upstream you go the less deeper faster water you find.
There are plenty nice rising fish on all the beats still with uprights, large darks, iron blues , small darks and brook duns all on the water, some hawthorns starting to appear too which often herald the change to evening rises when they start to dissappear.

So I guess I'm saying the lower middle beats will be holding more rising fish and expect to be on evenings to see them in a couple of weeks time. But the low water will have less impact than the smolt run on risers.
If we get some rain then The sea trout will appear and the bigger brownies that follow the smolts downstream will follow the sea trout back up.
It's all in the lap of gods.

It is however a truly beautiful time of the year to visit the Don Valley

[Jon Ogborne]

Thanks Sandy,

That'll really useful info. We're not expecting easy fishing on the trip (particularly the attraction), so expectations set realistically low. We'll try lower beats, make sure we're on the river in the evening and see if anything unfolds!

Cheers

Jon

[Mike Barrio]

Hi Jon, welcome to the forum 

I think Sandy sums everything up pretty well.

Hope you enjoy your trip!

Cheers
Mike

[Jon Ogborne]

Thanks Mike,

I'll report back once we're done!

Cheers

Jon

Hi Jon, welcome to the forum 

I think Sandy sums everything up pretty well.

Hope you enjoy your trip!

Cheers
Mike

[Jon Ogborne]

Tough four days on the Don. A hat full of 6-10"ers mostly on dries, with the best (pictured below) going to 14". Lost an absolute beast before I could get any kind of control over it. Also had my fly kissed by a big snout but alas, it wasn't to be. Still, a beautiful place to stand in a river for a few days. The bird life was extraordinary. I'll be back to fish the upper beats when there's some water in the system. Thanks for all the advice.

[Mike Barrio]

Not ideal conditions at the moment, but great that you found a few fish 

Loving the windscreen shot.

[Jon Ogborne]

It's been a long time since my windscreen wipers had that much bug work to do! Great to see.

Not ideal conditions at the moment, but great that you found a few fish 

Loving the windscreen shot.

[Maurice De Filette]

Hi all, somewhere in mid July I will try to catch some brown trout on the river Don during my tour of Scotland, I'll probably stay in Aberdeen then, please advise which parts of the Don I should focus on.

[Mike Barrio]

Hi Maurice - Welcome to the forum 

Have a read through this recent post and the pages that it links to, it should hopefully prove helpful.
https://www.fishingthefly.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=10361.0

Cheers
Mike