Week beginning 23 October 2017
Monday 23rd October. A mild morning warm even. 2’8” and 48 degrees water temp and a lot cleaner than of late. Team Godden here for three days and they were soon on the water and thrashing away. It didn’t make any difference today how hard they thrashed as we never had so much as a pull. 2’8” on the Lees gauge and fairly clean is spot on for the Temple (almost) but fish were scarce and a fresh one scarcer. There were a good number of leaves in the water today and that will get worse if the wind picks up. Catches on the river were up on last week, the water levels helping but still shocking compared to “the good old days” all of 5-6 years ago, seems a distant memory now. There’s a wee bit of light rain going through and I really hope that the river continues to drop so we can spread round the beat a bit as I’m starting to get cabin fever being stuck at the top end every day for weeks. Score for the day 2 wee trout and 2 rats.
Tuesday 24th October. 2’4” and 50 degrees but nice and clean now so no excuses. Gene Godden was the lucky boy today getting an 11lber from the Cauld this morning, the fish was clean, not liced/fresh but in with the better ones we’ve had this month. That was the only pull of the day until this evening when one was caught in the Lower Cauld which was a 17lb old cock. Paul and Gene fished Learmouth this afternoon and reported seeing plenty fish but couldn’t get a pull from them, down at the Iron Gate and Glide this morning it was very quiet and in fact I only saw the one fish all morning. We are still waiting for the colder weather to arrive and the weatherman is saying it should cool down this weekend. Leaves were becoming a bit of a problem today, not bad enough to switch to a single but getting one every 15 casts or so. A nice day is forecast for tomorrow but more wind and you all know how much I like the wind.
Wednesday 25th October. Well thats it for Team Godden and it wasn’t their finest trip to Tweedside, water on the big side although it’s the cleanest it’s been for weeks now, a lack of fish in the pools, certainly a lack of taking fish. Toby Kemble lost one in the Cauld this morning but that was the only pull of the day. The wind today didn’t help things as it was a bit of a blow from the west. Looking across the websites this evening the top beats by a distance are the Wark beats (South and Lower North) with 5 between them and Ashiestiel with 9 so that kind of shows where the fish are, as they should be at this time of year following all that big water, there’s just nothing coming in to replace them at the moment. Highlight of the day apart from Toby losing his fish was dropping a Carrion Crow at a fair distance (for me anyway) and finding another rat in the trap, getting one or two a night at the moment. The leaves were less of a problem today even though it was a stronger wind but come Sunday/Monday it’s to blow from the North so that will fill up the river down here. I had a few casts in the Glide this morning as Gene was on a coffee break and its the first time since Feb/March that I’ve used a full sinking line a 10/11 weight forward, and no thanks! I’m not that keen to use one again. New team on tomorrow so they’ll be keen so we’ll see what happens.
Someone must have fat fingers at Ashiestiel as they only had 1, 9lbs I presume.
Thursday 26th October. A nice day on the river with Team Weston and Team Newstead, they’re all one team really. Anyway 2’1” 49 degrees and squeaky clean, now a few years ago we’d have filled our boots and the boat but not today, even though the conditions were perfect the only fish of the day came from the Babyhouse and was caught by Duncan Weston on a #6 Posh Tosh on a inter sinktip, thats is something I would not have put money on happening this morning. Lower North Wark and Birgham Dub were the lucky rods today, the North Wark fish were all old I’ve not heard about the Dub fish. There were 14 fish reported on tweedbeats website tonight, I don’t know about Fishtweed as the website is down (bit embarrassing) still these things happen. I didn’t see many fish again today and in fact in the Cauld this afternoon I only saw the one fish which showed a few times in the same spot. There was a couple in the Slap but it looked like it had been a few months since they had tasted salt water. I think I’ll stick my head above the parapet and say that I don’t think that the backend run is going to happen this year.
Friday 27th October. It was a lovely day today with blue skies and no wind, what made it even better was Jeremy caught two fish in Learmouth stream, 12lbs and 15lbs both old but they made his day. Mark Newstead lost one just above the Otter stones and this afternoon Tim Springham lost a good sized fish in the Back of the Wall when his leader snapped, it wasn’t fluorocarbon I checked. He was on 15lb Maxima so must have had a nick in the leader, stood on it or something like that. Big Tod from Canada had a pull in the cauld this morning and that made up the action for the day.Again catches were quiet up and down the river fishtweed website is still down so I’m not sure what’s on there but my lunchtime round robin text didn’t turn up many fish. Someone suggested it’s maybe crashed with so many people trying to book fishing.
Saturday 28th October. 1’9” and 49 degrees squeaky clean. Mark Newstead was on form in the Cauld this morning getting two fish one of them a 12lb licer; he got them both on a fast sinktip and a Willie Gunn tube, there was also a fish from the Slap, a guest of Andrew who’d never fished before had an 11lber. This afternoon Duncan Weston had a 9lber from Learmouth stream and lost another when he was too busy telling everyone that he’d hooked one. Young Tom who tried harder than anyone didn’t get a touch but deserved one and Tim who shook off the biggest fish of the week yesterday also failed despite casting his fly across the border. So a better week than I thought we’d have and a fresh fish as well, there was a report of a licer being caught in the St Boswells area so there is the odd one coming in which is better than last year. Will it continue? I’ve no idea. Clocks go back tonight so shorter days next week, it’ll be dark by 5.00pm and I hate it almost as much as the wind.
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©M Campbell 2017
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