Week beginning 17 May 2021
Monday 17 May A wee bit milder today but overcast. 1’7” and 50 degrees. Derek Morgan and grandson Max were here today, the last time Derek was here was 30 years ago, his opening comment was you haven’t changed a bit, flattery gets you everywhere. Anyway the main objective was to get Max his first fish so he was dispatched off to learmouth with Paul, in the meantime Derek and myself set about the Slap which had a few fish showing in it. We had a couple of bow waves to a #8 cascade, we then switched to a large sunray and had a fish lunge at it them follow it across the slap, it was speeding up to grab it when Derek stopped stripping as the belly of his multi tip line had bumped into the first eye, this caused the sunray to stop moving and so did the fish. Back down at Learmouth Max having had some serious casting practice managed to hook a 13lber behind the boat and after a bit of a tussle land it, photos taken tagged and released, well done Max you’ll never catch your first one again and you’ll remember it always. Our other two rods were Graeme Hogg who is a Lees regular and Andy Dunlop, Andy has not been with us for 7 or 8 years but was pleased to be back. Graeme was our other lucky rod today as he had a fresh 7lber from the Slap, to be honest it would have been embarrassing had he failed in there as there were plenty showing, one even ran over the face of the Cauld which only has 3 or four inch running over it. Heavy showers over the catchment this afternoon has some of the gauges rising tonight and I hear the Leader is puting in some colour.
Tuesday 18 May. Up three inch on yesterday and a smidge of colour and suspended sediment, 1’8” and 50 degrees. 4 fish seen in the Slap this morning which looked like they were travelling, possibly to Upper floors as they had 4 today 3 of which were fresh and 2 had lice. The only action was to Graeme Hogg who lost a fish at the Iron Gate this afternoon. Heavy showers this evening and the forecast for Thursday and Friday does not look good with heavy rain and wind, hopefully it’ll go above us.
Wednesday 19 May A day of sunshine and showers, 1’5” and 50 f. The river was carrying a bit more colour today with a bitof suspended matter in it. Malcolm Dutchman Smith joined us for the day along with Stewart; the other two rods were Graeme Hogg and Andy Dunlop. We saw three fish in the Slap this morning whilst Andy was fishing it and one had a go albeit half heartedly at a large sunray, that was the only fishy action of the day. I have only heard of one fish caught below us on the river and above us the nearest was at Birgham Dub then Sprouston. 1’5” and the Cauldstream looked about perfect but yet again it failed to deliver, I don’t know what’s going on in there, it looks fine when you go over in the boat, right depth/flow etc but the fish this spring are not using it, we need a few decoys in there. Not a single duckling left on the Temple now, Otters and herons have scoffed the lot. The Osprey was fishing the glide this afternoon and kingfishers were zipping about.
Thursday 20 May It was not a nice day weather wise with showers and a very strong south east wind which is the worst wind we can have in low water, 1’3” and 51 degrees. Gene Godden here for 3 days along with Nigel Crosskell and David Nash, It was great to meet up with David again as he hasn’t been here for a good few years, Gene on the other hand has fished the Lees since 1984 and never missed a year even during covid last year he managed to get his summer and autumn trips in. No action this morning and in fact I only saw one fish which was in the Glide and was a river fish. This afternoon the wind had picked up and trying to fish the Cauld from the boat with an upstream gale wasn’t happening, I popped on a wee bottle tube on David’s line and he got it across the wind and covered the Slap a fish gave it a hard tug and was trying very hard to get unhooked, It swam straight towards us then thrashed and turned around and of course the hook let go. That was the only action for the day as the lads returned from the rest of the beat looking very weather beaten. Christian Bryce arrived late this afternoon to fish and is going to fish on late so hopefully he will find something. The rain seems to be all around us but not over us but it looks like it has caught the upper river we’ll see tomorrow.
Friday 21 May It was a stinker of a day, even my dogs were not keen to leave the nice warm fishing hut, it was a dreich day in the fullest sense of the word. 1’5” and slowly rising all day to 2’2” by 4.00pm with colour coming in, combine this with a north east wind and heavy showers between the light rain and you get the picture. Gene was on the Slap and Cauld this morning, we fished the Slap had a trip round the Cauld and even backed the Temple up which was the best bit not that we caught a fish but at least we were out of the wind, we did see a fish in the Slap just before lunch and it looked a bit coloured. The other two rods David and Nigel didn’t see anything either as they fished learmouth and the Iron Gate Glide area, David ventured round the corner to the Duddo but the waves coming upstream sent him back to the hut for an early start at lunch. As the river was getting bigger and more coloured we let David have a go at the Cauld with a 20g silver toby which resulted in a very sharp heavy tug more than likely a seatrout but it didn’t stick, that was the total action for the day. Will it fish tomorrow? It will be the colour that will stop us more than the height as there was 2’8” at Roxburgh this evening.
Saturday 22 May. A much better day weather wise but the river was up to 2’11” and dirty. Gene and the lads didn’t fancy it much and I fancied it even less so they bolted for home, he is back again in July when the weather will be perfect and the river full of big fat silver fish. According to the cheery weathergirl we are not out of the woods yet as there is rain for tomorrow and its not to warm up until mid week and even then its only going to reach 14 or 15c.
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©M Campbell 2021
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