Season Review 2014
February Following the mildest warmest winter on record it was always going to be a struggle with the water height on the Lees hovering around the 3’10” for the whole month. The first fish came on the 7th from the Cauld and weighed 14lbs. little did I know it would be the only fish for the month. Spinning started on the 15th and as the water was never under 2’0”it was used a fair bit but as there were no fish it didn’t help.
March The first fish in March came on the 4th from the Temple it weighed 1lb was liced caught on a spinner as it was blowing a hoolie and big water, that was the last fish from the Temple until August, by the end of the month the score had crept up to 5 for the season. March was also the month that the seals came and got the blame for chasing all the fish upstream, what about all the fish that were downstream they didn’t stay downstream. I think if you have a seal in the pool you are fishing then it is not great, if it’s miles upstream or downstream it makes no difference. The sandmartins joined us this month on the 13th which is about a week early, it is nice to see them as you start to think that spring proper is just round the corner along with longer days.
April Gave us many more fishable days at better heights and also gave us our first seatrout of the season, two in fact both caught on the same day the 9th and there is not much better than a spring seatrout. April also gave us our first faller as Ian Gardner fell in, we get a few fallers every year but Ian was the first. The Swallows and the Osprey arrived this month so that’s things looking brighter as far as the weather goes but on the fishing front things were still grim anywhere downstream of Kelso. We also had our first from the Bags on the 24th on a sunray shadow at 8lbs. So April gave us 9 fish with the Slap being the top pool with 3, running total for the season up to 14.
May Saw settled water on the whole but no more fish although we did have one or two residents in some of the pools, the Swifts arrived bang on time and the Brown trout were showing in numbers and more than recent years along with some very good specimens. We had 6 Salmon for May and 5 Seatrout. This is the month when the Skimmer and Sunray type flies start to come into their own, we did get some action on them but it was all relative to the amount of fish on the beat.
June Can be a difficult month as the spring run is over (ha ha) and the summer fish have yet to arrive but if you have a few residents on the beat they can decoy new fish in. We had 7 fish for June the best being 2 at 14lbs both caught on the 19th and by the same rod, one in the Slap and one in the Cauld, Terry Harper being the lucky boy, we also had 7 Seatrout the best being 7lbs. Running total now standing at 27.
July Now if you get a flood in July you can have some serioussport but this July was hot and sunny, in fact very hot which was great as long as you’re not trying to catch a Salmon, so the July total was 1 salmon from Learmouth stream on the 8th and 5 seatrout, 3 of the seatrout came from the Ledges on the 15th and in bright sunshine on a flat calm morning all caught by Chris Tunmore on a wee black fly. So the running total is now 28 I’ve seen that caught in one day quite a few times, 6 months fishing for 28 fish!!!!!
August There was a wee lift of water on both the first and second weeks which brought in fresh fish and between the 11th and 23rd we had 47 landed the best being a 22lb cock from the Slap, highlight of the month was Tim Pilcher from Tweedside tackle getting a fish from the Back of the wall on fly and all that with one arm and a reel that packed up. Top pools Temple 13, Cauld 13, and Back of the wall 11.
September The sunny theme continuedright through September and in fact turned out to be the warmest and driest on record, I thought the weather was to blame for the low catches little did I know then that there were no fish, although I did have my suspicions as the lower beats were catching next to nothing when they should be bagging up. We had 45 for the month top pool was the Slap with 10, best fish was 16lbs from the Slap on the 18th.
October River levels started on the lower side but by the middle of the month it was flood after flood. I say flood but it was big enough to spoil the fishing but not that big that we couldn’t fish. It meant that we were all stuck up the top end and weeks of that get a bit tedious along with the lack of fish and brown unsettled water. Score for the month was 148 with 110 returned which shows the quality of the fish we were catching. Top pool was the Cauld 57 with most of them being caught in the first half of the month when the water was lower, Temple 44, Back of the wall 17, Slap 3. Annay 10, Learmouth 8 and so on. Best week was 59 fish starting on the 6th following week 39 and that was the week I knew they weren’t coming as conditions were perfect. Best fish was 22lb from the Temple on the 9th.
November was a slow month with constant high water again and the lack of fish more pronounced as the month went by, bad enough for the Ghillies but for the rods when you’ve looked forward to your week all year it’s a disaster, that as they say is fishing! I won’t drag this month out any longer. 45 for the month with 29 returned top pool Temple which you would expect with the the river heights, Cauld 10, Back of the wall 6, Glide 3, Slap 3 and Learmouth 1. So all in all a year to forget or a year not to forget whichever way you look at it, it’s one I will not look back at with any degree of pleasure. Of course if you were doing anything else it was a great summer and a long warm autumn so all the walkers, golfers climbers and the likes loved it. It’ll be better next year!
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