Week beginning 27 May 2019
Monday 27th May. An overcast day with a slight North east wind, 4” or there about’s and 54 degrees. Phil Fisher and team here. Draw done tackle sorted out and everyone off to their respective beats, Vincent was on the Slap and Cauld along with Rodger Wadsworth as they are sharing a rod, Vincent once he got the hang of the cast got a fly into the right spot and had a fish on, it got about 4 yards from the net and ping it was off, trying to ignore the howls of pain I could see a fresh fish about the 11lb mark gliding back into the depths, it happens. That sadly was the only action we had today, it was much quieter today than last week with only 3-4 fish seen all day, on the more encouraging front there were a few fish caught below us today so perhaps another wee run is coming in. We’ll find out tomorrow.
Tuesday 28th May. River was up a couple of inches today and would be around 7” on the Lees gauge if it reached the water. This caused a bit of blanket weed to lift of the bottom causing the hook to require cleaning a fair bit. Brian had a licer from the Duddo this morning on a #10 cascade sort of thing, Rodger Wadsworth lost one in the Duddo and Colin Chisholm lost one in the Slap due to hanging on to it a bit too hard and snapping the hook, to be fair I don’t think the hook was all that strong in the first place. The second fish was also caught by Brian from the Slap on the same fly as this morning. We did see some fresh fish on the move today but this wasn’t reflected in the catches across the websites, maybe they’ll turn up tomorrow.
Wednesday 29th May. River up an inch or two and a south west wind, not too strong but enough to make covering the Slap a bit harder. Colin Monk had a big boil at a sunray in the slap this morning whilst down on the Glide Colin Chisholm made up for his error on Tuesday by landing the only fish of the day which was a fresh 10lber. A pair of ospreys turned up this morning with one of them getting a small fish from the Cauld on its third dive, they are a rare sight this year thanks to the cormorants eating all the trout/grayling. Changeover day tomorrow with Team Burley arriving. Latest- I popped along to lock up my hens had a quick chuck in the Slap and had a 7lb river fish on a #10 cascade.
Thursday 30th May. Team Burley here for three days and they’ve brought the rain with them, 7” on the gauge and 54 degrees with a bit of blanket weed in the water. The lads fished round the whole beat, well the bits that are worth fishing at least and not a pull was to be had. I was busy showing Mark how to cast when it all went wrong as his 4 piece 14’0” rod is now a 5 piece Oops! We saw a fish in the Iron Gate and a few in the Slap but none wanted to play. The rain started around lunchtime and is still coming down now at 7.30pm, I imagine that the ground and plants will take up the most of it but we’ll find out tomorrow.
Friday 31st May. A windy start to the day which turned into a near gale by lunchtime, this didn’t bother Norman Taylor who after blanking in the Slap went into the Cauld and after trying the right bank and giving up, (it was me who gave up)due to weed being recycled in the backwater. The left bank was next and its only a couple of casts worth, Norman only needed one when he said I’ve got a fish on! Well you’d better wind it in then as he was looking at me for conformation I think. The fish was a nice 7lb hen which took a #10 cascade double fished on a floater with a 5’0” inter tip. This afternoon the river had risen 6” and there was a lot of weed coming down, by this evening the Lees gauge was showing 1’6”, hopefully the weed will run through us overnight and it won’t colour up too much for tomorrow. Highlight of the evening was finding my neighbour’s cat asleep in my polytunnel, I was there with my hose to water my plants so I watered the cat first, it’s amazing how tough the polythene sides are as the cat was fairly bouncing off them as it tried to escape the deluge. My neighbour will be thinking there’s been some cloudburst outside; the cat will be thinking I’m not going for a kip in there again.
Saturday 1st June. The cat got its revenge as it was back during the night and must have brought some friends with it as my beetroot bed was dug over also the middle of my leek bed has a hole in it, Its the fact they’ve not just dug a hole but they shit all over the place, I do have netting over the beds but it somehow managed to get under, I’ll not be so lenient the next time we cross paths. Anyway the fishing, 1’6” and 54 degrees, the water was clear but there was a lot of blanket weed coming down, so much that it was weed almost every cast on the fly, the lads soon got sick of this and by late morning decided to head for home. Not too bad a week really with 5 landed and a couple lost. 27 fish for May all on the fly and all safely returned is better than last year by a distance as we only had 19 for the whole spring and 9 of them were caught in one week. That puts us up to 65 for the season with the next three months potentially being the best three of the year nowadays, there is still the odd rod available during the summer so if a bit of water comes in I’d be booking something before it goes. There is also the seatrout fishing to consider and extensive evening fishing with the long daylight hours.
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