27 October News/Editorial
The clocks have changed, a storm is attacking the south, shades of 1987, maybe just giving Tweed a glancing blow with its rain, nobody is 100% sure, such is the chaos of incredibly fast moving intense low pressure systems hurtling our way out of the South Atlantic and the Bay of Mexico.
The jet stream in the upper atmosphere is pouring wind and rain at us at 200mph, like uncorking a well shaken bottle of Krug, the blocking Azores and Continental highs long gone.
Worse than last year, this is turning into the autumn from hell for Tweed anglers, 8 weeks of persistent drought and heat, followed now by floods (and heat). The fish needed floods, so that’s fine, but will they ever stop?
It is the warmth which is so astonishing, here we are almost November, and it might have been cold for 5 minutes, but no more.
“Perfect” fishing height here, when all the pools are fishable, is between 1ft 3”and 2ft 3” on our gauge. Analysis of our autumn catches shows we catch just over twice as many fish on days fishing between those heights, than when either above or below.
Of the 54 (9 weeks) days fishing to 26th October this year (2013), only 13 days have been at that “perfect” height, 35 days below 1ft 3” and only 6 (mostly last week) above 2ft 3”.
In 2012, over the same period, 23 days were at the “perfect” height, 31 days above 2ft 3” and none, yes none, below 1ft 3”.
Therefore, in these two autumns (so far) of weather extremes, this means that out of the total 108 days fishing, only 36 (exactly one third) have been at “perfect” height.
Now I know keen mathematicians will notice all sorts of flaws in my logic, not least that there are many other variables than water height, that I have chosen an arbitrary range for “perfect” of 1ft (I would argue quite a generous one), and of course the effect of high and low, not “perfect” water, will vary depending on where you are on the river (eg very high, not good below Coldstream; very low, not good above Kelso).
Nevertheless , had we had “perfect” height (say) two thirds of the time instead of one third, my (no doubt flawed) logic says what we all instinctively know, it would have a made a significant difference to catches.
Unlike the spring, we only get a short time to catch autumn fish, some floods and they are gone, one of the reasons Dr Ronald Campbell’s tagging exercises show that we almost never catch more than 1 in 20 on rod and line.
So did we ever have a perfect fishing autumn?
If you look at 2010, the height here was “perfect” pretty much right through October, and it was nothing like as warm as this year.
It was the best October the river has ever had; ok it was a big fish year, but how many of them would we have caught with 2013 fishing conditions?
Nothing like as many.
In the last 2 weeks of October 2010, we caught 167 salmon here and I know many other beats caught similar, or more.
The whole of last week water heights were way above the “perfect” height range, and if the forecast is right, next/this week looks similar. As the water clears quicker the higher up the river you are, and as the fish are now up there, Galashiels and upwards could be the place to be.
And how many will we catch here?
Nothing like 167, and, sadly for those fishing, maybe not even a fraction of that. Not until it calms down.
As the Americans (almost) put it, it’s the weather, stupid.
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