When I said I was praying for rain in my last update, I hadn't quite envisaged that we would receive so much!

Our party arrived on the R. Findhorn on Thursday morning to find no flow in the pools. There were however Grilse showing in the faster water at the necks of most of the pools which encouraged us to give it a go. The neck of Roehillock pictured here, was stuffed with bright Grilse but we couldn't get them to look at our flies.

Later in the day I got lucky with a Grilse of 4lb from a small pocket of water below Pallamore which was great sport on my 10' Sage.The fly was a small cone head Red Francis tube which we import from Iceland. It is very effective when the rivers are low.

During the course of the day it rained and then it poured and finally it was torrential. This photo shows Clive Williamson fishing the Rowan pool after lunch. We were all excited that this would lift the river and envisaged a spate but the size of the rise was incredible.

These photos should give you an indication of how quickly the Findhorn can rise. When we left the river on Thursday night Soldiers Hole is very low. On Friday morning there is no pool just a massive torrent of water.

We did fish the quiet edges and David Adamson [Jones] landed a Grilse from the tail of Rowan and Clive had a Sea Trout from Pallamore. Not bad when you consider the river was still around 4 foot!

We were truly over the moon when we arrived back on the river on Saturday morning. Although still high, around 2 feet, the Altye beat has water that fishes at most heights. I fished with Jones on the Rowan and had a Grilse of 3lb whilst Jones had one at 1lb! The Copper Ally Shrimp tied for Gamefish by Jimmy Younger was doing the damage on a sink tip line. We saw a lot of Grilse moving through the pool but didn't manage to contact with another.

Our feeling was that we had caught the end of the run as the pool went very quiet.

We then went down to Garden pool which is a lovely pool although difficult to wade.

Jones poached a 5lb Grilse from behind me which put up a good battle before being quickly returned. Clive and Jonathan Sutton caught a Grilse each from Pallamore. Jonathan described the pool as being like the M6 for Grilse when he first arrived. We end up with 7 for the day but we were a bit disappointed that the larger Autumn fish had not shown up but 9 Grilse for 3 days with a 5ft flood in the middle of it is not bad going.

If you are interested in fishing this fantastic beat contact Ian Neale at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or view his website www.speycaster.net

On Monday I was at Islamouth on the mighty R.Tay as a guest of Graham Catton. The river had also experienced a big water on Friday but was at a good height with the colour dropping out, all was looking perfect.

I fished from the boat with the head Ghillie Brian who has been on the beat for 18 years. He knows every stone of this fantastic beat which is a benefit on such a big river. We saw only a few fish in the morning but managed this 8lb from New Shot, I have never seen a fish with so many long tailed sea lice. After a quick photo she was released to carry on to the spawning grounds. Michael Leather lost a cracking fish after 20 minutes which was estimated to be around 20lb, Graham landed a nice fish from Long Head and several other fish were lost before lunch. After lunch we saw a lot more fish and I had a nice sea liced Grilse from the Castle pool and Graham managed another 2. He also lost a fish estimated at 15 lb before the end of the day. Thank you Graham for a great day on a superb beat.

The R. Tweed has started to fish in the last week with large numbers of Salmon coming off the high tides. Eric who is the Ghillie at Horncliffe reported that large numbers of Salmon were moving through his beat. I had an email from Ronald Campbell who is the Tweed Scientist reporting that 30 salmon were tagged yesterday, 23 in one shot of the net. 14 today, and 12 Sea-trout, two of which were 12-13 lbs.

The general weather forecast is for wet and windy weather so with more consistent water levels in all our rivers we should start to see the larger Autumn fish.