Report 25 Oct - 9 Nov

We've had a good fortnight's fishing, over 30 fish have been recorded since our last report, and some nice sea trout too. Last week 27 salmon were recorded, our best week to date. Water conditions have been good, sitting around 2' for some time, although higher water at the beginning of this week made for difficult conditions.

Notable catches for visiting rods so far in November include Nigel Griffiths with 8 salmon, including one of 23lb, our biggest so far; Geoff Badlands with 1; Alastair Dunbar with 3; Andrew Bendall with 1 and John Earwalker with 1. A few sea trout have also been caught, with Graeme Ritchie recording a nice 4 1/2 pounder.

A rather wobbly video of a 12 pounder being played and returned in the tail of the Rumbler.

The Rumbler circa 1980

Looking downstream....


Looking upstream....

Old photos of Cardrona

Below is a photograph of the casting instructor, Peter Anderson, hosting a casting demonstration at Cardrona in the late 1950s. The photograph is taken below the railway bridge on the left bank, looking downstream into the Rumbler Pool.

More photographs, in colour, will be added in the next few days, courtesy of Andy from Motherwell who kindly provided these for inclusion when he was down at the beat a few days ago.

Report from 12-25th October

We have again been plagued by low water since the last report, the guage barely managed above 7" from 12th October to 22nd October. A welcome rise of about 1' 6" freshened things up on Saturday 23rd October, although the rise rather spoiled fishing that day. Despite the good numbers of fish about, I still maintain that we need a 'proper' flood, ie one of at least 3-4' and sustained over a day or two, to clear things out and get some of those big, fresher, true autumn fish up from the middle/lower river.

Despite the conditions, fish still keep coming. Phil Howard was delighted to catch his first ever fish, a 4lb grilse, yesterday. Phil was fishing with Drew Bain, who also had a 10lb fish as did his father Iain who had a 12 pounder. Iain has had 4 fish in the last 10 days, and one day hooked 6 fish, but none were banked!

Phil with his first ever salmon


Other successes include 2 fish of 10lb and 6lb taken by Graeme Sutherland,a 10lb fish to regular Charlie McGhee, Graeme Dea with a fish of 12lb and Iain Bain's friend Andy taking a fish of 7lb.

Graeme Sutherland's 6lb fish


Hopefully we will have more successes to report this coming week.

Riverbank grub

It has been a quiet week since Monday 4 October. Water levels have been inching down by the day making conditions more challenging, although fish are there. John Goold and his son won the AST auction bid for 3 days fishing on Cardrona. They also had the option of fishing Horsbrugh (the opposite bank) and were ably guided by Kenny Annand. We heard that they ended up with one salmon and one sea trout, off Horsbrugh, so congratulations to them both, as we believe the salmon was a 'first'.

Iain Bain managed to save the week with a 12 pounder off Cardrona on Friday evening.

Of course, there is more to fishing than catching fish, we spotted this strange caterpillar munching on some riparian leaves, doing its bit for bank maintenance. A quick email to our moth specialist identified it as Deilephila elpenor, or a large elephant hawkmoth to you and me......

Week summary report

An average to good week, with 8 salmon and 5 sea trout reported since Monday - best salmon was 12lb and best sea trout 5lb. We've had two rises in water this week which has kept new fish coming in, and prospects seem excellent at the moment. There are a fair mix of fish around, from grilse through to fish well into double figures. Some with various autumnal hues, and a few fresher ones.With no major rain due this week, an intermediate tip will get the fly down to the right depth.

Monday

The water was sitting about 7" on Monday and we recorded 3 fish. Charlie McGhee took a fish of around 8lb on a size 10 Red Francis, and Graham Dea took a fish of around 5lbs. One of the co-owners also had a fish of around 8lb on a small blue charm. Not too bad a day considering the levels are creeping down again.

Charlie McGhee's fish


A bit of action in the Rumbler

Quite a few fish about

The recent rise has encouraged fish up. Iain Bain reported a salmon and a sea trout during the week, and today he had a salmon around 7lbs.

One of the other co-owners had 4 salmon today, ranging from 4lbs-18lbs. The 18lb fish was a large hen,and pretty fresh for so far up. The observant will spot a little blood on the gill cover of the fish in the picture below, the fish was bleeding slightly from one gill, but recovered after about 5 minutes, and she was returned safely.

The successful fly was a yellow/red hairwing dressed sparse on a half inch aluminium tube conehead - fished off an intermediate tip.

18 lb hen fish


11lb hen fish

Another fish

The rise in water levels during last week seems to have encouraged more fish up. A coloured hen fish of around 7lbs was taken and returned. Water level was 5" which really is quite low for this time of year. The successful angler was fishing light - a 9' 6" #8 single hander with a floating line - the fly was a very lightly dressed nondescript pattern on a #10 salar double - orange with a strand of flash.

The fish



More water is needed to get a decent run of fish up - the middle and lower Tweed beats are having a bumper time of it, well over 1000 fish were taken during last week. Once we get a decent rise, it won't take long before Upper Tweed gets a good run of fish.

Dave fishes a nice cast round the Dirtpot at Dusk



The lower Dirtpot Pool looking downstream.Time will tell how well this will fish this year. The large willow came out during the big flood late last year (see right of picture). This may or may not have a detrimental effect on the gravels and substrate in the pool. It certainly has opened up more fishing, if nothing else.

First fish of 2010

We got a report at the weekend that a 5lb grilse was caught by Hywel Vickers on Saturday at the end of his week's fishing. No further details are to hand at present. We have heard that the odd grilse are being picked up elsewhere on the Upper Tweed, so these fish do obviously press on upriver regardless of flows. Last year's first two fish were caught in the last week of August too.

The water is sitting at 2" above summer level which is really low. Let's hope we get some rain to raise the river soon.

The Dirtpot Pool

Below is an older photograph of the Dirtpot Pool taken some time prior to 1980....it is rather grainy but does show that very little has changed in this spot. No doubt the angler pictured plying his trade will have been doing so with the obligatory wetcel 2 and 2" Garry Dog tube fly!

Improvements to the beat

A few of us went down to the beat last night and put some fisherman's benches into place at the Castlehaugh Cheek, The Rumbler and the Dirtpot. We hope to install a couple more down at the Nutwood Pools before the fishing begins in earnest. A gauge was also fitted to the bridge so that river levels can monitored.

The bench at the Dirtpot.

Spring Salmon Conservation

The River Tweed Commission (RTC) announced on April 22nd 2010 a change to their spring salmon conservation measures - with effect from April 22nd to June 30th 2010 ALL salmon should be returned, unharmed, to the water.

Cardrona see very few, if any, salmon before July, however Cardrona Fishings Ltd fully back the RTC policy and will require any salmon caught before July to be returned forthwith to the water. This will be a condition of permission to fish.

A link to the RTC web page explaining the change is HERE.

Tweed opens for 2010

It's been a harsh close season on the beat - weeks on end of sub-zero temperatures, severe floods, biting northerly winds have all conspired to create a few changes on (and in)the river. No doubt the depth and format of some pools will have changed due to huge shifts in gravel during the November and January floods - the November one in particular was the biggest one in our living memory on the beat. This is all nature's way however, and subtle, or not so subtle changes can destroy existing favourable lies for fish and create new ones. Observing changes like this and discovering new spots is all part of the fun of salmon fishing. The long-established willow at the tail of Dirtpot was cleanly ripped out in the January flood to be deposited several hundred yards downstream on the island at Glenormiston! Winners and losers: I am convinced salmon and sea trout liked the security of this large overhang in the tail of the pool, however we will now be able to fish the pool right round and beyond.

Willow? what willow?



Brief review of 2009

It is just as well you need a healthy dose of optimism to be a salmon fisher. The 2009 salmon catch at Cardrona, in line with most upper Tweed beats, was down on the previous year. Our final catch was 55 salmon and 28 sea trout, with our salmon catch being well down on our 2008 figure of 96 fish.

Nevertheless, some nice fresh fish were taken, with two fresh salmon the first to come off the beat at 9 & 11lbs taken on the same day by Messrs Jones & Davidson at the end of August.

As we moved into early September, water levels were still good, but fluctuating. Catching the tail-end of this water, 6 fish were caught, but by the middle of September the water had all but disappeared and Tweed was barely 2” above summer level for the rest of the month. Despite this, our regular visitor from Wales, Hywel Vickers, managed to extract a 15lb fish in what could only be described as an autumn drought.

This ‘drought’ extended into the best part of October, and proved very dispiriting for the fishers, with only 11 fish taken in what should be prime time. Patchy rain in the middle of October provided a few ‘false starts’, although this finally materialised in something a bit more worthwhile, giving us a little rise in the last week of the month and freshening up the water – James Mackellar capitalised on the freshet to take two salmon and a sea trout, making his journey from the South all the more worthwhile.



Our final month, November, was plagued with too much water – we probably lost almost two weeks fishing due to conditions, and our highest flood of the year wreaked havoc on some of the riverbank and moved an awful lot of riverbed about - the flood peaked at around 11’ (yes – eleven feet) on Saturday 21 November. Despite the water levels, suitable windows for fishing appeared, early in the month Geoff Badlands party had 5 fish in one day, Charlie McGhee had 3 one day the following week and John Kane took 4in one day. Brian Marshall also managed to tempt (and lose) his usual quota of fish from the Castlehaugh Cheek!

It is a bit disappointing to note that our biggest fish, at 18lbs, failed to break the 20lb barrier, this is quite unusual as the beat usually offers up several 20lb plus fish each year. Iain Bain, yet again, proved to be our most successful fisher with 12 salmon recorded for the season.

A bright little fish



Every cloud has a silver lining, and with 27 fish for 2009, the picture for sea trout was much more promising, this was the first year we made slightly more effort fishing for these sporting fish in the summer. Whilst our beat is well up the system, this does not seem to hinder sea trout and we feel that the beat does offer some potential for sea trout fishing earlier than our traditional autumn fishing. Some fine fish were taken, with Iain Bain taking 4 fish one day in July. The biggest sea trout, at 7lb, fell to Charlie McGhee with Tom Borthwick not far behind with a 6lb fish. Charlie’s fish also achieved the national press, with it being awarded ‘Fish of the Week’ in the Scottish Sun!

A typical Upper Tweed sea trout



So, what will 2010 bring? Whilst we are not a spring beat, our thoughts are with the middle and lower beats which open today and who fared poorly last year. Let's hope the spring run is much improved over last year. Initial indications on rivers elsewhere suggest that there are fish about, but of course it is far too early to draw any conclusions - time will tell.

We are hoping to erect some benches at the pools this year, as well as some new signage. We are also investigating the potential for a fishing hut somewhere on the beat. Prices will remain unchanged for 2010, and our annual newsletter has
just been published and circulated for our guests.

In the meantime, why not try for some of the upper Tweed grayling? Good-sized fish are to be found in the river and excellent value day or season tickets can be purchased via the Peebleshire Trout Fishing Association -
http://www.peeblesshiretroutfishing.co.uk/