news/editorial

16 June 2019 News/Editorial

Tweed’s rod catch last week, representing by far the best week of the season despite being just 3 or 4 proper days fishing for most, because of flooding on Thursday, was 181 salmon and 79 sea trout, making the totals to 15th June for the 2019 season 1,367 salmon and 281 sea trout (all within 90% accuracy).

For comparison, the totals to the same date in 2018 were 788 salmon and 113 sea trout.

So we have some water at last, mainly via the Teviot, Till and Whiteadder, the first reasonable, by no means big, rise for many weeks. It can do nothing but good at this time of year, encouraging fresh fish to come in from the sea and provide more water in which we can productively fish. Levels have already dropped from nearly 4ft on our gauge on Thursday evening to under 1ft 6” as this is being written on Sunday. Prospects for next week should be very good again, although with a far from settled forecast, it will be unsurprising if further heavy rain hits the catchment somewhere, and sometime, during the week.

The one thing it will not be, in stark contrast to last year, is anything like flaming June.

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There was some surprising reaction to the assertion in these pages last week that Tweed salmon fishers have not yet fully cottoned on to how good summer salmon fishing could be, in the almost complete absence of netting.

The crucial factors now are enough water and not too blazingly hot summers, 2018 being the epitome of exactly the conditions you do not want. But then is this drought/heat risk in summer any higher than the ever present risk in autumn fishing, especially when Novembers were so good, of being completely flooded off?

Summers like 2018 and 1976 are pretty rare, which is why we can remember them, for the most part they are temperate and damp affairs, with the average rainfall, even this far east at Coldstream, as high as it is in the winter months, with the wettest being August at just under 3 inches, but with June and July both well exceeding 2 inches. And unlike those short gloomy days of late October/ November, in the summer you have long evenings in which to catch both salmon and sea trout, if the sun has been shining too strongly during the day.

If this sounds like a blatant plug for Tweed summer fishing, it is, unashamedly. Not only is it clear that salmon anglers have not worked out the full potential in the summer, maybe even some proprietors have not either.

The long held belief that Tweed salmon fishing is spring and autumn, and not summer, is old hat. It is now all three. With summer, given water, most probably the pick.

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And finally, the Tweed Foundation has launched “The Great Tweed Raffle” the proceeds of which will go towards their vital work on our smolts, on which the future of all our fishing depends. Here is the link, there are some really good prizes so please do buy some tickets and help in a really excellent/vital cause https://www.rivertweed.org.uk/news/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Tweed-2019-Raffle-Prizes.pdf