Ronnie Fraser from Elgin arrived to have a go and was rewarded with a fresh 91b fish which fell for a Toby.

Now the season is under way on the Ness system, there are anglers out every day, there were a number, of anglers out on opening day enduring the weather and the very high water levels.  There were no reports of any fresh fish being caught on either the Inverness Angling Club stretch or on the upper private beats.

Dochfour, Laggan and Nessside beats, produced no early spring fish, only a few kelts were caught.

On the opening day at Ness Castle there was an amazing 17 kelts taken which surprised the head ghillie, Dave Stewart, as he had hardly seen any fish. Barbless hooks were order of the day for Dave and his team and they caught the fish on both the fly and spinner.

"I was absolutely amazed at the number we caught," said Dave, "because we have hardly seen a fish. I thought we might be lucky and catch maybe four or five..."

All the fish bar one had spawned which is very encouraging, although with the very high water we have had recently I don't know if the eggs will have been washed out from the reds or not. "Only time will tell once the fry start to show in the shallows in the summer."

The policy at Ness Castle as part of their conservation policy is to return all spring-caught fresh fish - providing, of course, that they catch any.  There was no fish taken from the River Oich and the only fish that are known to come from Loch Ness was a pike caught by Davie Stewart and his "ghillie" Neil Porter. Up until the 1960s when the power station was being built, pike were caught on a regular basis on the loch, but for some reason they died out and are only now starting to make a comeback.

The Ness District Fishery Board has applied to the Scottish Executive under the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 2003 to prohibit the use of worms on the whole Ness system above the Dochfour weir. This includes Loch Ness, Loch Oich, Loch Garry and the rivers Moriston, Oich, Enrick and Garry and any of their tributaries. One well informed, and very annoyed angler said he was not aware of any other fishery board in Scotland that had applied for this legislation. He believed it had come about because the fishery board bailiffs did not want to patrol the Aberchalder Beat on the Oich - the only stretch on the system which permitted worm fishing.

As a conservation move, it does seem a bit strange given that number of salmon and sea trout caught on the worm is minutel compared to fly and spinning methods.

If the move to ban the worm is successful and the precedent set, you can be sure that efforts will be made to ban its use on the Inverness Angling Club water where it is a favoured method of fishing among a handful of members. The  same angry angler pointed out that some handicapped fishers were unable to use a fly or spinning rod, and the worm was the only option open to them, and, he asked, what about a family on holiday in the area with a young child who wanted to fish off the side of, for example, Loch Ness with a bubble and worm, would he end up in the dock?

It will be very interesting to keep tabs on this.