Week beginning 28 June 2021
Monday 28th June. The sun shone down on us today and I caught too much of it as this evening my eyes are stinging and face burning even though I had sunscreen on, don’t think I drank enough either. Anyway 7” or thereabouts on the gauge and 60f. A few fish showing in the Slap and Jonathan Reddin caught one of them a fresh 8lber on his fav wee black and yellow tube this morning. Paul Holland and Grandson Ed are here for a couple of days for Edd to get his casting up to speed before they head to the Spey, also joined today by Nick Gurr who was here last year in June when fresh silver salmon were jumping around all over the place so it’s a bit of a contrast this year. Local rod Steve Robins who is always as keen as mustard is also here for two days but in these conditions you need more than keenness a large slice of lucky pie is required. Fish sightings were scarce Jonathan did have another pull in the Iron Gate but that was all for today, I saw one silver fish in the Slap after lunch and something was splashing right up behind the Cauld, there is a big seatrout off the Cobble point that clears the water now and again. Another hot sunny day forecast tomorrow so more water down my neck and more sunscreen.
Tuesday 29th June. 6” and 60 degrees or thereabouts as its off the gauge, Steve Robins who started at the crack of dawn lost a fish in the Duddo which would set him back months and possibly a few visits to a fishy councillor. Young Ed was perfecting his snap “T” off the Slap croy when he had a pull on a micro tube, sadly that’s all it was no epic battle. Nick had a fish splash at his sunray in the Duddo this afternoon and that was all the fishy action today. The water is amazingly clean still, it usually takes on a sort of green tinge when its been hot and sunny but perhaps the cold snap on Friday and Saturday has helped to keep it at bay. I was going trout fishing tonight but a north wind has picked up and the temp dropped so I’ve spent the evening in the veg garden replanting my carrots and looking despairingly at my tomatoes which look like they have been stressed in April when I put them into the polytunnel, bright hot days in the tunnel followed by cold nights hasn’t done them any good and the Mrs is not amused at the prospect of a small crop for her chutney empire. Only 5 fish reported off the river today 4 below us and 1 about 30 odd miles above us.
Wednesday 30th June. Another month over and what have we all done, had our jags and maybe caught a fish and that’s a maybe if you were right place right time. 15 for the month, 58 last year with only 2 rods on and the weather much the same. Team Springham here for the rest of the week, good strong team but even they couldn’t manage a fish. Phil had a couple of bow wave follows at the sunray and that was about it. We saw some fish nothing fresh, 3 in the back of the wall, 1 in the Glide and 1 in the Iron Gate below that was blank, there were the usual suspects in the Slap keeping us entertained. The cloud cover and cold north wind which had been helping burned off by lunchtime leaving warm/hot sun and blue skies which did not help the fishing. Learmouth rods who had one in the morning out of the stream on a fly got two this afternoon on the upstream Johnny, it just seems a shame to be hassling the fish with spinners in this below summer level water, a wee fly on a floating line with perhaps a short sinktip seem to me to be fair play when the water temp this afternoon was touching 65f and fish are so scarce. Catches on the river websites were 5 fish!!!!!
Thursday 1st July. Well that’s us half way through the season and nothing to write home about yet. 5” on the Lees gauge if it went to 5” which it doesn’t but many years ago the gauge went into the minus but that was the old one but I remember how the water was on the Cauld so that’s where today’s heights come from. I saw a freshish fish in the Slap first thing but never saw it again so it’s maybe off up river, the Cauld was blank as usual it just doesn’t fish in low water, it only takes 5 minutes to fish it at this height. A fish or two were seen in the Glide and Back of the wall/Iron gate area but no pulls. The sun shone all day and it was calm so the pools were like sheets of glass, this afternoon I got a bit of strimming done down the Bags and the Glide as after that splash of rain the grass is loving the heat and growing fast, almost as fast as the weeds in my garden. These weeds have swamped my carrots under the micro mesh net so I bit the bullet and dug the lot up and replanted, they’ve only been in a month or so and there’s still time to plant autumn carrots. I was going to go trouting tonight but there’s not enough time after I came out of the garden so a bottle or two of cold beer beckon. Catches across the websites are two for the whole river both caught at Tillmouth.
Friday 2nd July. Another cracker of a day if you like crackers when you are salmon fishing. The team were on the water for 6.00am this morning but sadly it didn’t help them as not a nibble was had, Tim had a couple of follows to his sunray at the Iron Gate. If there are numbers of fish down on the tide they are going in and out with the tide as nothing is coming up the river as yet, catches reflect this as only 2 reported today.
Saturday 3rd July. The lads started early again this morning but it didn’t help the scores again. 5” and 64 degrees this morning with overcast skies. One or two fish moved to the sunray but no pulls, it was the same after lunch when a fish which looked fresh/clean really attacked the sunray in the Glide but still kept its mouth tightly shut. Heavy showers this afternoon which are to continue through the night and tomorrow a decent rise of water would be great but I can’t see it happening. Scores on the websites are shockingly low again despite hearing about numbers of fish in the bottom part of the river; if they were there in numbers surely some would be getting caught. 1 at Horncliffe, 2 at Ladykirk and 1 at Milne Graden are all I know of. I’m sure it’ll be better next week.
Follow tweedbeats on instagram for latest pics and clips
©M Campbell 2021
our twitter feed