Week beginning 8 March 2021
Monday 8th March. What a great start to the week with 5 licers landed on the beat today, first to get on the scoreboard was Steve Robins who lives in Coldstream, he had a 9lber from the Lower Cauld and followed that up with an 11lber from Learmouth stream this afternoon. The other rod on the beat today was Jonathon Reddin who was obviously spurred into action by fishing pal Steve getting two, having blanked this morning he made up for it catching 3 from the Lower Cauld before he fell in, it was a proper immersion just the hat sticking out the water, just a pity no one had a camera running at the time. 1’9” and 40 degrees squeaky clean. It is a real shame that a storm is coming in Tuesday night through to Thursday as it’ll ruin the rest of the week. 14 fish reported across the websites tonight.
Tuesday 9th March. An overcast day with the Lees gauge reading 1’10” and 42 degrees nice and clean, now the more observant of you will have noticed that is up an inch from yesterday, there was a pickle rain over the Hawick way last night. John Muir was here for the day and despite covering all the hot spots he couldn’t get a pull, Paul was the lucky one again getting a fresh/liced 7lber from the Cauld on the same orange and black tube. Tonight 8.30pm the forecast wind is picking up and the rain on the radar is into the west so by tomorrow morning it could be a brown river.
Wednesday 10th March. Ian Jones and son Ross who live just up the road at Heiton joined us today but they were keeping pace with the rise as they drove down here and by the time we got onto the water we only managed an hour’s fishing before it was on us, it was up too 4’6” and filthy this afternoon, with more rain tonight and the top gauges rising again any useful fishing this week is very unlikely, there is also a small matter of a 50mph wind to contend with and regular readers will know how much I like the wind.
Thursday 11th March. Windy again in fact very windy, a double pegger if you had any washing on the line. All the gauges were rising this morning, falling by mid afternoon then some rising again this evening, the river is a dark milky coffee colour and that more or less closes this week’s fishing down. Got a few seeds planted this afternoon in the propagator, onion sets planted in the polytunnel along with red and yellow shallots, end of the month I’ll risk puting my first early spuds in.
Friday 12th March. Another windy day but drier apart from the odd heavy shower, 3’6” this morning and dirty, it is dropping and clearing but slowly. We took down a rotten Beech tree on the Temple bank so that’s a bit of firewood for next winter once its dried. Popped up to Kelso for my eye test and find out why my eyes have been so itchy, I can’t pronounce what it is or begin to spell it but I was issued with some drops that will sort the problem I’m told. Kelsae and Mammoth onion seedlings transplanted into bigger pots, (every one a show winner) if there is a show this year, otherwise Sally will be into the garden and have them turned into chutney and relish as soon as they are big enough. She is normally not allowed into the veg garden unsupervised as there have been a few disasters over the years. The beats above the Teviot might be having a go tomorrow but it’s still a bit too big down here apart from Upper North Wark who like high water.
Saturday 13th March. 3’4” rising and colouring, thats March for you the cruellest month, looks like it’ll settle down a bit next week with winds from the north, better put a sheet of bubble wrap over my seedlings. As ever follow Tweedbeats on instagram for latest pics n clips. © M Campbell 2021