Summer Spates

After a night of torrential rain, the Rivers Dee and Don are now in full spate with many areas along their courses bursting the banks. The Dee was a massive 7' 6" up at Mar Lodge this morning and couple this with high tide around 2.30pm this afternoon, much of this water will back up down on the lower reaches of the rivers. The Don was 6' 4" at Alford which in terms of the Don is a reasonably large spate and carrying a lot of colour to it. Be a good few days until it's fish-able again on either river.

Hopefully after this spates die down we will see goods runs of salmon entering the rivers. If nothing materialises from this water then something is very wrong with the salmon runs returning to our rivers because they have been few and far between this year. Time will tell if catches pick up as a result of this Summer Spate.

I took these pictures at 9am this morning and the river was rising rapidly. Probably a lot higher this evening.

Looking upstream from the ADAA Bothy down on the Lower Dee.

Looking downstream from the same place.