Spawning activity

A rather grainy shoot of some spawning activity on the Craig Stream, Horsburgh side. Obvious quality constraints - poor light, full zoom and on a compact digital.

Salmon spawning, Upper Tweed, 22 Nov 2011 from Brian Davidson on Vimeo.

and here, a few fish jostling for position in the tail of the Nutwood Pool.

Still fresh fish about.....

Fishing is still slow, but pods of fresh fish are still pushing up, and these seem to be populating the streamier necks of pools, rather than hanging out with the old red kippers. Water is relatively low for time of year, and very clear, but it did rise around 3" by late afternoon.

A nice fresh hen fish was taken today, about 10lbs, from the neck of the Lower Nutwood. It is incredible to think that we are in the 3rd week of November,yet the successful tactics are what you might use in late summer - a hover/intermediate line and 1/2" tube.

Some good days.....

Like October, November has proven to be a difficult month so far. Fish remain largely off the take, despite the huge head of fish in the river. Nevertheless, a couple of parties experienced some excellent sport.

Messrs James, Griffith & Badland fished 2-4 November and shared a respectable catch of 11 salmon, including a 22lb and 18lb fish.

Bernard and Philippe, over from France, fished 8 & 9 November and took 6 fish between them.

Some fresh fish are featuring in catches, and good numbers have been running in the high water. The last two weeks of the season should see a good run of the fast running November fish coming in. These are generally large and tend not to hang around the lower/middle river at this time of year. As a consequence they are likely to be fairly fresh.

Below are some of the fish taken by Bernard & Philippe.

Report for last week in October

'Extremely disappointing' about sums it up. 3 salmon and a sea trout for the prime last week in October is poor, and our overall October catch belies the huge head of fish present in the beat, and upper Tweed in general. Proof, if it were ever needed, that angling catches are never a good indicator of the stock in a river! This phenomenon seems to be happening elsewhere on the river, with many of the beats, including other upper beats, reporting low single figures of fish each day......

Despite the huge number of fish present, they are simply not taking, and only the odd 'daft one' is succumbing to a carefully (or not so carefully) presented fly. Various theories as to why this may be have been suggested, possibly the unseasonably mild air and water temperatures, and persistent high water have not helped. Whatever the reason, the fish will surely come back on the take at some point soon, hopefully before 30 November.

The only fish taken this week were by three of the co-owners with a fish apiece, and a sea trout taken by a guest rod.

Great start to week for one angler

Unfortunately, the rain is piling in from the west again and the river is rising mid afternoon.....despite this, George Holdsworth and his daughter managed to make the most of the window before it began to rise and had 4 fish up to 12lb, 3 of these were nice clean fish and a 'first' for his daughter - well done!

Successful tactic was a gold bodied Willie Gunn on an intermediate tip.

Hopefully this might signify that the fish are back 'on' after last week's tricky conditions. Water and air temps are certainly down, with a return to more typical autumn weather.

A picture paints a thousand words, Tweed at Peebles @ 19.00 hours.....

Difficult week

The river has slowly fined down from well over 2 feet at the start of the week to about 1' 6" this weekend. On the face of it, we have had perfect conditions, plenty of water, good clarity and generally good weather. Most importantly there are lots of fish about, ranging from spanking clean fish to older coloured fish.

However, despite this, we have only had 6 fish banked this week. Most other upper beats have fared no better, with our lower neighbours Glenormiston and Traquair taking 6 fish also. Well down river, the reports are similar. The Lees report extremely high numbers of fish around, but that they are proving poor takers and hard to catch.

We have had some very good fishers out towards the end of this week and they have struggled - very frustrating, but the fish will undoubtedly 'switch' back on again. Water and air temperatures are still relatively mild for mid October, so perhaps when the temperatures drop a few degrees, the fish may come back on the take.

Water prospects are good for the coming week, sitting at around 1' 5", a slow sink tip is all that is required with a small bottle tube or dressed double.

Monday 10th October

The river rose on Sunday, but dropped slowly to about 2' 4", only for rain early on Monday morning causing a slow rise to about 2' 8" on Monday afternoon. The water has been well above summer levels for many weeks, and as such there is very little colour coming into it, so it remains very fishable at heights above 2'.

Alastair Dunbar caught the water 'just right' before it began to rise slightly yesterday afternoon, and managed 3 fish between 8-10lbs.

Unsettled week

It has been an unsettled week in terms of river height and temperature. There are lots of fish about, however with the levels being up and down they are not very settled into the usual lies. With little angling pressure this week, catches have been low, although regular fish Iain Bain managed a couple of fish and lost a few more, the best being this clean fish around 16lbs. If river levels remain on the high side, prospects are good. Fish are running into the beat all the time at this height - concentrate on the pool tails for resting fish and ensure that the fly fishes right around and close into the bank - often good for hooking a running fish.

Week ending 24 September

'Good water' has dominated this week - sitting around the 2' mark most days, and even higher on a few days....

F O'Rourke had a 15 pound fish on Monday 17th.

I Bain and B Davidson had 2 fish and 1 fish respectively on Friday 22nd - best weighed 8lbs.

Saturday 23rd saw water levels maintained nicely at around 1' 6" and very clear, and it was a glorious day. However, the the overnight rain seemed to have a delayed effect, and the water rose slowly to around 1' 11" by late afternoon...

14lb hen fish taken on Saturday morning, in spite of the bright conditions.

Good falling water, and no more rain forecast

Tweed height at Peebles

Reporting to Saturday 17 September

Plagued by very strong westerly winds at the beginning of the week, this made conditions tricky, and as such there was very little fishing effort - supposedly the tail -end of Hurricane Katia, but really just the usual Scottish autumnal weather!! Heavy rain later on Friday put the river up to 2' 8" on Saturday morning. It steadied off to around 2' by mid-day and clearing so was definitely fishable. Decent sized pods of fish were moving through, and Donald Milne managed to intercept a 13 pounder from The Rumbler, followed by a 4lb sea trout later in the day from the same pool.

A further hen fish of around 8lb was taken by one of the co-owners. Both anglers experienced several good takes which failed to stick.

Prospects look first class for next week, if we do not get too much rain.

Week-end report, Saturday 10 September

Saturday 10 September - The water was holding steady in the morning around 1 foot, however heavy rain during the course of the day put levels up again, and by this evening it was 2' 8" and rising. Good news for fishing next week.

A fresh little cock fish of around 7lb was caught and returned today, it is nice to see clean fish such as this showing up in our catches so early in the autumn. Successful set-up was a 8/9 Rio AFS shooting head with a 5' sink tip - with a sparsely dressed small orange/yellow conehead at the business end.

Season so far....

Whilst the beat has been very lightly fished, we still managed 3 salmon in July and 5 in August, fairly unprecedented, but helped by the water levels being consistently above summer level for much of this time. This certainly demonstrates that given conditions, Upper Tweed can provide viable fishing in summer, and we are confident more fish could have been caught if rods were out.

Gordon Fraser takes a fish from the tail of The Rumbler in August 2011



Most of the bankside strimming has now taken place, so access to the pools should be straightforward.

A nice clean hen fish of around 10lb was caught today, Friday 9 September - and returned:

2011 bookings

Availability for 2011 is now on the Cardrona Fishtweed webpage. Please note that Iain Bain and Brian Marshall are now handling bookings this year, and both can be contacted at cardronafishings@yahoo.co.uk

Don't hesitate to drop us a line if you require further information or guidance on fishing at Cardrona. New tenants for 2011 who have not fished and have a booking already confirmed via Fishtweed will be sent a copy of beat guide.

Early start to 2011 season

Upper Tweed came down in flood last weekend (16/17 July) - probably around the 5' mark judging by the flattened grass on the riverbank. Unfortunately, the SEPA gauges were down that weekend so no accurate data was recorded. The river has been fining down all week and this has brought some fish up.

Iain Bain had two fish on Thursday evening, and hooked several others, both about the 7lb and 12lb mark respectively.





A 4lb sea trout was taken yesterday, and the same angler lost a salmon at the net. Successful set up was a floating line with a couple of sea trout variant patterns.

2010 summary

2010 was a good year, with 96 salmon we were just short of our previous highest catch of 98 fish. 78 of these fish were released. Considering the sheer amount of fish in the Tweed system last year, it is surprising that not more were caught.





Sea trout were down slightly, we caught 20 fish, all of a good standard. 18 of these fish were released.

Our largest salmon was 23lb caught by Nigel Griffiths (apologies for the earlier incorrect attribution of this catch!)

Below is the breakdown of catch:

Salmon

August 1
September 10
October 21
November 62

Total 94

Sea Trout

September 5
October 5
November 10

Total 20

A few anecdotal comments:

2010 followed a more 'conventional' weather pattern, ie dry summer and wet late autumn. This explains the pronounced rise in catch, particularly in November, no doubt helped by the sheer number of fish which ran late.

Many fish were fresh, with a few which were very solid, fresh silver fish, which could not have been more than 3 or 4 days from the tide.

There seemed to be less small grilse about this year, with a higher proportion of bigger fish.

Winter arrived with a vengeance, providing deep snow for the final day's fishing on 30 November.