Week beginning 3 October 2022
Monday 3rd October. 1’8” on the gauge and 50 degrees with a strong beery tinge to the colour. Team Flux/Sidoli here for the week, we got the draw done and everyone headed off to their respective beats. The Sidoli boys Dom and Chris drew Learmouth and shared 4 fish between them this morning; Francis on the Cauld/Temple had an 11lb hen and a 4lb seatrout, David had a 13lber from the Duddo and a wet foot which ended in a trip to Fin and Game for new waders, Nigel Woodruff had a 6lber from the Glide. This afternoon David Flux caught up with the boys getting a very respectable four, one from the Slap and 3 from the Cauld, Chris had 1 from the Iron Gate, Nigel 1 from the Duddo and 1 from the Slap, Andrew 1 from the Middle stream, so a decent spread round the beat. All fish were on sinktip lines and mostly black n yellow tubes a Gledswood shrimp being the favourite. I thought I’d see more fish today, maybe they had their heads down in the beery water or maybe there is not the weight of fish I was expecting, mind you 16 for the day is very good. Some beats had hardly seen a fish let alone catch one; it seems it just depends where they stopped. The upper beats are at last getting some action after waiting months but Milen Graden had 13 today showing they haven’t all shot upstream.
Tuesday 4th October. 1’4” and 52 degrees, too warm really a south wind has brought a warm front up when really we want a frost. Not so many fish showing today and in fact this morning I only saw 3 fish. Nigel lost a couple in the Cauld; Francis had 3 at the Iron Gate including 1 at 18lbs, David had a 13lb old croc from the top of the back of the wall, Dom and Chris blanked down on the Bags and Duddo. There were some heavy showers and the gauges by lunchtime showed the top of the Tweed, Teviot and Ettrick rising with more heavy rain forecast tonight and gales tomorrow is looking unlikely to be much use. This afternoon Dom had a 10lber from the Slap and a 4lber from the Lower Cauld, Chris lost a fish from the boat in the Cauld, David added a 13lber from the Glide, Nigel had a 13lber from Learmouth and Francis had a fish out of the Duddo. The scoreboard will show 11 for today but it’s actually 9 as I found out this morning about 2 caught last evening, which of course might change as the lads were still fishing when we left. Gledswood shrimps were the fly of choice along with a Junction shrimp on fast sinktips.
Wednesday 5th October. 2’6” and 50 degrees with a very murky water colour, some gauges were rising some were falling and some were falling then rising again all in all not great fishing conditions. Its a bit of a changeover day so some of the rods left early and 3 new rods in tomorrow. Francis stuck it out and managed a 5lb seatrout from learmouth this afternoon. Tonight some gauges are rising and some falling, I imagine tomorrow will be much like today.
Thursday 6th October. 2’10” and 50 degrees very mild and blowing a bit of a hoolie. Francis decided to have the morning off as he’d overdone it yesterday, a good decision really as the water was more than beery. I got Heidi Symington into the temple boat, it took me an age to row to the top to pick her up as at times I was being blown back down and vowed not to repeat it today. The wind up in the Ledges was too much so we dropped down to the bottom of the pool where we had some shelter from the wind, there were plenty fish running past both sides of us as we sat on the anchor getting Heidi’s casting up to speed. No pulls from anyone this morning. This afternoon we moved down to the Glide which at 2’7” is a big pool but sometimes they can be found creeping up the inside lane, both Heidi and husband Hugh were getting the idea of a left handed double spey when Hugh hooked a fish it was almost ashore when the hook let go, Heidi also lost one in the Glide, we moved up to the Iron gate where Heidi hooked and landed a 9lb old cock. Neil Andrews had a pull in the Cauld then went into the Lower Temple but neither he or Paul saw a fish. Francis had a hold of a decent fish in the Lower cauld which snapped his leader, I can only think he must have had a wind knot in the leader, he made up for this by landing a 10lber in the Ledges. The forecast that said showers for tonight is now saying the showers might band together into longer spells of rain which I really do not want, good for the fish bad for us.
Friday 7th October. 2’1” and 52 degrees with a strong beery colour much less wind though. Joined today by Richard Thomas who has fished Tweed and many other rivers for years so he had all the kit and all the idea. I took Richard up to the Ledges and he had a pull on his 3rd or 4th cast then it went quiet, we fished it down to the high bit of the wall without a touch and I was just about to say bugger it we’ll go to the Cauld when he hooked and landed a 7lb old hen, thats my first out of the Temple this year and in fact I think we’ve only had 4 in total, the Temple does not fish in warm/warmish beery water, there were fish being seen but they were on the move. We moved into the Cauld fishing it from the right bank and it took us to the last 20 yards where we found three fish that wanted Richards Junction shrimp, 13lb, 15lb, and 18lbs so a good morning. Neil Andrews and Paul managed a fish from Learmouth at 12lbs along with a good number of pulls. Francis fishing the bottom of the beat blanked along with Heidi and Hugh. This afternoon the river was on the rise yet again and this quietened thing down, Francis scraped onto the scoreboard with a 5lb hen from the cauld, Richard kept up the good work with a 5lber from the Back of the wall and a 4lb seatrout, Neil lost a fish at the Iron Gate, Heidi sporting her new waders blanked in the Duddo. The river was up 6” by close of play and a wee bit more colour in it, the worry is the Teviot which had 3’0” at Roxburgh that could put a lot of colour into it tomorrow; we just have to hope that there is enough water in the Teviot to dilute it. Catches upstream were on the low side possibly due to the rise, downstream the lowest fish to be caught were at Milen Graden, Ladykirk etc seem to have blanked.
On a sadder note bird flu is among us and the cygnets are dying at quite a rate, one family of five on the Temple have lost 3 in the last 2 days, there is a dead one below the hut another went floating past on Saturday, nothing we can do to help.
Saturday 8th October. The water did go up and it did colour up, not as bad as it could have been, we had a slow start due to the colour, Neil Andrews headed home as he’s got a busy day coming up, Francis went off shopping to return after lunch, Richard popped down to Norham to visit Bob Harrison who he used to fish with when Bob was Ghillie at West Learmouth. That left Heidi and Hugh who were sharing a rod who could both fish, Heidi was a lucky girl getting a fish out of the Temple just before lunch it was an old hen about 7lb but very welcome in the conditions. After lunch we had a full team out but Golden bollocks Francis was the only one to score getting three out of the Ledges at the top of the Temple at 12, 13 and 14lbs, he can find them. Not too bad a week considering the river was up and down like a yoyo, 43 for the week is a good score these days. Sadly for the rods coming on Monday rain is forecast for Sunday evening so if correct it’ll be back up and coloured again. As ever log on to instagram and follow tweedbeatsfishing. ©M Campbell 2022
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