Week beginning 24th September
Monday was the sort of day that you wouldn’t put a wheelie bin out with rain and gales all day, but Lees fishers are a hardy bunch and the lads struggled on all day and managed 9 fish, the best of them a 17lb licer from the back of the wall to Peter Williamson followed by a 13lb licer to birthday boy Rob Jameson, Norman Livings was top dog getting 4 from the Cauldstream in rapid succession and poor old David Thomas was the dugs tail blanking for the day. We knew what to expect for Tuesday and were not surprised by big brown water at 6’6” and rising fast with all sorts of rubbish coming down, but luckily for us a north east wind keeps it on the other side of the river and our bank stays nice and clean. Tuesday River made about nine and a half feet at the Lees so no fishing and Wednesday it had dropped to six and a half feet so no fishing, the rods took themselves off for a trip to Hardy’s at Alnwick and called in at Bamburgh for fish and chips and candy floss. The river was rising again at the top end Wednesday night so that put paid to Thursday. Friday we managed to get onto the river it was too big for most of the beat and windy but we found four sharp eyed Salmon On Saturday we were disappointed to find the river still had a bit of colour and the wind was horrendous, I reckon my arms are about four inches longer rowing in that, but efforts were rewarded with 6 fish, Simon Wood who only popped in for a day managed three from the Temple and Steve Battersby who managed not to fall in this trip had two from the Cauld in the afternoon, all in all not the best week of the season, the river is taking an age to drop and looking at the river heights at lunchtime on Sunday I see it’s on the way up again so will be brown again tomorrow. The same week last year we had sixty one fish and a suntan this year nineteen and lucky to get them as not seeing the amount of fish I would expect to see but maybe we have been spoiled over the last two or three years.