Thursday 29th October

The upper river seems to be coming into its own this week with the beats above Boleside catching decent numbers of fish for the first time this season, Fairnilee alone declaring 15 fish in the last two days. There is no doubt that they're heading our way. Robert Davidson and Charles Jeffrey fished yesterday and - although they failed to bank any fish - I'm informed they did hook a couple.






Today, Dave Parkes landed and returned a conservatively-estimated 12lber from the Rumbler and the writer of this piece hooked a big fish that fought spectacularly only to shed the fly in the last moments of the battle. There is no picture of Dave lovingly cradling his fish due to the inability of the photographer to take an unblurred image.







Tomorrow's forecast is for rain so river levels should be maintained.

Two large sea trout

It is pleasing to report that Charlie McGhee, a regular fisher at Cardrona, managed a brace of fine sea trout today. Capitalising on promising conditions, Charlie took a 6 pound fish from the Castlehaugh Cheek early this morning. Later in the afternoon, a further fish was hooked and lost in the same pool, and not long after, this fine 7 pounder was taken. All fish succumbed to a smallish and lightly dressed yellow/red conehead. Congratulations Charlie, and haste ye back!

Water was fining down today from the long-awaited spate on Saturday night and a number of running fish were observed on the move today. Upper Tweed should be on song now, the water is clearing and more rain is expected this week.

Action in the Castlehaugh Cheek and subsequent release.

Some Rain & A Few Fish

The last week probably didn't see as much rain as was predicted and levels only lifted by 6-7" in midweek before dropping down to 2-3" above summer level again. However that small rise does seem to have encouraged fish to move up. James Mackellar had a successful couple of days at Cardrona, getting two salmon on Friday and a sea trout on Saturday. Succesful flies were a collie dog, small junction shrimp and a stoat's tail.

Also on Saturday, Brian Marshall returned a 9lb salmon and both Iain Bain and Brian Davidson each had a sea trout.

More rain is forecast and the river is rising quickly in its upper reaches at the moment so the next week should see more fish caught. It's been a long time coming!

River levels are updated twice daily on Fishtweed should you wish to check current river conditions.

Imminent rain!

At last we have the prospect of some decent rain which should transform the fishing on Tweed! BBC weather suggests that an area of deep atlantic low pressure will dominate this week, bringing with it "rain, some of it heavy and persistent. Northern Ireland and western parts of Wales, Scotland and England are likely to see above average amounts of rain".

Lovely!

Autumn drought continues

'Drought' may be a strong word but that's what it feels like at the moment. Down to 2" above summer level, which is ridiculous for mid October, but this cannot continue. We've noticed Caberston, a few miles downstream, got a couple of grilse last week so it seems that the smaller fish can run in this 'height'. Still, this high pressure has got to break at some point and we notice 'heavy rain' is forecast for the Borders on Tuesday night. I suspect that it will not bring us a flood of biblical proportions but any rain is better than none! The good news is that when we finally do get rain, there should be a big influx of fish into the upper river judging by the catches below Kelso.

Below is one of our rods 'skagiteering' like a Pacific North West steelhead junkie down the Nutwood Pool. This is a productive pool, it is a joy to fish at around 1'8" on the gauge and surrenders a fair number of fish each year.

1 fish today

Despite gale force winds and our first leaf fall of the autumn, Iain Bain managed to take a fish of around 7lbs from the Castlehaugh Cheek today. A slightly coloured cock fish, Iain sportingly returned it. Water has risen 7' from yesterday (the guage shows 10" & rising tonight), and steady showers have been moving in from the north west all day, so let's hope this will herald some proper fresh water to draw in more of those big autumn run fish. If we get water for next week, this should provide good fishing.

Rain?

At last we have the prospect of some rain to raise river levels. The forecast is for some heavy rain this evening and lighter rain to follow that. If it materialises, then even a modest rise will get fish on the take and moving. Fish are present in the beat, but at 3" above summer level, it makes for very challenging fishing. On the plus side, we now have two of the three major cues for fish coming 'on the take' -cooler overnight temperatures and reduced daylight hours - both triggers for fish becoming more active in the autumn. All we need now is a bit of fresh water coming down to set things up for the peak autumn run.

This is the head of the Rumbler Pool, sitting at about 2'