Week beginning 16 April 2018
Monday 16th April. Well it’s only taken us 2 months but we’ve finally caught one, a fresh 16lber on a fast sink line in Learmouth stream, the successful fly was a cascade tube. It wasn’t all great though as the fish which fought like a tiger and took a serious amount of backing off was hooked in the gills and was bleeding like a stuck pig. I held it in the stream watching a red cloud coming from it with every flap of its gill covers after a few minutes the red stopped and the fish had stopped. It was a sad thing to watch and took a lot of the shine off the capture as it should have gone back. It’s also a bugger as our return rate has gone from 100% to 50% with one fish. 2’1” this morning with a wee rise coming down and a fair bit of rain forecast in the west tonight which could screw things up completely. Oh! For some settled low water.
Tuesday 17th April. No need for Paul or myself to go to the gym tonight as rowing a boat all day in that wind beats a workout in the gym. 2’3” and 48 degrees with a gale from the south. Malcolm Dutchman Smith joined us today but sadly didn’t add to the score, nor did the other rods for that matter. At lunchtime checking the gauges the Ettrick was up 3 feet and later in the afternoon all the top gauges were rising. The two rods who are fishing next three days arrived and told us that the Teviot was big and very brown. So that puts paid to any useful fishing for the next two days, it might fish on Thursday but will still be on the big side and will be carrying a bit of colour. At least the weather is to get a lot warmer for the rest of the week.
Wednesday 18th April. April marches on in much the same way as the rest of the season so far with the river too big and dirty yet again. 3’0” and a toasty 48 degrees but the colour of milky coffee. Robert Dawson and Bill turned up and set up a fly rod to try out his new line so I left them to it as on a flood day there are loads of little jobs needing to be done. A fence to fix and a trip to Kelso to get supplies then cut the grass in front of the hut for the first time this year; it’s a nice job as you can’t beat the smell of fresh cut grass in the spring. It was much warmer today, not the heatwave that the cheery weather girl keeps talking about but much warmer than of late. No trout to be seen rising today but I should think with the water warming up they’ll be busy from tomorrow onwards.
Thursday 19th April. It was a lovely warm sunny day and not too windy just a wee breeze from the south west. The river had cleared a lot and was just a bit beery and showing 2’7” on the Lees gauge. Paul Dixon and Phil joined us today and drew the top end whilst Robert Dawson and Bob set about the bottom half of the beat. I saw one fish in the Temple this morning but despite our best efforts not a pull was had from anyone. There was the odd fly coming down but nothing was rising to them. 8 fish reported off the river today all upstream of us. This is hopefully the end of all the bad weather and rain and soon we will have the river down to a sensible level where we might get a fish or two to stop with us. Until then the long wait continues.
Friday 20th April. Another lovely warm spring day which is a real tonic after the appalling weather we have been having. We saw some fish today but they all have rockets up their arses as they are up at Kelso quicker than the bus. Still no trout rising to the flies that are coming down and there are some good hatches.
Saturday 21st April. Another lovely day but SEPA have issued a flood alert as there are some very heavy thunder storms moving north tonight but I think they are being a bit too cautious. We saw a fish in the slap first thing but it like the rest did not hang about long enough to be caught. I even got down to Cornhill bend for the first time this year, it made a nice change from being stuck in the temple and cauld for the last two months. Let’s pray that the rain misses us and give us a chance of getting some resident fish down here. Another good hatch of olives and a few march browns coming down but no trout to be seen. 2’0” on the gauge and the magic 50 degrees.
©M Campbell 2018
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