I looked at the river levels on SEPA over and over yesterday, but the rain over the weekend , it was torrential once again on Saturday night here, and the rain in the latter part of last week wasn’t giving me confidence. The weather forecast wasn’t particularly encouraging either. Monday looked to be dry ( ish) in the east but a washout in the west. Looking on Sunday it was still varying between light rain and some torrential looking downpours. Would the Tweed be coloured up, would it rise quickly with the rain forecast further west?
A sign of how high recent floods were- there is a section of tree jammed above the bridge support here.
I went to bed on Sunday night totally undecided but not confident of a wee trip out for the Grayling today ( Monday). My Mrs is up early most mornings and her alarm going, gave me the prompt I needed to look again. The Tweed had dropped about another six or seven inches overnight. The forecast was still pretty grim with the rainfall radar showing some bright red areas over that area of the borders from 10:00 onwards. But the radio forecast suggested there might be heavy showers in places but some areas might escape completely. Would I go or not……. oh hang it. I got up, got the kit in the car and headed for Peebles.
I was down by the river by 10, heading along to my parking spot, the river looked quite brown in the distance but closer up revealed actually it was pretty good- strong tea coloured but clear enough to the see the bottom, and a nice height. What the drive along the the road out of Peebles hadn’t revealed was the strength of the wind as I exited the car. It was howling! Would I be able to fish in this? Well I was here now might as well kit up and have a go. I only set up one rod, I felt even carrying two was a recipe for tangles and snagging, the wind was that strong. I had my 3 weight with my Sunray nymph line and indicator fitted. Ideal for short line fishing but also possible to be used French Leader style for a bit more reach.
I started above the bridge and gingerly entered the water, it was a little more silty that I recall, but was soon over firm stony ground, and the water was about waist deep. The wind at river level was fine and I was able to cover a substantial amount of the river all the way to nearly 2/3rds the way across by letting extra line out. Wading out about 4-5 yards was fine, but 5-6 was risky, the pace of the water while it didn’t look much different applied lots of pressure and was pushing me downstream and I am not the best on my feet right now as it is. I applied a technique I seen just yesterday demonstrated by Hywel Morgan in his 4 seasons River fishing DVD ( a birthday gift) to shoot line and it worked a treat. To be honest the DVD didn’t have much that was new to me, but there were two wee tips I picked up on and both proved useful on the day, so it shows you are always learning.
I covered a lot of this stretch and even tried under the bank. Unless a pod of fish were in the last 1/3 of the river or under the far bank, there was no one home. I had needed to put a bit of a bomb on point to get the flies on the bottom here but was confident I was getting down just hadn’t found a fish. About half way down I changed the two droppers to mix it up a bit with the colours. Then I crossed the river at the bridge and headed downstream fishing just beneath the bridge down a nice even bottomed run until the water thinned into shallow riffles. Still nothing. The wind coming through the bridge arch was making getting line out very difficult and led to a few tangles. So I took my cue to retire to the bank and sort out the leader as an excuse for a rest before completing the fishable water here. Still nothing, maybe the pace was too fast? By now the wind was roaring at times and the rain coming in horizontally though I was well prepared for it and wasn’t feeling cold at all. Quite the opposite in fact.
Never was one wee Grayling so welcome. I notice it has a bit of a raggedy tail- wonder if that’s as a result of holding station in the river while in flood?
I then made my way downstream to the furthest stretch I had decided to target today. I headed right to the halfway point, below which I had been aware of other anglers having some limited success in, in the past though had never been able to fish for grayling here as there was always a group taking up the space, it being a Monday there was no one here so had to be worth a go. The wind was pretty relentless now and I could only fish a every short line otherwise it was picking up the line and affecting the drift of the bugs. Plus in places the water was too deep for someone so short in the leg as me. Casting (lobbing) off the bank though was very hard as the wind was worse just that few feet higher. So I stuck with it and felt my way along looking for holes I might fall in. The water was a little shallower here and I decided less weight was needed and maybe two flies would be better, by now the wind had made a nice mess of my leader and I once again retired to the bank to tie up a new one. The rain thrashed down and a lady went by with a dog, the wind and rain tearing right in towards her face. It was all she could manage to lift her head for a moment to acknowledge me – she looked like she had been for a swim, she was so wet! It wasn’t ideal but I tried to get the leader sorted though it was very hard tying 1.8kg Stroft in these conditions. I managed to make a birds-nest out of it just sitting on the bank and had to take a deep breath and start over trying to remain patient and calm. Second time I was ready, a moderately heavy squirmy tailed pink bug on point and an orange hotspot Czech Nymph on the dropper above. I moved down a few yards and entered the river again, the rain had stopped. Yaay! As the wind though continued to blow I was considering how much effort I had put in to fishing today, not just getting here but persevering in the conditions and thought that if there was any justice in the world I deserved a fish. Then the indicator stopped at the end of a drift down and I felt that characteristic tug tug of a Grayling. It wasn’t huge but I tell you what, right at that moment it was a record breaker for me and I was grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat. The squirmy tailed pink bug had got the fish.
I fished out the rest of the run but never got any further offers, and decided to head back towards the car. I fished through an easy to wade section upstream but it was probably too fast water at this time of year to find fish in and by the time I was done there while I was dry thought it was a good time to head back and make ready to head for home. I literally closed the boot to the car and the rain came on in absolute sheets driven on a howling wind, just in time I was on the road home, only one fish but happy not to have yet another river blank to account for.
