Week beginning 6 May 2013
Monday 6th May Went up to the bakers this morning to get my bun for lunch and it’s shut, what’s going on? A bank holiday! It’s my lunch I want not an overdraft, I thought bank holidays were Christmas and Hogmanay, never heard the like! 1’6” 50degs clean bit of south west wind, fished Cauld and Slap all morning but not a touch we did see 3 or 4 fish but nothing looking fresh. Went down to Learmouth stream in the afternoon and straight away saw a few fresh fish, a few casts later and we had a 8lb tide licer then they were gone, a real case of right place right time, we took the fish on a floater with a intermediate tip and a #8 Cascade treble. Another pull from the Glide and that was it for the day. Tuesday 7th A lovely flat calm morning warm and sunny for the first time since last August as far as I remember, a lovely day it might be but it did nothing to improve the fishing, there were very few fish showing and even fewer taking. The afternoon was ruined by a very strong south east wind blowing straight up the river making casting a fly impossible so we had to resort to the dark art of spinning but still not a pull. Regular readers of this post will know how much I like the wind and a south east is the worst for the top end of the lees. (it made me swear). Wednesday 8th Much cooler day and that bloody wind again, fished all the pools on the beat but not a touch to be had, we did see a couple of small fresh fish in Cornhill bend and the Slap. Terri Wood thrashed her way through Cornhill bend and Duddo wading up to her lugs casting like a demon but to no avail. What a difference from last year when we had 11 fish for 5 days. I saw a pair of reed Buntings down the Back of the wall and the kingfisher along with the Otter was in the Cauld/Temple. 1’5” and 52 degs, so we switched to floaters with short intermediate lines and #8 trebles/doubles. Thursday 9th South east winds again blowing straight up the top end of the beat which made fly fishing the Cauld a bit of a challenge. Very few fish seen round the beat but Tayside raider Tony Black pulled one out of the bag from the Middle Stream, after having a boil at his Sunray shadow he switched to a Francis and had a liced 7lb fish but that was the only action of the day. We usually get a good few fish in May but they are not here yet, I’m sure it’s only a matter of days before a huge shoal arrives. Jim Reid and Tony never like to rush things as they like to take part in the ritual Whisky drinking competition in the hut before setting out onto the river with a rosy glow about them. Friday 10th Another quiet day on the river still a bit windy. 1’6” on the gauge and 51 degs, one pull in the Cauld on the fly first thing and that was it for the day. The Osprey brightened up the morning by plashing into the river below us and taking a decent Trout and of course we had the Lees Otter with us this afternoon, Smolts are starting to show in numbers now so let’s hope they make it the last few miles to sea, there doesn’t seem to be many Goosanders about to bother them at the moment. Also found another dead fish with fungus all over it in the back of the wall and one in Duddo, River went up 2 inch this afternoon, thats better than going down I suppose, hopefully better tomorrow. Saturday 11th Not a great day came across two dead fish in top of the Temple, nice silver fish but fungus all over their heads, that is six this week, text a few of the lads upstream and it seems that there are fungi fish all over the place, so no wonder the catches are going down, its a bit strange as by this time of year they are normally getting over it and we start catching fish with healed up grey scars on them. Tony Black one of Tayside’s finest Ghillies managed to hook one up the arse (not intentionally) which turned out to be one of the fungi fish so it was popped into a keep net so the tweed foundation could get some samples from it, it was then released and swam away quite happily, this of course will take some living down for Tony! A lot of the beats I spoke to had their rods leaving at lunchtime with the catches being so poor so lets hope we can have a bit of a flood to wash out all these sick fish and bring in some new stock. The forecast looks to be unsettled into next week with rain tomorrow and showers through the first part of next week, it would be nice if that bloody wind would lie down.
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