Anyone ever fish this beat?

I fished it for the first time today and was bitterly disappointed. I know the river is running a bit high so maybe that cut down access but I found it an absolute nightmare trying to find anywhere on the stretch that was accessible enough to fish. Any area's I did find I could only fish a small area of the pool, and not the area's I wanted too, Head and tails of pools, I was stuck in the middle at deep sections that were a struggle. I ended up just putting on wets and fishing them down letting them come in tight to the bank, thought that would be my best chance. Got 1 pull and saw maybe 3 fish rise. Wasn’t impressed. From pictures I’ve seen on the net the areas at Crieff look much better, I’ll need to try them next time.

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Scott

Hi Scott,

The Earn is my local river but I fish it up a Crieff (I'm a member of Crieff AC). I don't know the stretch at Dunning but have fished it just below there. I assume that river was too deep to wade, to get into the better spots? Obviously the higher up stream you go the more "defined" the pools become and the wading is simpler. The Earn however can be a right dour river at times and apart from the very brief evening rise its not really fishing at the moment, certainly round my way. Saying that I've had a pretty good start to the season with some good brownies so can't complain at the moment

Norm

Yea i do prefer fishing the smaller parts of rivers, further upstream. Looking at the crieff AC website the Braidhaugh picture looks pretty good. Once levels drop ill give it a go. Finish work on the 25th for 3 weeks so plenty of fishing gettin done!!

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Scott

The Dunning section is pretty prolific actually, with a good head of both trout and grayling. However, as you found out, if the water is big, its difficult to access some parts. Try again when the water's lower, there are a lot of interesting parts, deep nymphs usually score well.

Scott,

I'd give the Braidhaugh stretch a sidestep - its only a half a mile (if it is that) and runs along the back of a Caravan site, so good chance of kids and dogs in the water at this time of year. The Drummond and Strowan beats are both pretty good when the fish are in the mood. As Kreid mentions I find the whole river fishes better, for trout, when the water is low. I think at the moment the lift in the level is generating water from Loch Earn which tends to be cold and puts down the fish and insect life.

Norm

It has been great to see the Earn, Isla, Dean, and Eden with decent levels of flow after a couple of terrible drought/abstraction ridden summers. Notice all the big new water pipes waiting to do their worst. let it rain! Used to fish the Earn a lot until demoralised by greed enhanced low summer levels. Dunning is tricky but remember the old saying about summer fishing, "An hour in the gloamin's worth ten in the day"

...or the famous Radio 1 saying...1 in Kate's Bush is worth 10 in the hand....