HistoryHistory
Raemoir Trout Fishery was originally constructed as a private fishery and as a single loch of 2 acres in 1995.
Over the next 2 years a further 2 lochs were added, and the fishery opened in 1997 as a PUBLIC TROUT FISHERY.
The fishery now comprises 3 lochs, making a water surface of 6 acres within a naturalised 11 acre site.
During 2005 timber platforms were added to the fly lochs to give better access, and sections of banking were reinforced with meshing and reseeded with a grass/ wildflower mix.
During 2006 the humble bothy was upgraded into a full size anglers cabin with open glazing, plentiful seating, log-burning stove etc, and a new adjoining toilet. Also during 2006 the beginners bait pond underwent its second transformation, increasing to two and half times original size, holding even more fish and allowing more young anglers to fish. Click here for full report
Lochs
The 3 lochs are interconnected and fed by a small stream, which combined with the adjacent marshland, ensure that there is prolific natural feed to keep the fish in excellent fighting condition. There are exceptional quantities of sticklebacks, corixa, and damsels in all 3 lochs, and excellent surface hatches, which make Raemoir a notable fishery for floating line tactics.
Stock
The fishery is stocked weekly throughout the year maintaining an excellent density of trout at all times.
The fishery is fortunate in having prolific natural feed to keep the trout in excellent fighting condition at high density.
Main species stocked is Rainbow Trout in the range 2lb to 6lb with specimens up to 14lb. Other species stocked are Brown Trout, Blue Trout, and Arctic Char.
Facilities
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Burning Stove Cooker
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Wildlife
As the fishery has matured, we have witnessed the evolution of its attractiveness to wildlife.
After a few years of intermittent visits, we now have permanent otter presence. Almost daily now, e see the evidence of the nights activity, with fish scales or partly eaten trout on the embankments. If you look carefully you will see the well-trodden tracks from the marsh into the bottom loch, and on prominent grass tussocks, their territory marking scats. After snowfall in winter their slides down the banks into the water are very obvious. Otters being intelligent animals, allied to the easy pickings at Raemoir, they take time to enjoy this favourite winter sport.
Also after snowfall, fox tracks become obvious. It is interesting to note that the numerous otter tracks are closely followed by fox tracks. Sure message the foxes have learned how to get an easy meal, as the otters rarely eat a whole trout, seemingly preferring the head and front-quarters only.
We are tolerant of our losses to the otters, taking consolation that we are fortunate to live in an area of such wildlife diversity, and helping to maintain their stronghold on Deeside.
A single Kingfisher has become a regular, holding a winter territory, quite a rarity in this area. It frequents the ditch alongside the fishery, targeting the sticklebacks. To help it along we have created perches on the ditch, and if you notice some new green sticks in quiet corners of the lochs, these are vantage points from which it can dive on the stickles, tadpoles and beetles. Who knows, with luck we may have a breeding pair, and flashes of cobalt blue may be a regular sight.
Especially in the spring, if you hear a weird screech emanating from reed beds in the marsh (best description is a pig being strangled !) it is the resident water rails. Bigger than a water- hen or coot, these brown heron like birds are frequently heard, but are secretive and rarely seen.
The Grey Heron is a regular fisher, but contrary to belief rarely catches a trout, preferring to spend time in the margins picking off sticklebacks and beetles, one after another. (a case of mony a mickle maks a muckle ) They change tactics from July, moving into the marsh and long grass to pick off the newly emerged froglets and toadlets.
The fishery is a main breeding site for toads and frogs, due to the extensive surrounding marsh and forest. In May and June the pond edges can be black with the tens of thousands of tadpoles. Breeding in smaller numbers are common smooth newts.
Other frequent visitors are Roe deer, buzzards, and sparrow hawks. In autumn and winter a sparrow hawk visits daily to attack the starlings and finches coming in to roost overnight in the marsh.
Now that the trees, shrubs, and wildflowers, are well established, we have introduced nest-boxes for owls, bats, robins and wagtails, blue and great tits.
If you take the time in spring and summer just to stand, look and listen, you will appreciate that your fishery is a mini wildlife reserve. Listen to the hum of bees, churring of grasshoppers, the birdsong, look at the variety of wildflowers, butterflies and damselflies.
Who said a pleasant days fishing was just about catching fish.
Recent
News Articles
| Abandoned baby otter is rescued from local fishery | |
A young otter cub was fortunate to make it in to the new
year after being rescued from the brink of death at a Deeside fishery, writes Danny Law |
Fishery attendant, Richard Kennedy, guessing that
the cub had either been abandoned or its mother had died, phoned the Scottish
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals who took the otter to
their sanctuary where it will be cared for until it is fully grown and
able to return to the wild. Raemoir owner Ron Low said: "The temperatures were forecast to drop and the fishery was likely to ice over so it was very unlikely the young otter would survive. It was less than half the size of an adult and we thought it best to play it safe by getting in touch with the Scotish SPCA because it would have been too little to fish for itself." "After being examined by the vet we found out that the young otter was not injured, but just very small, only a few weeks old, and probably quite scared and hungry". The cub is currently being cared for at the Grampian Wildlife Trust at New Deer. Mr Low said the anglers at Raemoir Trout Fishery don't mind competing with the resident otters for fish. "We think there is a mother and a couple of cubs at the fishery just now and they are obviously still feeding because we find half-eaten fish almost every day. I think our anglers enjoy them being there and hope to catch a glimpse of them when they are fishing. We usually have ospreys around here too, although they won't be back until March". Article Courtesay of The Deeside Piper - January 8th 2009 Image © Ron Low |
Rare bird of prey pops out for a spot of fishing
A rear bird of prey has been spotted diving for fish at a well known Deeside trout loch
An osprey was first seen swooping for fish at Raemoir Trout Fishery just under a fourtnight ago and has been returning daily for food
Ron Low, the joint proprietor at Raemoir Trout Fishery which is located just north of Banchory, confirmed that the osprey had been fishing at the loch
he said: "I haven't seen it myself but everyone else up there has. It has been there for about a week and a half and it comes back and forth a few times each day, which makes us presume that it must be the male of a breeding pair that are nesting nearby."
"We already have our resident otters that have been here for a couple of years now who also feed on the fish. The otters are rarely seen and the only evidence of them we ever notice is when we discover a couple of half-eaten fish by the riverbank.
"However it is a pleasure to have wildlife like that in the vicinity and we just have to be tolerant of it.
"It is quite a sight to see an osprey hover 30 or 40 feet up in the air waiting for a fish to come near the surface before swooping down to catch it.
"The osprey at Raemoir apparently has a catch rate of about one in every four or five attempts".
Roderick Milne of Sunnybank Drive, Drumoak, spotted the bird swooping for a fish on Sunday (June 29).
He said:, "I watched it hover over one of the pools at the Raemoir Fishery and then dive down for a fish. I was only 50 yards or so away from the water when the osprey took a dive and it was a truly stunning sight to see right on our doorstep".
A spokesman for RSPB Scotland said: "There are about 200 pairs of ospreys in the UK, with the vast majority of them dispersed widely throughout Scotland.
"I imagine they will be nesting somewhere close and it will be the male who is catching the fish as the female stays at the nest and looks after the chicks
"Once the chicks have reared, the birds migrate 3,000 miles away to West Africa, usually in mid-to-late August, before returning in April or May".
He added "It could be a solitary male that has not reached sexual maturity but if it is fishing often then it is probably taking food back to a nest to feed a family. Ospreys tend to have between one and four chicks, although usually two or three".
Ospreys were previously spotted fishing at Aboyne Loch a couple of years ago.
The proprietors of Raemoir Trout Fishery would not divulge the direction the ospreys takes, to safeguard its nest.
The fish-eating bird became extinct in the United Kingdom in 1916 before recolonising in 1954. Victorian egg and skin collectors were blamed for the bird's original demise.
The bird is a protected species and anyone convicted of intentionally killing or injuring an osprey is liable to a fine of up to £5,000 or imprisonment for term of up to six months
There's something fishy going on down at Raemoir and.....Ray 'otter' know what it is
Anglers at a Deeside fishery have been forced to share their prized pond pickings with a surprise nocturnal poacher, writes Kim Walton.
Workers at Raemoir Trout Fishery in Banchory first realised something was amiss after finding the corpses of headless fish lying on the pond banks in the morning.
Night vision cameras set up by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) at Hill of Brathens as part of a study eventually illuminated the culprit ….. an otter
The shy creature - named Ray, after the American actor Ray Liotta - is now a regular visitor on a nightly fish forage for trout at Raemoir's three adjoining ponds.
And workers say Ray has not been put off by the wintry weather, even venturing out on to ice to hunt and sliding down the snowy banks for fun!
Joint proprietor of Raemoir Trout Fishery, Ron Low, said: "We've recently been losing two fish a night judging by what we've found, seven nights a week.
"During their breeding time, otters are more likely to go off with the whole fish but when pickings are easy, they go for the head and sometimes the stomach and leave the rest.
"I'm a naturalist and have a lifelong interest on wildlife. I'm pleased that we've got things like otters and badgers living around us in Banchory
"If there's a price to pay, it's no less a problem than a badly handled fish that dies. It does cost us, as it goes off with the trout, but we took the decision to accept it and not persecute it.
"Its presence is particularly obvious after it's snowed as it plays, creating slides on the sloping banks which it slides down and into the water.< p>
"Otters are fun-loving animals and very intelligent. They create breaks at the edge of the ice themselves and must swim some distance with the fish to get back to the same break hole".
Another fishery worker added: "The otter constantly steals fish - more so in the winter. He likes the Rainbows and Brown trout that we stock here.
"We are finding dead fish - headless corpses - as the otter gets lots of protein from the fish's brains and eyes.
"There are a lot of otters in the river but obviously they have a good food source in the summer with toads and newts but not so good in the winter, so this one comes and feasts here
"Ray has not yet been seen during the day-light hours and has only ever been viewed on the night-vision camera.
The spokesman added: "Most of our anglers know about the otter and appreciate that we're compromised by what he eats.
"Some have mixed opinions on what we should do, but we are quite happy as the otter have lived in the area for centuries - long before the fishery was here.
"Most fisheries have one or two otters. We re-stock quite regularly and from what we've seen, he takes anywhere from seven to fifteen fish a week . More often than not, he comes every night.
He marks his territory all over the place and we've seen where he's trundled across the ice and he's left blood on the snow where he's caught a fish."
He said they often had herons poaching from the ponds, but they tend to go for smaller fish like sticklebacks and tadpoles. He said buzzards often took the fish carcasses discarded by the otter and a fox had recently taken to following the otter around, eating his leftovers.
Fiona Leckie, scientific officer at the CEH, said they had set up a camera at the fishery as part of a small study on five fish farms in Deeside.
"There are a lot of otters on Deeside but they are nocturnal and fairly shy, so people don't often see them, " she said. "I've seen them in the morning down at the Dee, but it's not common - they like to hunt at dawn or dusk.
"We know about their usage of rivers and of salmon and trout but we visited five stocked fish farms up Deeside collecting otter droppings to analyse in the lab to recognise what they were eating from the fish bones.
"We can even tell a Rainbow trout skeleton from a Brown trout and that's what we looking at."
She said otters could grow up to 90cm long and weigh about 5-8kg.
The river Dee is designated in Europe as an important area for the otter, which are a UK Biodiversity Action Plan Priority species.
According to experts, otters are indicators of a healthy aquatic system where the water is relatively unpolluted, with plentiful fish stocks and some good riverside habitat.
