Week beginning 26th November
Monday- started much the same as Saturday past had finished with a big dirty river so no fishing, two of the rods had decided not to travel and two had, so Monday was spent trolling round the tackle shops followed by a very suspicious Scotch pie washed down with a couple of drams of the finest malt, braw. Tuesday- After raining all day on Monday there was only going to be result, the river was bigger and browner. The two rods took themselves off to fish the middle Ettrick no fish were caught but I heard through the grapevine that Steve Battersby (who’s fallen in more than anyone I know) nearly caused a blackout in Selkirk, he managed somehow to get his fly line over some power cables that crossed the river, now that I have to say takes a cast with some degree of skill. For the regular readers of this report who will have seen him mentioned before he survived the encounter minus half a fly line and a perm that will last a lifetime. Wednesday- The bold Steve arrived back at the Lees looking none the worse for his adventure on the Ettrick but unfortunately on gauge was showing 3’9“ and still full of colour so the white flag was raised yet again and they head for home. The forecast for the last two days of the season is settled weather with a bit of a cold north wind so that will drop the river a bit, well at least get it to a fishable height (just) as there is so much water lying about in the fields, I have my doubts that we are going to add much to the score in the next two days though. Thursday- Much colder start and the Lees gauge at 3’0” still slightly murky but fishable. The two Holland brothers Paul and Carl turned up full of enthusiasm and Carls was rewarded with a 12lb hen from the Temple which wasn’t fresh but keep able had it been a cock sort of fish if you know what I mean, we also had three Kelts one of them would struggle to one and a half pounds soaking wet, there were very few showing but it is the 29th of November. Friday- Well the last day of the season and what did it bring? One big Kelt. The lads covered the water but nothing to show for their efforts, there was next to nothing showing and certainly nothing fresh so by three o clock we waved the white flag and called it a day and got the boats off the water followed by a firework display to finish in style it didn’t half move some ducks about. Six pm off to Kelso for the annual Ghillies dinner in the British legion where Bill Quarry presided over some prize giving with difficulty as the Tweed Ghillies are a fairly noisy lot once they have had a few drams and they certainly had a few. I’ll post a season round up once I get my head round it, but not today as it’s a bit fuzzy.