Week beginning 24 September 2018
Monday 24th September. 1’5” and 46 degrees with just a touch of beery colour. We had 12 today making it our best day of the season, almost all river fish apart from two of them being slightly clean in a good light. Ian Black was top rod getting 5 and a 12lb seatrout making his flight up from London last night worthwhile and as I write this he’ll be on the plane on his way back to London. We also lost a few fish and had a good number of pulls. The best fish was caught by Dave Foreman from the Bags which would have tipped the scales at 20lbs. Floaters with various sinktip were the order of the day or an intermediate in the deeper faster bits, flies almost whatever you like. Today we were using a #8 Willie Gunn treble, 1 ½” Black and Yellow conehead, #8 Gledswood shrimp plus others.
Tuesday 25th September. 1’3” and 48 degrees with just the slightest tinge. Well the bubble burst if it ever was a bubble, we only had one fish today, which was caught by Matt Baker from the Slap and weighed in at a hefty 5lbs. I only saw 3 fish all day which makes me say they have buggered off upstream somewhere. Tillmouth still seem to have fish about the place as they had 15 again today, every beat seems to get a turn and this year its Tillmouth so good luck to them while it lasts as soon as a proper flood comes the fish will spread up the river and everyone will hopefully have a chance. The wind this afternoon didn’t help as it really blew from the south west, nothing like as strong as last week but enough to affect the fishing. It could all chance again tomorrow and the beat could be full of fish again but I have my doubts, we need more water. Latest- Matt Baker who was blown off Learmouth this afternoon stayed on and moved down to the Iron Gate and had 4 fish the best being 20lbs, Perry fishing Learmouth had 1 and numerous pulls so it would seem that some fish have moved up. Well done them.
Wednesday 26th September. The bloody wind was still blowing this morning and it bloody well blew all Effing day, I took Nick Woodhouse into the Slap and Cauld for an hour and that was long enough due to the wind and the height. At 1’0” there’s not a lot of fishing in the Cauld and there was none in the Temple as you’d need a crossbow to get the fly across, we moved down to Learmouth and the fly was blown downstream at 90 degrees to the rod, the Glide and the Cornhill bend/Duddo were the only calmish bits. Matt Baker did well getting two fish from the Iron Gate and a wee fresh Grilse from the Back of the wall, Nick Woodhouse deserved a fish for dedication but sometimes you need a bit of luck. Andrew picked up a couple this evening as well as a seatrout, so 5 for the day was a half decent score. The water temp which was 46 degrees yesterday morning jumped to a toasty 54 this morning due to the warm windy front. There are a few inches coming down the Ettrick and the Teviot tonight so that’ll stop it dropping anymore at least. Reports of a fresh 30lber being caught at Birgham Dub today and they reported a 27lber yesterday, that’s tow very good fish given the conditions. Paul Tautz was fishing with us today as well but took one look at the conditions and said f that and went home, I’d liked to have followed him. Catches were lower across the websites due to the warmer water no doubt.
Thursday 27th September. The river was rising this morning and it really put the fish’s heads down, I only saw 2 fish all day, it crept up to 1’7” by lunchtime and took on a grey colour. Team Cadzo here for three days and they covered all the likely spots this morning despite a very strong wind blowing down the river yet again. Despite everyone being a tad gloomy today this could set us up for tomorrow as it’ll clear, there’s going to be a big drop in temperature and fish will come pushing up from lower down, so it’ll be smiles all round tomorrow. It was 16 degrees overnight last night but tonight it’ll be 2-3 degrees so that will tighten things up a bit.
Friday 28th September. It was a cold start with a touch of frosty this morning but it was calm and the sun was out and soon warmed things up. I took Jonathon onto the Slap and Cauld and I thought we would have two or three fish by the time we got through them but we never had a touch and in fact we never saw a fish in the Cauld all morning. Ian Cadzo got a wee coloured grilse down at the Iron Gate and that was the only pull of the morning. This afternoon Jonathon had a 5lb freshish grilse from Learmouth stream on a #10 cascade double and Mark Newstead lost a coloured fish whilst beaching it in the Glide. Having not seen a fish in the Cauld this morning Paul saw at least 20 in there this afternoon but couldn’t get a pull from them. The catches on the whole river were nothing to get excited about, Birgham Dub being top beat with 6, so where have all the fish gone that were here on Monday, with the 12 we landed and the amount of pulls we had our score could have been 30 for the day, they’ve just disappeared. A bit of cloud tomorrow and a bit of wind to go with it so that might change things for us. Puppy Jock enjoyed his day though, meeting his first salmon face to face then licking it clean and trying to eat it’s pectoral fin before I got it bagged up. It’ll be better tomorrow
Saturday 29th September. Thats September over then for another year fishing wise at least and it was our best September since 2013 so things are looking up. 1’3” and 48 degrees nice and clean but that bloody wind was back again. Paul Over casting his fly into the distance had a 17lber from Learmouth stream whilst Ian Cadzo had a 16lber from the Slap along with 3 boils at a sunray in the Cauld. Mark Newstead lost a good fish around the 13lb mark which was just about in the net. I saw more fish today, none looked like they’d seen a tide louse for a while but at least there were fish about. It’s getting on the low side again which makes the Cauld a small pool with those bloody backwaters pulling the water away to the side but the middle and lower part of the beat is fine.
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©M Campbell 2018
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