Our First Spring 2024 blog- March 2024

Well the start of our Spring Season has been a rather tricky one, with the River Whiteadder going up and down like a yoyo. Certainly the wettest spring i have witnessed for some years. Don’t get me wrong, rain is a great thing when it comes to having a succesful Salmon Fishing trip but too much can cause problems. Especially when our stretch travels through several gorges on a steep downward gradient. We just need the rain to stop, the surrounding catchment areas to dry up and for the river to settle to allow the fish to settle. At the time of writing this going on last years catches this coming week was our first bonanza week with 11 Spring Salmon. So I am keeping my fingers crossed this season follows last years success.

John Johnson landed our first fish of the season, a beautiful 6Ib fish which was landed in the tail of the gorge on a GBWG Tube. Massive congratulations to John. This fish was landed on the 9th March. I dont want to talk about February as we had a chance of four Spring Salmon which were sadly all lost on the take or very shortly into the fight. Thats why its called fishing and not catching but incredibly frustrating at the same time!

The last week has started to give us some more sport, with a lovely fish landed in the tail of the Sandy hole around 8Ib & another fish in the ledges pool around 10Ib. Both pools have changed quiet dramatically after the large flood we had in the winter and are proving too hold a few fish so exciting to see how they both keep on fishing as the season gets underway.

Our Spring diary is fully booked for this season and we have limited availability all the way through till August. We have already had 60% of our prime spring weeks in 2025 booked. As we always say if you want to fish and experience a guided day on Ninewells in the Spring, to book your days sooner rather than later before we become fully booked. Please do this via our contact form on our website or via email [email protected]

Im excited for the next few weeks, my favourite time of the year. End of march to the middle of April normally gives us some of our best Spring Fishing and some incredible catches. I will do my best to update the blogs as our Spring Season progress. We have some new faces on the river at the start of next week then the end of the week is finished by the Tuer party joining us for there annual two day Spring Trip. Two other blogs will be uploaded shortly after this so please give them a read and view, we have secured another stretch for our guiding on the River Coquet & we also took our DJI Mini Mavic drone to our stretch on the Whiteadder earlier to get some areal photos and videos. We hope you like them.

Best wishes & Tightlines for this Spring

James Armstrong- Owner & Head Guide/ Chasing Fins