Week beginning 12 May 2014
Monday 12th May. 1’11” 52 degs and a very dark beery colour. Team Evans here and ready for action, the first of which was a Brown trout on a Sunray from the Slap and that was it for the day! I suppose I’d better write a bit more, there was one fish that jumped in the Glide and I did see one in the Slap but that was it! The water crept up slowly all day and was very dark so I wasn’t expecting much. The Osprey gave a wee visit, good hatch of Grannoms again but very few Trout about. On the Gardening front my pumpkin seed is through so look out for a new record pumpkin in October only 324lbs to go.
Tuesday 13th May. 2’8” and dirty where the bloody hell did that come from? So that took the smile off our face’s, Team Evans being a stoic bunch immediately headed to the hut to check up on the drink stocks for the day and seemed satisfied, so a couple of spinning rods were put up and they spent the day chucking Toby’s off the bank into the brown murk, it’s a bugger when it was such a lovely day and the river’s out of order. My day was spent strimming, following a lawn mower and a bit of chemical warfare against the hogweed along with the odd “well you never know” “there might be a keen Seatroot about”. There were rumblings of thunder about from 3.00pm onwards and it rained until 8.30pm so gardening was out tonight, I also heard that the Leader area had a real downpour so it could be brown again tomorrow.
Wednesday 14th may 2’ something I can’t remember now but 51 degs still has a lot of sediment in water column, saw nothing and touched nothing so not a great day. I did get a couple of lovely Trout on a dry fly both about 1 1/2 lbs. I’m sure it’ll be better tomorrow when the water clears, there seems to be a lot of Seatrout below us so at least there’s something to hopefully cast a fly at. Got my cabbage in tonight and enough slug pellets to kill a tiger, I’m starting to run out of space to plant all the things I need for the show, Only two rods tomorrow due to a cancelation and both first time on the beat, well I don’t recognise the names. This write up is getting shorter and shorter; really need to catch some fish. Thursday 15th May A bit more action today, in fact a lot more action. The river was looking a bit more fishable with a tea stain to it rather than dark beer, this morning we had a fish chasing a Sunray in the Slap, Tom Leslie lost a good fish in the Glide and landed a Seatrout, this afternoon a pull in the Slap on a black and yellow tube and lost another two in the tail of the Cauld on the Sunray, one was a Seatrout the other didn’t show itself, so things looking up at last, I like the river lower and it’s getting there. There were some good trout rising in the Glide most of the day and a huge hatch of some kind of lacewing fly. All the action was on floating lines with either intermediate or fast sink tips. On the gardening front got my long carrots sorted out in 4’0” drainpipes which are a real fiddle with all the sand and forming the hole down the middle so we’ll see what happens come September, it better be worth it as I love having a cast on a May evening.
Friday 16th May A lovely warm day 1’7” and 56 degs still with a tinge of colour, only bad thing was the wind from the south/south west anyway thrashed the beat all morning but to no avail and was much the same this afternoon until 4.45pm when my guid pal Andrew Lee fishing as a guest of Steven caught a 10lber from Learmouth stream which he managed to land himself, I knew about it before he got back to the hut, there’s always someone watching what is going on. Paul Cotterel saw a nice fish in the Middle stream and there were a couple of Seatrout in the Tail of the Cauld but we didn’t have any other pulls. Saturday 17th May A nice warm sunny morning, bit of a south wind blowing but dry. It’s now common riding season so I’m at Hawick with my son attending the Roberton rideout which is one of the minor rideouts at Hawick but is still a big ride in distance and numbers who attend which was 300 horses on Saturday. The fishing on the other hand was attended by less and although the flies were cast for miles nothing was caught, but that’s fishing for you. There’s aye next week!
There isn’t any photos of fish to show you so here’s the new statue in Hawick to commemorate the battle of Hornshole where the young people who were left in Hawick gave an English raiding party a gubbing in 1514 as there were no men left they had all been killed at Flodden, the rideout returning after a long day and my carrots in the drainpipes what else!
© M Campbell 2014
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