Sequences, 02 October 2021
At Buchanty Spout
Trout at the Spout
Sea trout and a brownie or two at Buchanty Spout, 02 October 2021.
Pots of Gartness, 12 October/06 November 2019
This was a first visit to the Pots of Gartness on the River Endrick to try to photograph leaping salmon and trout. Arrived and no signs initially. It looked a good height for running, but maybe a tad high for jumping. As I watched, I started seeing a few backs swirling around in the foam,…
Buchanty Spout, 28 September 2019
A visit following heavy rain and the river dropping to below 0.5 m on the Newtonbridge gauge, though that turned out to be still a tad high at Buchanty. Very little until mid-day, after which there was a reasonable amount of activity. A lot of the fish were small. The river was an ideal height…
Buchanty Spout 21 September 2018
An early visit, after missing most of them last year when they all seemed to go up in September, and getting good water height following big rain, 2 days previous. Decent numbers leaping. All shot with an 85 mm f1.4 IS lens.
River Almond, 25 October, 2017
Very few fish on the march, and most were getting straight up, so no repeat chances at them. With so few on the go, concentration levels were way-off, so any odd occasion where one did jump, chances were I missed it, or it was out of focus. Tried further downstream, and there were none at…
Leaping salmon sequences
Sequences from the shoot at Buchanty, 19 Oct 2016. Click on one to get it moving…
Buchanty 19 October 2016
I looked for a chance after the first decent rain of autumn – it was just over 0.4 m on the gauge. This seemed an ideal height – and the water was very clear. There weren’t big numbers of fish jumping, but for the first time I was seeing them get all the way up! …
Buchanty 11 November 2015
A later visit than usual, due to difficulty in getting a window with a decent height of water on the Almond at Buchanty. One previous attempt on 29 October was a non-starter, when I arrived to find the river at about 3 feet and the salmon swimming forward, taking one look and thinking better of it.
This day wasn’t a lot better. The water was a tad high, but OK. Met up with John Kaye at the spot. John’s been visiting regularly and didn’t think there were many fish left still to go. That semed to be the case. They were coming in little bursts of 2 or 3, and then nothing for ten minutes. The tendency to see 2 or three start to come, before getting set, finger on button, eye to viewfinder, was a dead-loss. Having got set, there were no more for the next ten minutes!
To make matters worse, the forecast of decent weather was way-off. Rain showers turned to heavy rain by early afternoon, resulting in a short session. Light was very poor, resulting in ISO levels of 4000 at times (in order to get a fast shutter speed). My best bet was to sit on a stool, camera on the monopod (when it wasn’t raining), pre-focused to a guess, distance-wise, and then just watch for them and fire the shutter when any jumped. A ‘hit and hope’ job. I got a few – not too bad, all things considered. I kept the focal length fairly wide (most at 70 mm), so as to catch anything jumping in the field of view.
Shutter speed mostly 1/1500 sec (a few at 1/1000s when light was really bad), ISO 320 (light OK) to 4000 (light awful), aperture f5.6 (light OK) to f2.8 (light awful).