Caught my first Kelvin Sea Beast last night..

by Alistair

It was bound to happen – was it confidence? perseverance? sheer dogged determination? Nope – the fact that I had left my camera in the house meant I was bound to catch a fish!

I was still able to take a few snaps using my phone camera so dont expect to get off lightly.

The fact that I have fished the Kelvin for over 10 seasons you would have thought I would have fluked a Salmon by now however they have swam past me while I have been concentrating on the trout. The last couple of years has been weird – I pretty much know all the guys that fish for trout and now I find there is another whole bunch of guys that fish for Salmon – and they take it seriously  – very seriously.

I think I have said it before but the higher up reaches of the Kelvin are not well suited to the fly – Atkins gave it a good go last night with his double hander however felt it was just not fishing right…

Just not fishing right...

Anyway – against the advice of Atkins I was chucking around a metal lure (he wanted me to use a rapala) I covered two Salmon in the space of 10 yards and then decided to borrow a Rapala off Atkins – throwing a piece of plastic around that costs a tenner makes me feel nervous – especially since it was not mine.

Anyway – it was a much more pleasant way of fishing – similar to wet fly fishing – within a few casts a Salmon was on and Atkins was calling instructions so he could net it.

In the net..

It was a nice cock fish at just under five pounds – it had some colour to it so even if it had been caught last week it would have been returned (all salmon in October are returned on the Kelvin) …

A quick hero shot..

A classy Kelvin pose....

..and then I had to get the fish back in the water – I ended up slipping waist deep into the river before finding a wee ledge to perch on – fishy then swam away – hopefully not too tired out for the sex.

15 thoughts on “Caught my first Kelvin Sea Beast last night..”

  1. Congratulations…nice Salmon..now do you see what all the fuss is about? lol..well done Ally

  4. Well done Alistair, there was definately something in the air last night ! Great to get it on the Rapala ( Balsa, not plastic , by the way !), that’ll be you a rap addict for sure. I’m going back up with the big rod tonight to fish the pool that we looked at last night as we were leaving, but I’m sure thet raps will get a swim. It’s at this time of year that they really do come into their own. Again, well done, brilliant stuff last night, you could feel the sense of achievement and confidence off you as you strutted up and down the banks after landing the beast !!!

  5. You see-it’s better to actually target them-waiting to fluke one is a no brainer-that could take at LEAST 10 years!:-}.
    Well done on the fish anyway-even if you did ignore the text i sent last night.

  6. well done alistair , i was on the other side with darren when you got the salmon good to see you finally get a beast, some nice troot in there aswell when the waters doon . i use the fly down there at the start of the season for the troot and had an eye on it for the salmon for a while, had 15 pounder cock , 6 pun HEN both returned, and a craking rainbow trout chapped it, and darren got 7 pun cock (returned) all from that part. ones we got have all been strong hard fighting from there i got the feeling if you hit that spot at the right time you could have a ball doon there.

  8. aye congrats alistair you finaly broke your duck on the salmon well done.
    aye that wee spot seems to be a good 1 if you hit it at the right time and have been temted to try the fly myself barry was going to give it a go last night but i guess he was scared incase i got a salmon and was on my way of catching up with him.

  12. Well done Alistair, the first of many I’m sure. Don’t think about the price of a rapala when you’re fishing, it will be far outweighed by the rewards, as you well know!

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