Week beginning 16 September 2019
Monday 16th September. 1’4” and 50 degrees nice and clean with a westerly breeze. Team Gould here for the week. Angus was the first into action getting a wee fresh grilse from the back of the wall he was soon followed by Johanna Green getting another wee fresh grilse from the glide this time, spurred on by this Angus went back up to the top again and had a 12lb old hen, Johanna almost caught up hooking a decent sized fish around the 14lb mark in the glide on a micro tube but after thrashing around for a while it was off, just as well really as we’d have been late back for lunch. After lunch Charlie Lee had a 10lber from Learmouth stream and Angus had another from the iron gate around the 8lb mark. All the fish today were on floaters with short fast sinktips teamed with #8 doubles or micro tubes. The top end of the beat was quiet and the cauld continues to disappoint, the fish seem to like the middle section for some reason. The young osprey was busy on the cauld today and it seemed to be able to find a fish, a few cormorants are starting to show up so they’ll need to be scared off. Catches on the websites were fairly respectful considering the low water and no spinning, just shows you can catch them on a fly.
Tuesday 17th September. Another nice day, sunny with just a gentle breeze, 1’4” and 50 degrees. The morning was very quiet apart from Angus Oakshott falling in at the Iron gate and getting a proper soaking, fish were seen but nothing fresh or clean and not that many to be honest. The osprey had 4 dives before it flew off with a decent trout or grayling; the otter was also busy in the tail of the cauld coming upstream like a porpoise. After a very convivial lunch the team were back at it, Angus the swimmer from this morning saw a couple of fresh fish in the Duddo and there were some fish moving in the Glide but no pulls to be had. The catches across the website were down which could be due to the weather or the lack of spinning or maybe both. Forecast is for it to get calmer and warmer so that will not help.
Wednesday 18th September. A nice overcast day with just a wee breeze from the North West. My morning consisted of a few casting tips, changing a leader or two and looking for a fish. I did see two in the Glide and one at the Iron Gate, Jeremy had a bit of a pull in the Duddo and saw two others. This afternoon with Jeremy fishing the Slap I saw a couple of fish well up in the neck of the Cauld a quick change of boat, a fast sinktip and a bottle tube cast over the stream and well mended we had a fish on the first cast, boat ashore and net ready the fish took one last run along the back of the Cauld rubbed the line against some rocks and cut through the line, bloody, bugger and bollocks was the cry. No osprey today but a few kingfishers and otters. Angus found another sever leak in his waders today, yesterdays leak was caused by removing a fly, today’s looks more like a fault. I’m off to tie a few more bottle tubes.
Thursday 19th September. A lovely autumn day with blue skies and just a zephyr of wind, 1’12 and 52 degrees with squeaky clean water. This weather of course did nothing to help with the fishing and this was reflected across both websites. Hugh and Mungo Strachan joined us today and got stuck into the job, Hugh needed a bit of a refresher course as it’s been about 45 years since he last had a go. Angus sporting new waders was first into action getting a clean grilse from the Back of the wall which was good except it wasn’t our turn for the Back of the wall, Bruce put him right and then helped him sort out his cast which was a bit tangled, luckily there were no rods on the other bank. I saw a couple of fish in the Slap and Cauld this morning, there were a few showing in Learmouth and the Glide had a few sploshing about this afternoon. Forecast for the next 2 days is the same so I expect catches will be low. Think tomorrow will need to be a big collie dug day.
Friday 20th September. A fantastic September day, blue skies and hot, not a breath of wind, not a bit of use for fishing butit’s a long winter, forecast is the same for tomorrow which will kill the fishing stone dead, it would be different if there were fresh fish coming off every tide but at the moment they aren’t . There are some fish on the beat but it’s been a wee while since they tasted salt water so they are not too keen to come to a fly especially in these conditions. Another plus today was Angus didn’t fall in, Mungo got to grips with his snap “T” cast (just a wee bit less effort Mungo). Jeremy was in the “zone” and Alistair made a start at his salmon fishing career. What will tomorrow bring? More of the same I should think.
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