The Don is the Dee's neighbour and sibling — Scotland's sixth-longest river running roughly 81 kilometres from the southern Cairngorms through farming country to the sea at Aberdeen, draining about 1,300 square kilometres of mixed geology. Where the Dee is granite and gorge, the Don is softer, more rural, with schist and porphyry giving the water a slightly different character and a richer, more amber tone. The middle reaches through Strathdon are characteristically pool-riffle, well-sorted cobble and gravel, with moderate sinuosity and the sense of a rural river that belongs to the farmland rather than to wilderness. The Don is less confined than the Dee, less dramatic, and less famous — but precisely for those reasons it fishes with a different rhythm. It's a river that rewards patience and attention rather than the grand gesture. Watch for the warm-coloured water after rain, and the particular softness that distinguishes Aberdeenshire Don water from its granite-sourced neighbours.

Wading: Slick bedrock steps in localised gorge reaches

Summer-autumn runs (June–September), nocturnal pattern in peak season