Week beginning 3 April 2017
Monday 3rd April. A nice enough day for a Monday and the water has started to drop at last. 2’5” on the Lees gauge. Ron Charlton, John Wilkinson, Jeff Popplewell, Christopher Scott and James Auld here who gave it a good go but all we had to show for it was one wee brown trout, that was in fact the only fish we saw all day. There was one caught at South Wark and the good news is there was a fish caught at Milne Graden so hopefully tomorrow it’ll be our turn. No trout rise today and just a very small hatch of flies.
Tuesday 4th April. A sunny day but a fairly brisk North West wind blowing straight down the river but it did nothing to dampen the excitement of seeing fresh fish showing on the beat at last. Up in the ledges this morning with Jeff we saw 3 fish, all of them in a full head and tail upstream charge, and this afternoon there were two in the Slap one in the cauld and one also seen in Learmouth, we never had a nibble off any of them but hope springs eternal for tomorrow. There was the odd fly coming down around lunchtime but I never saw a trout rise. It’ll be better tomorrow.
Wednesday 5th April. Well it was a better day with less wind but we didn’t see so much as a scale today, our fish from yesterday have buggered off, Lower North Wark had 3 licers this morning so that could have been some of them. I gave Bob Millar a run through the Temple this morning then the Cauld where I thought we couldn’t fail, even did the tail end for an hour without seeing a fish and it’s now in perfect condition. The rest of the team fared no better which is just as well for Craig Cockburn as he had a £5 on with Bob that he’d get the first fish, he might one day but not today. The Trout and March Browns are keeping it all a bit secret at the moment as by the 5th of April they should be all over the place, maybe tomorrow. It’ll be about as good as it can get condition wise tomorrow so if we don’t get a fish or two we’ll blame it all on Brexit.
Thursday 6th April. 1’11” at last, and a fish at last. The great event took place this afternoon in the Cauld, the lucky lads was Sandy Scott who’d covered the bottom end of the beat this morning without a touch or even a sight of a fish. I’d just said to him if we don’t get a fish in the next 100 yards we’re never going to get one, 10 casts or so later and a lovely 10lb licer was on, quickly landed and returned without leaving the water.(see instagram for photos). The rest of the team fished hard all day but with no success. Still no sign of any March Browns which is very late, but not as late as John Dresser who was booked in for today but thought it was tomorrow, so when he phoned at lunchtime to find out what things were like and to say he’d be here around 9.00am I had to break the bad news. It happens; there was one team who turned up a week early, hotel booked, holidays taken, always pays to check. Off to give a talk at Kelso women’s church group tonight so that’ll be fun.
Friday 7th April. 1’10” and 48 degrees and squeaky clean. Trish Burgon (queen of the slap) and husband John joined us today; John graciously gave way to Trish and let her have first dibs at the slap and cauld. On our second run down through the cauld fishing from the right side we saw a fish opposite the boat dock on the other side this caused a swift manoeuvre with the boat and we dropped down to the last sighting of said fish. We were on our last cast as we’d covered the area when it took to our right, the boat must have pushed it across a bit. It was a lovely wee fish of 5lbs and carrying tide lice. John Wilkinson fished learmouth stream from top to bottom but never saw a fish but there were a couple of fish seen in the Iron gate and the Glide.
Saturday 8th April. A lovely sunny day across the whole country today. At the Lees the gauge was reading 18” and water temp was 48 degrees, this however didn’t seem to perk the fish up as nothing was caught at the Lees and only 10 reported off the whole river. I was at North Berwick today; I’ve not been there since I was a kid so there are a few changes to the place, the swimming pool is now a car park and the amusement arcade has gone possibly been pushed into the hole where the pool used to be, nothing stays the same I suppose, anyway it’s a lovely place well looked after and nice and tidy. Prospects for next week are water staying low as no proper rain on the horizon that I can see but it’s going to be very windy mid week and cooler than of late.
See instagram for latest photos. https://www.instagram.com/tweedbeats/
©M Campbell 2017
our twitter feed