3 July 2016 News/Editorial
Some snippets this week as I go off on hols, three days golf at some wonderful links courses just north of Dublin, then direct to Portugal to escape this British autumnal summer.
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The beneficiary of all this changeable, cool stuff is the fishing, which has kept going below Kelso despite low water levels, with no proper flood since March. It would be better still if we could get 3 or 4 feet of water, for there do appear to be fresh fish coming in, despite no encouragement.
1st July has passed, the time when the rods can kill what they catch, although one hopes “restraint” is the keyword because anything with any colour about if will be an old springer and should still be spared.
The rods cannot kill old springers on the one hand and go about complaining about nets killing springers on the other. It is perfectly possible for rods to go on catching old springers right through July and August, and very easy to spot them as they go increasingly red, green, yellowish and all sorts of colours, other than silver.
They should all be released as per the Tweed Spring Salmon Code.
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My contacts on the Spey say there seems to be a shortage of sea trout there as well.
This is not like the old days at Knockando, where in the gloaming in the tail of that great pool, Polarder, sea trout would boil and leap about everywhere, and you were bound to catch two or three, exceptional sport on a single handed rod, especially if you found yourself playing a salmon by mistake.
Although a comparative lack of sea trout so far is a concern, most would trade that any day for improved runs of salmon as compared to the last 2 years.
Perhaps only on the Till do anglers take fishing for the sea trout, on the Tweed they are a happy and welcome bi-product of renting the salmon fishing.
Even after last summer and some significant sea trout catches, and the Tweedbeats website now displaying sea trout catches, both historic and current, in detail, it is rare indeed for anyone seeking fishing ever to ask about sea trout.
Ever the bridesmaid, it would seem, when sea trout are present, even in large numbers, in otherwise predominantly salmon rivers.
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Consider this June.
Despite lack of water, we have caught 37 salmon here, our June record, averaging 11lbs, a far higher average weight than the autumn, and every one on a fly……. not a Condom in sight.
We let 2 rods only, rather than the normal 4, in June and July.
This is not an ad. for our fishing, luckily we have no need for that, but it is a demonstration of what Tweed can produce by way of summer fishing in these mainly net free days.
This is a huge change when, in the 1980s, we could not let fishing for love or money in June, July and the first half of August.
Natural selection and the survival of our June fish via (a) no netting and (b) 100% catch and release by rods should, in theory, only make our summer fishing better as the numbers build every year, and more summer fish breed.
It is a thought as we go into July, another reason for restraint in killing, as the pre July 100% catch and release regime ends.
Maybe it is just old age, but I now could not kill a big July fish, hen or cock…..I just can’t bring myself to do it.
But a 5lb cock grilse?
Now you’re talking.
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