Week beginning 16 November 2015
Monday 16th November. Another big water day with a fair wind blowing across the river, about 7’0” and filthy, I say about 7’0” as the gauge stops at 6’6” so it’s guesswork after that. First job of the day was rescuing the Cauld boat which was under water; second job was filling the kettle. Team Baker arrived this morning for their annual trip and it was sad to hear one of the team had passed away last week, Barry Morgan was a Lees regular who always had a smile on his face and it didn’t matter how bad the weather was he always enjoyed his fishing always enjoying a laugh even at his expense, like the time he came into the hut at the end of the day with his glasses all steamed up and watered down his Balvenie with a cask strength Talisker and had a big sook at it! I can still see him spluttering and coughing to this day. It’s unlikely to fish tomorrow and there’s more rain tomorrow so it might be out until Thursday.
Tuesday 17th November. 4’1” and 44 degs still dirty. It was a nice enough day for fishing except for the river conditions so the new members of the team took themselves off round the beat to look at the pools which I have to say would at this height all look much the same. There was some driftwood lying on the Cauld bank from the weekend flood so I cut that up as I hate to see good wood wasted. I see from the websites that some of the beats upriver had a fish or two, 5 reported so far so well done them. As I write this it’s raining yet again and has been since 2.00pm and the gauges are on the rise so tomorrow will be out. It’s now looking doubtful if it’ll much good this week as there’s more rain on the forecast, if the weather gods could just spread it out a bit over the last three months everything would be a lot better. I suppose it’s good for the fish as they will be able to get right up the wee burns and spread their eggs far and wide. On the wildlife front there’s not much to report, a few big skeins of geese went over, the kingfishers are having a harder time to find the minnows in this colour and there are more pigeons than I’ve seen in a few years, thats about it.
Wednesday 18th November. It’s a bit like the film Groundhog Day when every day is the same, rain wind and a flooded river. 4’6” first thing and dirty add in the heavy rain we had up until 2.00pm then look at the gauges and see them rising and it’ll be the same tomorrow if not bigger and browner. Most of the team are heading for home maybe to return on Saturday depending on phone call but there’s more rain for Friday night and it only takes a little now to put it out of sorts. I think I wrote at the start of the month we might struggle to get to 300, now it looks like becoming a reality. Latest- checked the gauges at 7.30pm and its 5’6” at Peebles and 6’1” at Roxburgh all rising apart from top ones. It’s to get a lot colder into the weekend with snow down to lower levels so that’s really cheered me up. So with a hard frost and no snow melt we’ll be fishing next week and I’m looking forward to getting an early springer or two and a few kelts. What a bloody season!
Thursday 19th November. Well it’s been a nice sunny day and the river is falling, it was about 6’0” this morning and dirty but I’m just back from checking the boats and the gauge and it has dropped back to 4’6” so it might and it’s a big might fish tomorrow but it’ll be the Temple with a wet 4 type line. The rain for Friday night has lessened but its going to be bloody windy on Saturday, so a big water and a big wind doesn’t make for a good day on the river.
Friday 20th November. 3’9” and 42 degs and still a bit murky, 3 of the team still with us. A cold north west wind blowing down the river this morning which kept the fleet at anchor as thats just too big with a wind on it to be rowing. Stewart and Edward had a chuck off the cauld bank before lunch then after lunch had a go off the Temple wall, Stewart reported having a hold of something that didn’t do very much so I presume a Kelt or maybe a trout, there were quite a few Kelts splashing about and this afternoon some fish seen in the middle of the Temple which looked like they could be runners. Looking at the websites there are 6 fish on at 7.00pm 3 of them from the Wark beats which is what you’d expect as they like high water which I don’t. The gritter was up and down the Wark road this afternoon as the forecast is for snow and gales, the wind had better be from the north or north east tomorrow or the fleet will be remaining at anchor. Late afternoon the gauge was showing 3’7” so it had only dropped 2” all day but had cleared quite a bit. It would be nice if we got on and caught a fish or two tomorrow as the lads have had a poor week.
Saturday 21st November. 3’5” and 40 degs much cleaner. The wind came over night and blew the roof off one of the hen houses and we missed the snow. Stewart and Edward were keen to be at them but Rodger decided (wisely) to take it easy, we got the boats out on to the Temple, 3’5” is still a bit too big for us but armed with the heaviest lines we could muster we fished it down and gave the Cauld a go behind the Croys but it wasn’t to be. There were plenty Kelts splashing and jumping out a couple of feet shaking themselves but not so much as a pull was had. After lunch the lads decided to wave the white flag and head for home as they have a long drive. There were 11 fish reported on the websites, 5 of them from South Wark, 1 fresh, a beat which can handle big water. The strange thing was how quiet the upper Tweed beats were, I can only assume that the fish are up the burns and spawning, I heard from one of our regular rods who was fishing somewhere round Peebles and he said he hadn’t seen a fish all day. As we approach the last full week the weather is much colder and looks drier than of late so we should have a better chance to find out if there is anything left down here, what’s the betting? Who’s going to put a tenner on a 20lb tide liced cock being caught on the Lees next week? I wonder what odds I’d get at the bookies. So the score this week is 1 rat!
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