The spawning at Amat this back end followed the recent trend of the last few years which has seen spawning lasting longer, certainly right up to the 25th of November. By then it had pretty well ended, although there was still the odd pair active till the end of the month.
Working upstream from the bottom of the beat the tail of the Shepherds pool was fairly active back around the 10th of November but only for a few days. The head of Shepherds and tail of Millers pools were pretty quiet in comparison with recent years. In season 2000 this area was quite prolific for around three weeks, however, this season the activity was over a quite short period. The Bo bahn was about average and above the road bridge the Craigs pool had a few pairs particularly down in the tail. The broken water immediately above the Craigs up to the tail of Dollys was exceptionally good. It was very encouraging to see this area being utilised around the12th November, for a ten day period this small area was being used by around eight pairs, with of course the extra cock fish being in evidence most days. At the end of the ten day period more hen fish fell back downstream into this area and there was a renewed spurt of activity with the cock fish causing tremendous commotion some days. The tail of the Long was fairly active but a little disappointing compared with recent previous years, there were very few dead fish in evidence, although the first big spate in December usually finishes the fish weakened by spawning or disease. Even so we usually have a few more dead from disease between the end of the fishing season and the start of the spawning, so it was good not to see so many this year.

Fish were visible cutting redds in most available areas up through Bahn, Andys bend, Manse, Island pools, although slightly down on last year. The Temple was fairly active and was probably about the same as recent years. Up through the Kitchen run to Garden run was really quite active some days and although this stretch is very rocky with large areas of bedrock, fish were again utilising the big quantities of fresh gravel and stone that was brought down two seasons ago. Pairs of fish could be seen spawning in very small areas, in small runs between a couple of stones or where the current had cast up stone in front of or behind a large rock, the Park pool was slightly better than normal and nearing the end of November I was encouraged to see more fish gathering in the Park pool. Fish that had already finished spawning were already falling back and appeared to be gathering in the Park. The section upstream to Vernons pool was average early on in the month but I think by later in the month fish were already beginning to fall back downstream into the park pool . The head of Vernons, Ladys grave, Rock & Corner pools were fairly active and around 12th of November and right into the 5th & 6th of December their was a couple of pairs of salmon spawning in very shallow water on a gravel bank right over on the right bank in the tail of the Corner pool. .
I crossed over to have a look at the Sallachy burn and their were several pairs of fish in the first 50yards, I think they had probably spawned slightly earlier here. The broken water all the way up to the tail of Garvault was prolific and was by far the most active area on the whole beat, it always is a good area for spawning but this season was exceptional, they were utilising the fresh stone and gravel brought down two years ago. On the 12th of November I counted 16 pairs of fish in this area with other individual fish milling around, the Garvault was also very good but this pool has suffered badly from a fishing point of view, as it has filled in very badly with small stone and almost all the rocks at the head of the pool being washed away or moved, again this happened a couple of years ago in February when the Carron had a tremendous spate.

I was hoping to see one of the big fish that was in evidence in the beat last season, and on November 12th up at the head of Garvault pool I saw a particularly big fish, it was a bright day and he could be seen fairly clearly. He was constantly active and spent almost the entire time I watched him chasing the other fish all over the head of the pool, with the glare of the sun it came out better in video than in still photos , I would say he was one of the fish in the low twenty pounds, it was great to see one of these big ones actively taking part in the spawning. The same day I saw another very good fish of around 20lbs just a little smaller than the one in the Garvault pool, up in Belle McKay pool he was also a cock and was most certainly the main man in Belle McKay as he was constantly charging about the pool chasing all the others. A lot of salmon went up over the Glencalvie falls this season due to the long periods of low water in fact salmon first went over the falls the same week as the first salmon was caught in the Amat beat the week of April 15th which is exceptionally early. And by all accounts good numbers of salmon are on the redds right up to Deanich which is good for the river.