Peter Anderson shares a trip he had last year where he travelled from his home in the South East up to Scotland to fish the mighty Tweed not for salmon but in search of trout.
It was a wet September in 2011. I had secured a day on a private beat on the Tweed not far from Peebles in the Wild Trout Trust annual auction which I was looking forward with, it has to be said, some anxiety. My guide was to be Ron McCordle who apart from being a Tweed whizz is also one of the country’s top wildlife photographers. The problem was the weather, which varied from steady day-long rain to shorter but much heavier showers, one way or another it rained for 10 days in a row. The day before I was due to fish was dry though, and I got optimistic all of a sudden. I had a chat with Ron that evening and he warned me that heavy rain was forecast at the top of the catchment overnight and if this materialised then we were scuppered......which put me back into a depressed state.
The Gods were kind though. The rain fell, but was about 4 hours later than predicted, we had a window of opportunity! The private beat was out but if I was prepared to drive down to Melrose we could fish there, though Ron warned that it was likely that the river would rise and become unfishable by lunchtime. Hey, I’d driven 500 miles for this so a few more to Melrose and a morning fishing was definitely not a problem.
I met Ron at about 9.30 and we had a look at the river.....bigger than I normally fish by a factor of about 10! Ron was pretty open about our chances – Czech nymphing in these conditions he said, no point in trying anything else. At least the river had a nice gravel bottom so the wading was reasonably easy, not like the Welsh Wye or Irfon, so I at least had every chance of staying dry!
I tackled up, I’ve done a bit of Czech nymphing and was reasonably confident. Ron did put me right on the point fly though, my usual 3mm tungsten beaded, lead bodied nymph was deemed to be too light! Ron gave me one of his carrying about 6mm of tungsten – never has a depth-charge nymph been so well named! He also briefed me on etiquette – salmon anglers take priority, if one approached then we were to stop fishing, and they could be a bit tetchy! Bit much I thought but rules are rules (and the one salmon angler that did approach was absolutely charming).
So I waded 4 yards out onto the edge of some very lively fast, deep water. Apparently the Swedes and Finns fish this water by wading right out into the very fast stuff, Ron said I was welcome to do this but I would be on my own! I stayed safe. In went the team of nymphs and I tracked them down. Third cast, the indicator stopped, I was into a fish which fought well in the fast water....brownie?...... big Tweed grayling?.....nope.....a rainbow! I was surprised and disappointed; Ron was dumbstruck. He’d fished the water for 20 years and had never seen a rainbow. He said that there was a fish farm upstream and we thought that the heavy rains and flooding must have washed the fish out into the river. Ah well. Then you know what? Next cast, another rainbow! Fortunately, there were no more.
The morning was fun, plenty of trout but nothing big. Disappointingly, no grayling though. It is a powerful river and every so often I felt a surge and it seemed as though the water had suddenly got deeper. It had! At about 12.30 Ron pointed out that the river had risen about a foot during the morning and the overnight rain was now beginning to make itself felt. Bits of tree were also starting to float past and Ron recommended that we get out (actually, on reflection he did rather more than “recommend”!). So that was it, a fun morning. Not quite what I was expecting (which was a bit of dry fly and spider action) but under the circumstances I was lucky to have been able to fish at all. I must go back and have another go!
Catch up with more of Peters fly fishing adventures via his excellent blog