ADAA wins the Sharpes invitational 6-man team competition at Loch Insch Fishery.
The team consisting of Chris McAllister, Ernie MacKay, Richard McHattie, Mike Cordiner(Capt), Kenny Riddell and Jason Brown fished their way to the title for the first time. A full complement of 15 teams competed in what turned out to be a very close affair. Teams from various parts of Scotland took part in this long established competition that really needs all six members to fish at their best in order to be in the running for the top places.

The day was very windy but the team stuck to their game plan and successfully netted 48 fish by the lunchtime break. Knowing they were in a good position they set themselves a target of 3 fish each for the harder afternoon session and that’s exactly what their combined afternoon tally of 18 fish equated to.

The ADAA lads managed a total of 66 fish between them with Ernie securing 17 on his own, which earned him second highest individual overall.

With 10lbs in weight to spare over their nearest rivals this was a great team performance considering some of the opposition taking part.

The victorious ADAA team. (Picture kindly supplied by Ellice Milton)

Last Fling Competition - Loch Of Loiriston 28th September

The final placings in the Club Championship came down to this last competition of the season.
With so much at stake there were a few obvious nerves on show as the anxious anglers left the car park.
Weed banks had suddenly appeared in a lot of areas that had been fishing really well for most of the season and this restricted access to some of the fish.
The road shore was the clearest area and this is where most of the fish were successfully netted.
Richard McHattie and Kenny Riddell bagged their 6 fish quite early fishing down the sides of a weed bed at the end of the road shore near the large stones.
Mike Cordiner managed 5 nearby and Ernie MacKay caught his solitary ‘blue’ from the same area.
Fish were caught along the farm side but many were lost due to the weed growth. Jason Brown was particularly unlucky, managing 3 but hooking and losing some very decent fish.
Dave Rust had a very respectable 4 fish with our secretary Paul Toseland managing 3.
Graham Small, a new face at the competitions, landed 2 and Billy Hewitt had a single fish.

The result was as follows:
1st Kenny Riddell 6 for 9lb 9oz
2nd Richard McHattie 6 for 8lb 11oz
3rd Mike Cordiner 5 for 7lb 3oz
4th Dave Rust 4 for 5lb 15oz
5th Paul Toseland 3 for 4lb 4oz

This final result made the Club Championship placings very close indeed with Kenny Riddell and Mike Cordiner finishing top on identical points with Kenny taking the Championship title by virtue of him winning more individual events, thus ending Mike’s run of 16 years in a row.
In third place was Ernie MacKay who had led the Championship for most of the season.
Fourth was Chris McAllister who equalled Richard McHattie but pushed him down to fifth place because he had more wins.
The final sixth team place for 2009 was Paul Toseland.

NAME BEST 6
Kenny Riddell 45
Mike Cordiner 45
Ernie Mackay 41
Chris McAllister 40
Richard McHattie 40
Paul Toseland 37

As the table shows, it has been an extremely close finish and those who have made the top 6 have had to be very consistent.

From left to right: Vice presedent and senior club champion 1991 - 2007 Mike Cordiner, Richard McHattie, Ernie Mckay and new 2008 senior club champion Kenny Riddell.

Jim & Betty Reynolds Ythan Trophy - Sat 20th September (Machar Pool)

The Machar pool competition is very dependant upon the weather conditions and this competition wasn't easy with the sun on the water almost from the start.

For the first 45 minutes anglers were going through the motions as lots of debris and weed floated back downstream with the out going tide.

Once this started to clear a couple of fish were caught and released, Paul Toseland with a finnock and Chris McAllister with a sea trout followed quickly with a finnock.

Things quietened down once again as the sun intensified until another flurry of bent rods occured. This time it was Ernie Mackay with a finnock, Paul with a second finnock and Richard also with a finnock.

Time was wearing on before it was Kenny Riddell's turn to get in on the action, landing a sea trout of about 2 lbs in very good condition and he quickly landed a finnock not long after.

It didn't look like it was going to be Mike Cordiner's day but with around 20 minutes to go he landed a decent sea trout to make it 9 fish in total for the 9 anglers fishing.

The competition result was as follows:

1st equal Chris McAllister and Kenny Riddell
3rd Paul Toseland
4th Mike Cordiner
5th equal Ernie Mackay and Richard McHattie

This leaves the Championship table in an extremely tight position with any of the top 6 able to take the title.

Jordan Cup – Sun 24th Aug, Lower Parkhill

Two days prior to the competition the Don was in full spate with all sorts of debris floating down.

A halt to the rain allowed the river to get back to a reasonable level with less weed coming down but still maintaining a dark whisky colour.

Only 10 anglers fished this one, desperate to keep in touch with the leader in the Championship, Ernie MacKay.

It was obvious after about an hour that there were very few fish showing and that even a take was going to be hard to get.

As usual on these occasions it was a matter of persevering and hoping a fish would look up.

First to score was Richard McHattie with a stockie down in the Aryburn Pool on wet fly. Kenny Riddell caught the next brownie further downstream, also on wet fly.

Dry fly worked for Mike Cordiner in the Aryburn after losing one right at the net and Richard secured his second just above the overhead pipe crossing.

Paul Toseland joined the short list of successful fishers with a stockie brown on his last cast of the day.

The result was as follows:
1st Richard McHattie 2 browns for 2lb 1oz
2nd Paul Toseland 1 brown for 1lb 4oz
3rd Mike Cordiner 1 brown for 12oz
4th Kenny Riddell 1 brown for 9oz.

This really makes things tight at the top of the Championship race.

Club Championship – Top 6 Places

MUNRO PLAQUE – Sun 10th Aug, Upper Parkhill

After a day of persistent rain and rising water levels, conditions couldn’t be described as ideal for trout fishing.

Regardless of this, rising fish were evident throughout the beat and fish were caught from between the bridges right up as far as the top streams.

A few hot pots did fish more consistently, namely Cockers, Goval and Cothal Pool.

Anglers found success on dries and wet fly with three of them catching 6 fish, mainly stockies.

Ernie Mackay had top bag with 7lb 2oz and Kenny Riddell wasn’t far behind on 6lb 5oz. Richard McHattie was pipped by an ounce into third place with Paul Toseland achieving a fourth place and Chris McAllister in fifth.

This puts Ernie back at the top of the Championship.

Club Championship Top 6

Simpson Plaque – Loch of Loirston 27 th July 2008

This was one of the best attended competitions so far with 22 anglers hoping to connect with some of the recently stocked blues, well known for their fighting qualities and in beautiful condition. Weather conditions were quite strange with coastal fog, light winds and warm air.

Anglers spread right round the loch in the beginning but very quickly started to congregate where fish were seen rising steadily along the road shore.

Floating lines were most successful coupled with various small nymphs, buzzers and daiwl bachs as well as boobys which is quite unusual for the loch.

In all, 10 anglers managed to land a fish with many unable to keep hold of them once hooked.

There were 35 fish retained including 10 blues in pristine condition.

Overall average worked out at 1.5 fish per angler.

This was quite a close run result and first place had to be shared after both competitors landed 6 fish each and their weight was exactly 12lb 2oz – after a second weigh in.

The result was as follows:

1 st equal Mike Cordiner and Chris McAllister 12lb 2oz

3 rd Kenny Riddell 9lb 15oz

4 th Richard McHattie 9lb 14oz

5 th Glen Mc Hattie 4lb 1oz

CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP CURRENT TOP 6

D R Wilson Trophy - Steady Eddie puts the youngsters in their place!!

Congratulations to Eddie Riddell (81 years young) who has waited 42 long years to get his name on an ADAA trophy. Eddie who is a popular regular to the competitions fished hard for the four gruelling hours.   Fourteen anglers searched all round Loirston for a trout willing to take their offering but unfortunately only five fish were fooled into the net.   A brisk northerly wind made conditions quite testing but there were lots buzzers hatching. The fish should have been more forthcoming but perhaps the water needs to warm up a few degrees.  Fish were caught on different flies showing that they are not switched on to anything in particular yet – hares ear nymph, daiwl bach, dunkeld, cruncher.   The weigh-in didn’t take too long and the placings worked out as follows:     1st Eddie Riddell – 3lb 4oz 2nd John Jamieson – 2lb 6oz 3rd Richard McHattie – 1lb 10oz 4th equal Paul Toseland, Ernie Mackay – 1lb 3oz

Adam Junior Trophy 11 May 2008

Five juniors & four minors (youngsters under 12 years old) along with various mums, dads, relatives, & Committee members attended the first junior event of the year at the loch.

As far as the juniors were concerned the first rainbow was caught by Jonathan Petrie. Stuart Crockett however found the right fly & finished up the winner with 3 rainbows. Ernest Mackay through perseverance also managed to get one near the end of the competition. This placed him & Jonathan as joint runners-up.

Meantime the minors were enjoying themselves, especially five year old Ben Campbell who caught two, the biggest a cracker of a rainbow of 3lb 14oz.

Paul Toseland.

John's saying "Gee I haven't seen one of those in years". Not true, see fishing report

Ben with 3.14oz rainbow, his 1st time ever fishing!

Mitchell Shield – Sunday 18^th May (Loch of Loirston)

The loch had been fishing really well with massive hatches of olive buzzers coming off for the previous week and expectations were high among the 15 anglers attending the second competition of the year.

Within the first few casts it was evident that there was a large concentration of fish from scarecrow fence down to the trees at the farm side.

Most of the anglers in this area were catching fish on a regular basis. Buzzers and daiwl bachs seemed to be the order of the day on either floating lines or midge tips.

Fish were also caught out in the middle from the large stones at the road side.

In total there were 40 fish caught with a rod average of 2.6 fish per angler – a vast improvement from the first competition, which was 0.4 fish per angler.

1^st Ernie Mackay – 9lb 9oz

2^nd Mike Cordiner – 9lb

3^rd Murray Hourston – 8lb 15oz

4^th Paul Toseland – 8lb 7oz

5^th Richard McHattie – 8lb 3oz

 Current Positions