Week beginning 25 July 2016
Monday 25th July. A blustery day with overcast skies and the odd shower. 1’2” and 60 degrees. Francis Sanderson and Vicky here for the day, They have both fished the Lees a few times and know what they are doing but they couldn’t tempt a fish from the Lees today, in fact it was very quiet on the fresh fish front just a few river fish showing today. Birgham Dub on the other hand had a good day getting 9 and Tillmouth getting 6 one of them 18lb, it’ll be our turn tomorrow.
Tuesday 26th July. Still a tad beery and 1’3” with a water temp of 60degs. Harry Birket and pals here for a couple of days and Rodger was the lucky lad getting a 10lb fresh hen from Learmouth stream which he returned (good boy), but he also lost a good fish at the Iron gate point using fluorocarbon (bad boy) Got some strimming done and a few logs sorted out. Still not seeing fish in any sort of numbers.
Wednesday 27th July. Much the same as yesterday weather wise. 1’3” and 60 degs with a beery tinge, a couple of gauges rising at the top of the river so no doubt it’ll have a bit more colour tomorrow. No reports of fish landed today so far unless someone gets one this evening. Harry reports seeing a good number in Learmouth stream but no pulls. Strimmed the Bags this afternoon not one of my favourite jobs as it’s so uneven and rocky, you can hardly see where you are going mix that with all the shit that gets thrown onto the visor along with the sweat running into your eyes and you get the picture. At the time of writing there are only 3 fish reported today but I’m sure that’ll change as often fish are not reported until late on or even next day when the Ghillie finds out about them.
Thursday 28th July. 1’9” and on the murky side so I wasn’t too hopeful about catching a fish, a seatrout perhaps. Fished the Slap first and saw some fish quite a few fish actually but no pulls then into the Cauld with an intermediate line and a Temple shrimp tube but again nothing, finally a sunray down the lower Cauld and we had a boil but that was it for the day. Nigel came back up reporting that they had seen plenty fresh looking fish but not a pull to be had. Black water again the sort that runs out of the drains and off the roads it’s never good. I went back to lock up the hens and put a sunray across the Slap and hook what I thought was a seatrout to start with but on landing it it looked more like a big cannibal Brown trout, photo taken which is at top of page, the photo doesn’t do it justice as it was around 7lbs with a huge head, I returned it but with hindsight I should perhaps of smacked it one as it didn’t get to that size eating tups indispensables. Hopefully it’ll be clearer tomorrow.
Friday 29th July. Still black water with us today which I don’t like, it didn’t seem to be bothering Tillmouth who had 4 I’m maybe being presumptive but I reckon they’d be spinning which would be the sensible thing to do in this colour. Anyway back to the fly on the Lees and we had a bit of a boil at a sunray in the Slap on a sunray then a splash at a skimmer in the Cauld, this afternoon Louisa Houldsworth who had her circle “c” up to speed got a hold of a nice fish in the Slap on a #6 sort of green cascade, it was almost in the net and pinged off, photos on instagram. That was it for the day, there’s a wee rise coming down the Teviot yet again which is a bugger and at 8.00pm it’s up 3” with us, so we’ll see what tomorrow brings.
Saturday 30th July. 1’5” and 60 degrees still a bit beery but better than yesterday. Louisa was on the Slap and cauld this morning but even though she was casting like a champion not a pull was had apart from a couple of very greedy trout, we did see two fish in the Cauld but they only showed the once so maybe they were runners. The rest of the team fared slightly better having a pull in the Back of the wall and a hold of a fish briefly in the Middle stream. What we really need is a proper flood a five footer to clean things out. No report next week as its Coldstream Civic week common riding.
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