Tweed has been fishing well this week and with river levels steady at just over a foot, prospects look very good at the moment.

Although river levels fell during the week, tonight's KAA trout competition was cancelled due to another big rise in water. As I had not seen the river beforehand, I arrived at the meet with all my tackle. So off to the river I went regardless. I stood by on the bank by the slack water of an eddy trying to spot any tell-tale rings on the surface but the only rings I saw were those of the raindrops. It pelted down incessantly from 8pm until I walked home two hours later, wet and dejected. Hopefully there will be a day this year when I will get to report in here that I have finally caught a fish. At least you can't accuse me of bragging!

Heavy rain over the past couple of days has lifted river levels over 3'. With the water big and dirty, I headed down Tweed this evening armed with a dry Greenwell to hopefully tempt the trout lurking in the slack waters. Although I did see some nice fish head and tailing in the twilight, there was no apparent hatch of flies and no rise of feeding trout. As I wandered home I startled an otter at the side of the river who dived into the water then surfaced about 10 feet out, looked me straight in the eye and barked before disappearing. Two smaller otters then appeared briefly in the water and quickly vanished. It was a nice end to the evening, fishing isn't all about fishing, as they say.

The rivers are now down to summer levels. It was a warm, cloudy, still evening, ideal for fly fishing. I got tackled up at 8pm but was out far too early. I cast an optimistic dry fly over the water but there were absolutely no naturals on the water and no fish rising. A full two hours passed before the first flies began to appear at 10pm, followed by the sound of one or two fish gulping in the fading light. I was unable to tempt anything with my dry fly and so changed to wet while there was still enough light for me to see. There was a sporadic rise of trout, nothing very consistent. I had a couple of tentative pulls on my wet Greenwell but failed to land a fish. As the darkness fell, I saw a couple of very big fish surface occasionally, probably seatrout, but by this time the call of home... well beer to be honest, got the better of me and so off I went.

This evening I walked from Roxburgh up to the Sandbed. There were a few trout rising, a couple of decent sized ones spotted at Sunlaws Mill and the Turnpool. Despite the low water there was also a salmon of around 7 pounds lying under the viaduct.

It was another beautiful evening here but that cold easterly wind is still proving unkind on Tweed. At sunset I took a walk up Teviot, which is much more sheltered in these easterly conditions. The water levels have now dropped to around 6 inches above summer level.


There are tadpoles in the pond now and ducklings in the reeds by the riverbanks. There were very few flies on the water this evening but despite this, there were one or two small trout rising at sunset. However, I only saw one successful angler...

In view of the recent hot weather I thought it might be worth casting a fly in the evening. So I headed down to the Tweed just above Rennie's Bridge last night at 7:30pm. There was a cold easterly blowing but it soon settled and by 8:00pm the river went calm, some flies hatched and some trout started to rise. I only had one small fish of about half a pound before it all died down and I headed for home.

Today I fished Lindean reservoir near Selkirk with my pal Richard. It was a very bright sunny day but again that easterly wind made it feel much cooler than it should have been.


There was a sudden rise of trout at lunch time, I lost 2 fish, both took my dry fly before and pulled for a few seconds before spitting it out and heading down to the depths again. Richard caught a nice fish just over 2 pounds during this brief rise. It was all over in ten minutes and that it was it for the day, we never saw another fish rise. Not the most successful of days but a day in a boat with good company and good banter is hard to beat.