6 July 2014 News/Editorial
It is July, 5 months into the salmon fishing season, and so far barely a word about/against spinning.
When the river is low in the summer on Tweed, it is almost a “given” that some beats, hopefully very much a minority, will turn to the upstream Flying C, if not as their first line of attack, pretty close to it.
Why should this be, when almost all other rivers, excepting possibly the Tay, are most definitely fly only when summer comes along?
If you go to the Spey, Dee, Naver, Helmsdale, Thurso, Brora, Carron, Cassley, Halladale, Gruiniard, Conon, Beauly, Oykel, Shin…..I could go on….. it would be astounding if you ever reported seeing anyone spinning upstream in summer level water…..or indeed spinning at all, whatever the water.
The Tweed is different you say; well no, actually it isn’t, so why does it still persist on Tweed?
I have just been on the Findhorn, the water very low and not many fish, and we fished with a fly; there were fish in the faster runs and some of the deeper pools, and I have no doubt that an upstream Flying C would have been successful, but the subject, quite rightly, never even came on the radar; nobody had a spinning rod with them, or quite possibly even owned one.
As a result, we fished with “hitches” and “skimmers” and Sunray Shadows, and had some modest success, if not many caught, then quite a few losses, pulls and rises. It was both exciting and rewarding in a way that upstream spinning could never be.
I am a convert to “hitching” or “skimming”, call it what you will, my generous host doing nothing else and always catching more than anyone else.
The Tweed beats who quickly resort to upstream spinning at this time of year do it because it is effective and too easy just to stick a spinner in the rod’s hands and say “if you chuck it up there into the stream and wind it back fast towards you……..”
Instead, why not wade into the neck of the pool with a “hitch”, cast it square-ish, watch the “v” of the fly skimming through the surface as it comes round (for it has to do that to work properly), and wait for the explosion as a salmon comes for it, or the lazy roll as it takes it down, or the gentle pluck as it sucks it in from below?
Novices don’t believe it works until they see it for themselves….but it does, and it requires skill and concentration.
Upstream spinning is easy and requires minimal skill (despite what some claim), anyone can do it, so is almost completely unrewarding unless your game is numbers and nothing else.
And of course when I was on the Findhorn there was nobody lobbing in upstream Flying Cs in dead low water from the other side.
If only that too were true here.
It would be nice if Tweed, as with all these other rivers, saw no place for spinning in low summer water.
Maybe one day, those few proprietors who still see it as acceptable, will agree that it is unacceptable, as many already truly believe it is.
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