Back on the River

After saying a few days ago how this season on Rivers in particular felt a bit of a wash out ( a non-sequiter if ever there was one given the lack of rain; more of a “dry out”) today ( Saturday) found me finally out on a proper river…the Tweed, and not just that but a section I have never fished before. Radek has a season ticket on the St Boswells section as does his mate Marcin so I arranged to meet them down in St Boswells at the back of 8 this morning.

Its a good 90minutes drive from Stirling so that meant a very early start…have you noticed how dark it is now at 6 in the morning? However, it was a glorious sunrise as I headed east on the Motorway ( no pics as I was driving), and that kind of made getting up so early feel worthwhile. Once on the River Bank right at the top of the St Boswells beat, the air felt distinctly Autumnal, it was pretty cold and I was glad I had remembered to throw my fleece undersuit in the back of the car last night as I packed my gear.

We fished a very short section at the beat head, but were soon joined by some Salmon anglers, they were out in force today as the water was a fishable height and I guess the salmon guys won’t have had much of that this summer. So the water we could access here was fairly limited and none of us had any fish. We jumped back in the cars and headed to another section, starting near the town. It reminded me so much of the Welsh Dee at Llangollen, running as it does right down a golf course in a similar fashion. However, where the Dee has a fairly steady depth and pace this water was much more sculpted into Salmon water with large pools broken by short faster stretches.

It was quite hard not to feel like you were all a bit close together with three of us sharing the water at times. Radek opened the catching with a small Grayling then a nice wee Brown Trout on the bugs.

Having thrashed another relatively short section to death- again there were salmon guys above and below us, we decided to walk much further down the river, along the golf course. We eventually came to a long rather featureless glide that looked a bit slow and shallow, though looked like ideal dry fly water- had there been fish rising. There wasn’t, there wasn’t an awful lot of fly life either though I guess in later September that’s not surprising.

However, I felt a Klink and Dink was worth a go so re-rigged to a normal line and a big floaty Klink with a tiny wee black and Green nymph below. Marcin I think tried something similar and Radek went off further down to a “hole” he knew.

I worked my way upstream for about 70 metres, and I did actually see a couple of fish rising along with one regular fish splashing, obviously a salmon….no salmon boys here though ( yet). As I lifted to recast on one occasion I noticed it felt a bit like there was some resistance and realized I had actually caught a small Grayling on the nymph though it was seemingly so small it wasn’t able to pull the Klink under, that or it just didn’t pull away at all. So my blank was broken albeit by a grayling of about 6 inches long! They all count though!

Radek had messaged though to say he had had one decent-sized grayling ( see the featured image above) and by the time I got down to where he was I think he had had a couple. Marcin too was soon into the fish and I saw him catch a couple, I think one at least was a Brown Trout as well. I rerigged back to fish bugs again and as I was heading out into the water, Radek then hooked a much bigger fish- a Salmon. I think he said he thought he had one on already that had snapped him, this one seemed to stay fairly close for a bit before heading for freedom with a bit of a leap- it was a pretty good salmon it has to be said/. You do laugh a little at the huge rods and flies salmon anglers chuck at these fish yet they seem to be regularly hooked on typical nymph gear. It just needs a rod with a bit of backbone and some heavier nylon to stand a chance of getting one in.

I fished up behind Radek and after losing a couple of flies to the bottom ( so I was getting down) and not getting any interest in a couple of flies like Radek was using, I turned to a Green Tag on point and a River version of the Squirmy wormy on the dropper. I am not a huge fan of the Squirmy though it does work on occasions and I kind of felt the fish needed to see something different.

Almost right away I felt a solid grab at the flies and then the fish took off like a steam train down river. I was down to my backing within seconds, faster than I could set the drag on my reel. I will qualify this by saying my reel had a 9 metre nymphing leader on, tied directly to backing but still, I was out about 15metres of line which is a lot if you know Grayling….was it a Grayling or was it a salmon? I was up past my knees on an uneven bottom so there was no easy way to keep up with the fish, all I could hope to do was head to shallower water where I could move faster and keep as much tension as possible on my 3lb tippet with my rod.

I was pretty sure it was a Grayling though as I could feel the characteristic head knocks and then it did swirl across the stiff current showing its dorsal….definitely a grayling. By now I was making ground on it- I was concerned it was going to get to Marcin before I could get below it, but did catch up and got under the fish. It pulled super hard and the reason soon became clear why. It had taken the Squirmy but then seemed to have got its tail snagged on the point fly, the green tag and snapped the Wormy off on the dropper due to the counteracting forces, so I literally had it by the tail in the full current. I think I was a bit lucky to net it but did get it in for a photo, a Grayling I would say was two to two and a half pounds.

The salmon lads soon moved into the section and I think we were all flagging a bit after the early start so decided to head back to the cars and head for home for tea time, everyone had fish and a nice day on the river. A nice way to see the season out after all.