Blown out the water

Saturday was the Annual Grayling competition on the River Teviot, run by the Jedburgh and Hawick Rotary Club. The event has been twice cancelled by bad weather so fingers were crossed this time would be OK. The weather earlier in the week and the previous weekend had been perfect so it was hoped a good day would be had. Unfortunately a small amount of rain and another battering by high winds intercepted the event with hours to go and it was looking decidedly dodgy the day before. Still river levels were no where near recent highs so maybe it would  be OK, and what’s there to worry about a wee bit wind when you are fishing on a short line?

I left very early to be down Jedburgh for 08:00 sign on. There were a few entrants there already. It wasn’t cold and the wind was not too bad on Monteviot estate in the shelter of the trees.

As the sun rose the river did not look at all bad. It was a little cloudy near the bank but I put that down to sediment from a spit of land just beyond where I was standing. I was not sure of the depth as never having been there before I had nothing to gauge things by but I was told al the surrounding land had been flooded two weeks before.

Looking good?

There was a turn out of 23 or 24 anglers and we were paired up into random pairs and allocated beats. I was paired with John who as it turned out was someone I was semi acquainted with from a couple of internet fishing forum’s (fora?). We were allocated Beat three between Chesters, and Jedburgh. Neither of us knew the water so we decided to head upstream and see what we came across. A couple of miles up the road we found an entrance that led to the river and we got parked up and tackled up for the fishing. Both of us were fishing Czech Nymphs of one form or other.

On walking down to the water we were shocked to see the colour. It was like cold hot chocolate ( if that’s not a contradiction in terms) and looked quite high. Where did that come from!? It was tricky to find any sort of safe access to the water as you could not gauge the depth. I used my wading stick but it was very uneven and I felt like I would quickly get out my depth. Wandering down I found a shallow bank and was able to gain access to the river, and was able to fish across a fairly narrow section, which was fairly pushing along but was OK to wade. The wind though was a right pain and the water was badly coloured up. This was not going to be easy. John explored downstream a bit and found an area out of the wind but then the bank was very high and it was quite badly undercut in places we found one section where the whole bank had fallen in the water recently, judging by the clods of grass on the top.

To cut a long story short we fished it as best we could but it was just not happening so we moved. The rules were fish your beat until 13:00 then you could change to anywhere on the river.

We moved back nearer Jedburgh and were talking to one of the Rotarians who was saying the best bet was above Denholm after lunch. So that’s what we did. Recovering John’s car we drove above Denholm looking for a likely spot and clearer water. We found a section near the road between Denholm and Hawick and it looked very fishy- I suspect it would be good if the water was clear, but it was still brown, maybe not quite so bad as further down but on the flip side the wind was screaming in. Wading was treacherous as the wind was blowing you downstream ahead of your already dodgy footing.

We fished this short but hopeful corner for a while with no sign of fish. Then took a walk upstream, where we found other anglers in the competition. They too had nothing. We started discussing how a single fish might win. John knew a few of the other anglers as Scottish team members…. “they will find fish” he said confidently.

John in our starting beat

We found a long glide and decided to fish this. Having a wading stick I was able to edge out in the river and though there were a few holes and underwater snags, I felt I covered the water really as well as you could here. I must have covered the whole width of the river for about 100-150 yards I reckon. Again not a fish to be had. John stayed near the bank and moved down to some faster water from there.

My partner for the day, John. Great company but shocking taste in hats!

The wind was hellish at times though and the spray was lashing stinging tongues of icy water at times.

This wee video clip gives a very brief idea of the conditions on the day.

We called it a day before 4 and headed off to the prize giving at Hawick confident we would not be alone in blanking but that someone might have been lucky enough to find fish in a secret hole.

Wrong! But for one Kelt ( Spawned out Salmon) that one angler picked up on a bug, not a single fish was caught! There was a table full of prizes and no one to give them too. We were all first equal or last equal!

It was a shame as it was a very well organised event and I would definitely do it again, they are talking about a trout competition in Summer which would be good too but it would be a shame to not have a Grayling competition too.

Better luck next time!