A Look Ahead To The 2018 Salmon Season

After a fairly quiet 2017 season on the blogging front, mostly to do with yet another poor Salmon season on the Tweed and Teith,  I am intending to do a bit more reporting on my various outings this coming season.

In the early season, I have trips lined up to Knappach on the Dee on the first Saturday of the season (3 February 2018), as well as further day trips to Catholes, Tay, (17 February 2018) and Upper Kinnaird, South Esk, (3 March 2018). I have 3 days on the Naver in March, followed by a week on Craigellachie, Spey, late in the month; this is a rod week which I have purchased with pal John Webster also buying into a week.

I have a syndicate rod at Old Melrose (or Ravenswood, if you prefer), Tweed, which I will get stuck into from April and, as the season progresses, I have further trips to Sluie on Deeside and a return to the Thurso, plus I hope to add in some fishing on the Inver.

Bolster Pool, Kinnaird Dyke; a classic Spring pool.

Plenty of fishing coming up, therefore, and I am planning on experimenting a bit with some more concise, photo based reports, along with the usual longer reports; feedback welcome!

I hope you all have successful 2018s and that you all get off to a good start in the next few weeks. I'd be pleased to hear how you are getting on.

Happy New Year and tight lines for 2018.

Calum


A few fish from last season which failed to make it into my reports(!):

Waltham & Dritness, Bottom Tweed - 2017 Syndicate Availability

There are some syndicate rods available for the 2017 season on the Waltham and Dritness beat at Horncliffe on the English bank of Bottom Tweed.

The beat is fished as a 4 day a week syndicate on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays throughout the season, with the remaining days being retained by the co-owners. The price of a rod for the 2017 season is £675 and there is no limit to the number of days - subject to the two days retained weekly - which can be fished during the season. This leaves the angler with a great degree of flexibility as to how they prefer to fish over the course of the season; some will fish regular days per week or sessions at short notice and others will visit for a few days at a time.

The beat map

Turning to the fishings, the beat comprises some of the lowermost fishable stretches of the Tweed and so naturally benefits from the lowest of waters. Being the right bank fishing, opposite the lower part of the Tweedhill beat, Tweedhill's catches can be used as an indication of the spread of catches throughout the season. With all Tweed fish other than those destined for the Whiteadder having to pass through the beat, low water at any stage of the season will give an angler a chance; however, usually the river has dropped in enough for fishing proper to start in April or May, with September traditionally being the best month and Autumn spates signalling the end of the fishing usually in October.

The river is shared with Tweedhill which fishes the left bank, although normally they do not fish any further downstream than Waltham Croy.

The top-most pool, the Squire, is the first real holding pool on the Tweed and can hold great numbers of fish when the river is at Summer low. Below this, there are lies at the Boat Hole, Red Rock and the Wheel, before a nice stretch of fly water with pool names the Waltham Croy and Kirk End. Moving downstream, there are the Goose, Gas House and Nose End pools, which are large, bottom-river dubs, before another shallower streamy section just upstream from Paxton known as the New Water Stream. The greatest numbers of fish come from the Squire, the Waltham Croy and New Water Stream.

The Squire - a very productive Summer low holding pool.

The boat mooring at the Wheel, with Waltham Croy in the background.

An angler fishes Kirk End, downstream from Waltham Croy which is in the foreground

A fish from the New Water Stream in very low conditions

Being only 4.5 miles or so from Berwick Bridge, the beat is tide-affected for periods of the day and so attention must be paid to the tide tables, with the latter stages of the ebb being a productive time for the beat. One consequence of being positioned right on the tide is that the beat benefits from a very high proportion of very fresh fish - around 95% of fish caught are sealiced. Another benefit is that the beat is capable of producing huge fish; a fresh 31lb fish was caught here in 2013 and 29lb fish was caught in 2005.

Most fish caught are sealicers

Perfect condition

The beat is well-maintained with good access to all pools and parking adjacent to the well-equipped hut which looks onto the Waltham Croy.

There is a hut with sofas, a fire and a WC

As with all Tweed beats, 2016 was one to forget, but this is a good opportunity for someone looking for regular, midweek Tweed fishing to get in on the act at very good value for money. Enquiries should be made to Jack on 07782101103 or Martin on 07885820680.

The Tweed Back-end, 2016

Some Tweed beats have reported good numbers of fish in the river, this Back-end. A good analogy to a prospective guest looking to book a 5* hotel before a lesser rated hotel, if given the same price, was made by a very experienced Bottom Tweed proprietor; i.e. the fact that the best holding water on the river is holding fish doesn't mean that the rest of the river is. Surely a sign of good numbers of fish in the river would be the lesser water being occupied by fish who couldn't find available lies in the better holding water. From my experience of the river, this Autumn, this is not the case, with many pools seemingly lying empty in late October and throughout November.

Rods have tried to put some figures on the situation but, as has been heavily covered following the Government's categorisation of rivers, catch returns are a pretty speculative way of estimating runs and their timing; however, if we're going to do so, the best we'll get is the top graph of this, courtesy of Fishpal:

FishPal - Scotland - Tweed - Season So Far

Essentially, no noticeable change apart from significant numbers of fish that would normally run from August onwards just not showing up.

The one thing I'd add to this, to qualify the depressing effect of looking at this graph, is that we've still had lots of rods (including me this year) out on the river in October and November who didn't fish it as hard or at all in June or July. If greater numbers of fish are now running the Tweed in the Summer than normal, as was noticeable this season on the Tyne and Dee, then perhaps that will take time to become apparent in catch returns. You'd expect a few more to have been caught in June or July this year, though, if this was the case. I don't recall reports of large numbers of fish in the river then either.

Subjectively, and if we're basing things on catches, I got two Tweed fish this year and they were caught in May and June, respectively, although they were both springers. A bit of Summer fishing on usually un-fished water might be interesting next year. I've also heard suggestions that there should be experimental close-season fishing in December and January to see what comes up then.

Maybe the fish that apparently didn't show up when requested in October and November will show up next Spring (I think we said that last year); Or maybe they just ran the Thurso and Helmsdale because they couldn't be bothered swimming to the Tweed as their feeding grounds are getting further away; Or maybe they just got hoovered up by some fishermen somewhere who worked out where the back end run goes. 

Further speculation is available upon request.

A 9lber going back at Middle Pavilion in June.

Glenormiston, Tweed (3 -5 November 2016)

Our 3 November days on Glenormiston, between Cardona and Innerleithen on the Upper Tweed, came around off the back of a long spell of disappointingly dry Autumn weather. The river was at 4" on the Peebles gauge and catches had tailed off since a short spell of 50 or so fish per day off the river, a few weeks before in October.

To cut a long story short; it was a fairly poor few days' fishing, with 3 tugs on the Thursday, a fish lost on the Friday and just 1 tug on the Saturday (the latter for my dad). The Girley Water, on the upper of the two beats, was holding a few fish but nowhere near as many as the previous season when I got one from here, despite that being a poor one also. Whin Stream, where I managed a clean cock fish of around 7lbs last year, was holding fish also but other than that there were only a few fish showing in Strip End at the bottom of the beat and in Woodend Pool at the top.

Other rods got one fish from Whin Stream on the Thursday (a 6-8lbs or so coloured cock fish) and a 3lbs coloured cock grilse from Strip End, but due to drop outs my dad and I ended up with the place to ourselves by the Saturday! Seemingly out of nowhere, Traquair opposite had a day of 6 fish on the Thursday, although they have some low water fishing where tributaries join the main river. I lost my fish on the Friday in the Girley Water on a copper Gold Bodied Willie Gunn tube and had tugs in Woodend Pool and Strip End. My dad had a firm tug in Woodend Pool on the Saturday.

Colin, the gillie, is always on top form and so Glenormiston is always a great place to spend a few days. The hut was well-used and a bottle of Glendronach was well-received by our French and American beat companions. We'll be back next season as, although the river has obviously not fished well in the traditional last week of October and first week of November spell, it is the second season running when we have had almost Summer-low conditions for this spell and it's not really possible therefore to make an accurate guess as to how different these weeks might have been should we have had 2' on the gauge at Peebles. That said, it will indeed be interesting to see when in the season rods are fishing Upper Tweed in say 20 years' time. In the meantime, here are some photos.

 The Girley Water - one of the two best pools on the beat.

The Bushes - a medium to high water stretch between the more pronounced Bridge Pool and Girley Water pools.

 The stream into Woodend Pool, at the top of the beat.

 My dad fishing Strip End (sometimes called Jawstane, although there is another pool by the same name above).
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 Strip End, looking downstream to the foot of the beat where it marches with Traquair's left bank fishing.

 Jawstane - all quiet in here, for all 3 of our days.

 Jawstane, looking up to the tail of Whin Stream.

 The tail of Jawstane, from the neck of Strip End. The Traquair rods parked on the far bank favoured Whin Stream, though.

 Under the wires in Strip End.

 My dad coming into the hot spot in Whin Stream, as a Traquair rod fishes down the right bank.

 Looking up to The Beeches and Fawnburn Pool, a lesser-fished stretch of Glenormiston for high-water use.

Sunderland Hall, Tweed (24 October 2016)

Sunderland Hall is a favourite of mine and I tend to have a few days, or at least, sessions there each season. Amongst the plus points are the very reasonable rod prices earlier in the season (Spring and Summer) and also the beat's versatility, as it has Upper Tweed and Ettrick fishing, plus the famous Meetings Pool at the bottom of the beat. This makes it an ideal venue for an evening escape from the office between May and July, while the days are longer. There are usually a good number of fish holding in the Meetings from mid-April until early June and in May and June the fastest running Spring fish will run the Ettrick, given water. Indeed, in May I managed a 16lbs springer from the Meetings which I was pretty pleased with.

One from May - great fight

In October, though, the Upper Tweed pools get the most attention and these were the focus of my most recent, unfortunately unproductive, day on the beat. There were 6 inches on the gauge at Peebles on the day and so, despite temperatures of only 2 celsius overnight, I made an early start in Black Strand (also referred to as 'The Birches') , a locally-famous holding pool in front of Sunderland Hall itself. Nothing was showing and so I only covered the top half of the long pool before moving on.

Black Strand

At the top of the beat, the Howden Pool is the main pool, although there used to be a good stream at an island below this. Readers who haven't visited Sunderland Hall or Fairnilee yet this season, but who are familiar with the beats, will be disappointed to hear that this stream has changed significantly  since last season and the stream from Howden down the left bank is far smaller than before and it looks more probably that fish run the right bank channel instead now. Some good fishing has been lost, if this is the case.

Howden itself has a more pronounced stream and flow in low water than before. This follows the right bank and did feel very 'fishy'. Again, nothing showing.

Howden Pool

Next up is Arres' Putt, a high water pool with a fast but shallow run at the top. Another rod on the beat fishing below me managed to hook and land a fish downstream, between Arres' Putt and the Needlehall Boat Pool while I was in Arres' Putt.

Arres' Putt (self-proclaimed, but I think this is a great photo of Upper Tweed-dale in Autumn!)

A fish for the rod downstream

I then headed back to the hut at the foot of Black Strand for a coffee and some food, before having a run through the Meetings and the Ettrick pools, Alder and The Bushes. I was fishing a floating line with an integrated intermediate tip and was using fly choice to control the depth thereafter. The slower high water pools on the Upper Tweed stretch, I fished with a small aluminium tube Black Snaelda, which looked the part. For the stronger flows in the Meetings, Alder and Bushes, I put on a tungsten Red Frances (having given up hope of there being anything fresh around!). I saw a stale grilse in the Meetings, but nothing more.

The Meetings

Alder Pool - very low but great fly water

Interestingly, the Council's works on the Old Tweed Bridge, long since replaced by a road crossing over the Meetings, seem to be improving the look of the Bridge Pool downstream. There were always lies here, but not much of a pool; now - unless the works change it again - a stronger flow carries further through the pool and increases the relevance of a croy on the Sunderland Hall bank. This lie currently looks very fishy and so it'll be interesting to see what comes out of here in the next few seasons, once the pool settles down again.

The Council's works on the Old Tweed Bridge

Later, I had a run through Needlehall Boat Pool (which was extremely low) with a big dressed Silver Stoat, Doocote (in-between Black Strand and the Meetings) with a Snaelda in Willie Gunn colours and a full run through Black Strand with a Junction Shrimp tube, pretty much in the dark.

 Needlehall Boat Pool

And again, from near the tail of the pool

Doocote

It's been a pretty disappointing Autumn, all round, and so there's no need for me to elaborate really. Hopefully, those with late Autumn rods and trips booked enjoy some sport even if it's with stale/old fish and a bonus would be a bit of water and some cleaner fish showing up thereafter.

A shame to blank, but Sunderland Hall is a great place to fish.

Ladylodge, Middle Ettrick (25 July 2015)

Over the remainder of the close season, I'm going to post a few short blogs on outings I had during the 2015 season which I didn't write about at the time for one reason or another (a recurring theme will be that I lost fish on these trips and couldn't face writing about it 'til now!). These will consist mainly of pictures, but I'll give an outline of events also. Hopefully, this will help you tide over the month or so until the rivers begin to open again!

We had a spell of heavy rain and high water in July, which resulted in some good rises in the Ettrick, the uppermost of the major Tweed tributaries. Sustained high water would have been more welcome on this river in May and June, when some of the Tweed springers would have a think about moving up the system towards their intended spawning grounds in the Upper Ettrick and Yarrow Valleys. The best spell though came in July and so, hearing news of a few fish in the holding pools on Middle Ettrick's top beats, I went to go and have a look around the Ladylodge beat, near Ettrickbridge.

 Pictured: As you'd hope for a Buccleuch beat, Ladylodge is neat and tidy, well-strimmed (even in July) and is generally a nice place to fish.

The river had risen a couple of days prior to my trip to a bit over 1' (there had been bigger rises before this) and was down at around 8/9" when I fished. No fish were showing on the day, but I still fished fairly shallow with a floating shooting head, 15 foot intermediate tip, long leader and small Red Frances double. Any fish up here were likely to be moderately coloured springers and so I thought even this early in the season that a Red Frances was worth a go.

Pictured: Broomie Knowe - my second pool of the day. Fast, streamy water with a deeper channel under the far bank trees.

It was all quiet in the morning and the sun was shining squarely onto the pools, which didn't breed confidence. I moved around the pools a lot to get a proper look around and, working the fly through some nice boily water in 'Croys', I received a heavy take near the surface and had hold of a very coloured cock fish of around 8/9lbs. It was on for around 5 or 6 seconds, most of which involved the fish thrashing around on the surface, before it dropped off. It had been hooked near the dangle.

 Pictured: Croys, looking upstream. This pool is on the single bank 'A' half of the beat.

 Pictured: Fishing down Croys.

 Pictured: The lower section of the long Croys pool.

Pictured: The final croy of Croys(!), where I lost my fish.

Ultimately, having given it a good go, I didn't have any more interest shown in my fly in the afternoon and so went for pub tea in Ettrickbridge with my folks around 5pm or so. Here are some other pictures from the day.

 Pictured: Singlie Hillend; both the fast neck of the pool and the glide towards the tail felt like good spots and I was surprised I had no offers here.

 Pictured: The imposing Brock Scar. Too low and slow on the day but I had a few casts anyway.

Pictured: Pinal Knowe. Probably my favourite pool to fish on the beat - and there are a quite a few nice ones.

The Middle Ettrick beats, on the Duke of Buccleuch's Bowhill Estate, are very picturesque and peaceful beats indeed. They are not the beats to provide the best fishing on the system or the best conditioned fish, but they are the sort of beats where a little improvement in conditions or a few fish being sighted gives an excuse to spend a day in a very nice setting indeed and still with the chance of a fish, even before the late Ettrick run of September and October. It was also only £25 for the rod, so a fairly good deal, I think.

More reports on my various 2015 outings to follow.

Cheers.

Calum

Glenormiston, Tweed (5 - 7 November 2015)

The Upper Tweed is the closest stretch of Salmon fishing to my parents' house in the Borders (Wemyss & March or Dawyck probably being the closest beats) and so in a way I consider this 'home territory', in fishing terms. As a result, the Back End run - being the only substantial run on the Upper Tweed - is something of a focal point for me. Last year, my dad and I had a few days on Horsbrugh, as well as a day at Ashiestiel, all to no avail. Indeed, my dad hooked the only fish connected with by either of us that Autumn in the Lower Nutwood pool at Horsbrugh, only for it to drop off just as I arrived with the net. This year, though, we'd planned further ahead and had taken three days on Glenormiston in the first week of November.

Similarly to the Autumns of 2013 and 2014, low water had stretched prohibitively far into the Autumn. We had only had a couple of one foot rises in the months since the last decent spate which had come in May. The river was dirty and still lined with weed and fallen leaves, waiting to be washed out. The fishing was yet to really get going by the time our days at Glenormiston - between Innerleithen and Cardrona - came round and there had only been a handful of fish from the beat so far, despite more than half of the short two months season having passed.

On arrival at the beat, Colin the ghillie told us we would be fishing the bottom of the two sub-beats in the morning, switching to the top beat in the afternoon. This would be a pattern to which we'd stick, over our 3 days with Colin. We tackled up and headed down in the car to park up at the long Whin Stream pool, before walking down to Jawstane where we began our fishing. The majority of rods would be fishing very small doubles in the prohibitively low 6" Peebles gauge levels, but I'd seen a fish caught on Horsbrugh earlier in the week on a Sunray/Monkey-style fly and thought the extra movement might help otherwise reluctant fish to take an interest - I went for a small aluminium Monkey tube I had been passed by a fellow angler on Pert, North Esk, in March. We each had a go in Jawstane, where very few fish were showing, before taking a break to watch a Traquair rod fish the Whin Stream and have a drink of some Traquair Bear Ale we had picked up in Melrose earlier in the week. Later, we headed into Innerleithen to pick up some lunch and head back to the hut to catch up with the other rods.

Pictured: My small Monkey tube.

I had fished Glenormiston in October 2014 and knew that the top spot on the beat was the Girley Water, on the upper beat, where the river is divided by an island before rejoining and forming a deep channel where the fish like to lie. Conveniently, this also happens to constitute particularly nice fly water. After lunch, we headed straight for this pool, passing the Bridge Pool and the Bushes on the way. I watched my dad fish down the first few yards at the foot of the island before joining in. A relatively short cast to reach the best water, I had only been fishing for a few minutes when, as my fly moved just inside of the main channel, I felt the line gently tense and began to gather in my loop onto the reel in anticipation. It was a very subtle take, but once the fish had settled it began to fight. The majority of the fight was played out away from the main depth of the pool and eventually, after 5 or so minutes, I was able to beach the fish on the gravel on the inside of the bend in the river.

It turned out to be a slightly coloured hen of around 6lbs or so. I was slightly surprised that any fish I'd caught was not more coloured, given the lack of water, and so was fairly pleased. We recovered the fish in the water - which took slightly longer than normal as it seemed to be fairly comfortable with holding position at our feet(!) - and watched it turn downstream and head for the safety of the deepest part of the pool.

Pictured: My dad covering the main part of the Girley Water. My fish was hooked roughly where he is casting from, but may well have followed the fly from the main channel.

Pictured: Not overly coloured, considering it had made it up to Innerleithen in next to no water.

Pictured: Going back.

After a slightly early departure on day one to head into Edinburgh for a family viewing of 'Spectre', the new Bond film, we arrived at the beat on the Friday morning to instructions to head for the bottom beat again for the morning. We again headed for Jawstane, first off, and - sticking with the same fly - I felt slightly disappointed not to get a tug from a classic 'under the cables' lie halfway down the pool. I've never had any luck from Jawstane, despite having fished it from both Traquair and Glenormiston a few times each, but I always feel like I'll get a take when fishing it.

Eventually, we moved up the beat to Whin Stream, via a coffee break in the car. The top of this pool comprises a fairly long run which steadily deepens into the depth of the pool. With plenty of space for two rods, we each found a suitable perch on Glenormiston's high, outside of the bend, bank from which to start. There are not many obvious lies in the pool and so I worked my way down quite quickly in order to cover the pool. I had just passed the remains of a croy on the Glenormiston bank and was fishing the leaf-strewn back eddy behind it, when I had a heavy take. This was followed by a fairly acrobatic fight with a number of leaps and runs. I moved slightly upstream to a better position from which to play the fish, while my dad got the net and moved downstream into position. This was a slightly better fight than the fish from the previous day, but eventually the fish went up on its side and my dad scooped it up and headed for the bank to take a look at it.

On inspection, the fish was pretty fresh for upper river standards. It was a cock fish of around 7lbs, with a little damage on its right side. Having managed to keep the fish in the water by using the net, we lifted it out briefly and quickly took a couple of pictures before getting it back into the water to move off into the river with minimal recovery time seemingly required.

Pictured: A good start to day two.

Pictured: Fairly fresh, considering the low water and distance it had covered.

We tried hard in the Girley Water in the afternoon, following a Deerhunter dram or two with Colin and the other rods in the hut at lunch. By this stage, the pool had filled with fish and you could be forgiven for thinking this was a reasonably good Autumn from a few minutes watching it; nothing further doing, though.

By day three, the weather had broken and the river was rising slowly but showing no signs of stopping. We focussed on Whin Stream in the morning but had no success this time. We had increased our fly sizes by this point to counter the decreasing clarity of the water and were now fishing one inch copper Gold Bodied Willie Gunn and Monkey tubes. By lunchtime, leaves were beginning to pose an issue, although we still felt confident of another fish in the Girley Water, which was beginning to extend downstream with the extra water. It didn't come though, despite changing tips to try and plumb the bottom of the channel to get the attention of any fish hunkering down, out of the way of the leaves and debris.

We moved upstream to the Woodend Pool at the top of the beat near the march with Horsbrugh for a final few casts, but it became apparent - with a ratio of 3 leaves in every 4 casts - that fishing was done for the day. We left with a feeling that at least being washed off for the last half-day would mean better fishing for the next few (for others, anyway), but we all now know this didn't prove to be the case this Autumn! We had a great few days on the beat, though, and the combination of enjoyable (and fairly successful) fishing with good company on the beat and especially in the hut at lunchtime left us looking forward to a return next year.

Now to book some rods for early Spring 2016!

Calum

Pictured: The Woodend Pool, on its way up on the final day.