this time last year I was heading off to NW Scotland SUN was shining Cherry tree had pink cherries starting to ripen … had picked a couple of strawberries [ last week baby birds just polished off about 10 ripe ones ] gooseberries were almost ripe tomato plants were 3 foot tall with flowers Runner beans at top of the pole and Black currants just starting to turn … and temp was in mid 20's …………. WHAT HAS HAPPENED THIS YEAR ………… Tomatos still in pots, cherries green gooseberries half size and hard as nails runner beans 3ft blackcurrants little hard and green only thing that seems to have grown eaten by the birds … now netted them ….. oh apples seem to be a little bit behind and fewer of them... last year 200 .. might make 70 this year! Cricket world cup... would have been better to have had water polo championships ….
My veggie plot is slow as you say. Just need a dry week to get the hay in. Lots of grass this year. Plenty of water in the rivers to get the salmon running though.
You've caught salmon JGF. Salmon run a river. In low water they hang on the tide, when there's water they run. Particularly so on spate rivers. You get different runs of salmon. Spring fish, grilse and autumn fish, depending on the river. Maybe time for another trip to Scotland. There should be sea trout around as well now. When the river drops back I'll get on my club waters on the Welsh Dee. My favourite meals of the year, a sea trout or grilse with new potatoes (should start lifting the first of my Pentland javelin in the next week or so) and salad from the garden. Or, a Sunday dinner of main crop tatties (6 weeks off lifting Maris piper) and home grown veg with a leg of one of our lambs. Had a lot of rhubarb earlier in the year, but strawberries and raspberries a way off. Plenty of blossom on the blackthorn in our fields in spring, so hoping for a bumper crop of sloes again this year. Do enjoy home made sloe gin. A favourite in the hip flask for my October and November trips North of the border and 8 hours wading deep in a river. Foraging is nearly as good a deliberately growing your own.
SEA TROUT were about in early May most Salmon runs I have experienced have been end of OCTOBER .. on the Spey and the Tay also on the Tummel toward Kinloch Rannoch
It all varies, river to river. Sea trout will run from March to September. On the Welsh Dee, the big lumps come in April with the main run in June or July. Most west Wales rivers see fish in the summer months. As for salmon, again, river to river but some rivers will see fresh fish 12 months of the year. Stocks are down across the board but rivers like the tweed which I've fished quite a bit, but only during the summer, fish from Feb to Nov. The Nith, where I have a season ticket is / was famous for its run of big backend fish. They call them grey backs. I've had a couple in the low 20s though they do get much bigger. On the other hand, the Wye is famed for its early running MSW fish. 3 sea winter fish of 30lb are seen and in its heyday, 40lbrs were not uncommon. Fresh fish rarely arrive after August. Biggest I've had off the Wye was high teens but I still dream of a big Springer. On a lot of rivers, the October fish caught will have come in earlier in the year and just be hanging about waiting to spawn (again, spawning time varies river to river, but usually between end Oct and early jan Dee fish usually spawn early Dec depending on water temperature). Ireland has some early rivers with fresh fish in January. Its sad to see the fall in numbers, but they're still there. My best day last year was in September when I had 4 off the nith. Hope this rain stops soon, need to get on my veggie plot and do some weeding.
