Welcome to the SalmonQuestTM website, an information resource for salmon and sea trout fishing on the River Alness. As this site develops, we plan to provide up to date information on fishing conditions including water levels, and during the main season, weekly catch reports. If you catch a salmon or grilse, sea-trout or quality brown trout on the River Alness, either on the Novar Beats or Alness Angling Club, Ardross Castle or Kildermorie waters, then e-mail us and we will include it in our catch reports: catches@salmonquest.co.uk
SalmonQuest is the salmon fishing brand of TroutQuest and the marketing brand of the Novar Fishings Partnership. TroutQuest is a small business offering salmon and trout fly fishing holidays and short breaks, fly fishing instruction and custom guided excursions.
2008 Grilse Runs
After 3 years of late grilse runs, it has been encouraging to see some earlier grilse about this year, with runs starting in late June after the dry spell eventually broke on the 22nd. Early grilse catches have also been reported on other rivers including the River Conon.
2007 Season End
The season closed on Wednesday 31st October. The last few days saw the first good water levels for the month resulting in a late surge of catches. It has been another excellent year on the Alness, with a total catch return for the Novar beats of 432 salmon & grilse of which 61% were returned.
Alness Grilse and Summer Salmon Runs
Despite good water levels throughout late June and July, the main grilse runs again started about 2 weeks late, though earlier than last year. There was one grilse off the Novar Beats in June, and the next caught on the 11th July. From the 16th to the end of July there were 20 grilse and summer salmon up to 14 lbs caught on the Novar Beats, and 130 caught in August. Most of the grilse have been in the 4 to 6 lb size range which is pleasing to see after the small fish encountered in the early runs last season. More fish continue to enter the river on each tide, and there have been good runs of larger summer salmon in early September with nearly 200 fish caught on the Novar beats during the month. Check out our latest catch reports.
Hooked at 11 Years Old!
Alness Spring Run
Although there were reports of 1 or 2 fish off the lower Angling Club beats in April the main spring run appeared to be late. Fish started arriving in the Novar beats at the end of the May and 3 were lost on the 31st and 1st. There was good water in early June, but few visiting salmon anglers. 7 spring salmon of 9 lbs to 13 lbs were caught on the Novar Beats in June.
Novar Fishings Partnership
The Novar Fishings Partnership is a new business partnership formed in April 2007 to manage and promote salmon fishing on the Novar beats of the River Alness. This new structure allows for increased levels of investment which should provide improvements to maintenance and infrastructure for the future. The Novar Fishings Partnership manages all salmon fishing lets of the Novar Fishings including 15 rods available for weekly let.
Novar Beat Changes
The Novar Beat boundaries have been changed for the 2007 season, improving salmon fishing prospects in the early part of the season. All beat descriptions on this site have been updated with new beat maps.
2006 Season End
The season came to a close on Tuesday 31st October with continued highwater conditions. Overall it has been a remarkable year. The total catch return for the Novar beats was 395 salmon & grilse. Included in this total is a fantastic 256 fish to SalmonQuest's rods of which 67% were returned!
River Alness Flood
Heavy rainfall for 10 days produced a succession of rising spates culminating in a massive spate on October 26th, the highest seen since at least 1989, and possibly since the late-1970’s. Water levels in the town of Alness peaked at 2.8m, and there was local flooding throughout Easter Ross and the North East Highlands. The effects of run-off from within the Alness catchment, and of the river itself were both devastating, with significant damage to infrastructure including some of the access roads and bridges.
Beat 5 - 26/10/06
Click here to see more photos.
Photograph by kind permission of Helen Bailey
