We are staying again at a friend of a friends flat in Kelso but the chat in the pub is that unfortunately while the Rolls Royce beats are delivering huge numbers of salmon (35 in a single day on one beat that week!), there's very little water in the Teviot and it looks like fish have either pushed through on the last spate or are sitting in the junction pool waiting for water. At over £1,000 per rod per day on the Hendersides and Upper Lees of this world, it seems that this year we may be a bit priced out of where the fish are stacked up...
The change in the river is stark compared to last year, with very low water showing the bare bones of the river bed and virtually no fish showing at all. The barometer is falling rapidly as well - hardly the best conditions. The four man team manfully throws the kitchen sink at the river for 4-5 hours though but the only highlight is my work colleague and mate Jimmy finding out that a mouse in his garage had chewed through his waders about 3/4 up the legs . Fortunately, in terms of entertainment value for the rest of us, he didn't find out until chest deep in a fast run so took a full soaker!
The afternoon produces one pull between us and I resorted to the trout road with a three fly spider set up to try to catch one of the large grayling which the river is famous for. Only a 5-6 ins specimen and a salmon parr co-operate though and late afternoon decide upon one final throw of the dice for the day through by switching back to the salmon set-up with a small size 10 silver stoats tail double, a size that had worked well at Tulchan, Speyside in the summer. It's amazing the casting benefits that can quickly accrue from just having a rest from the double-hander and finally my snake roll is more serpentine than sausage roll, with the leader turning over and straightening nicely as I work through a long pool.
About 5th or 6th cast and there's a fierce jolting take with about 4-5 yards of line being stripped off the reel; but then it all goes very odd. There's definitely a fish on but the fight is very erratic with short jangly bursts then nothing, then the rod tip bouncing like a perch. It's a short fight before the culprit is swimming round my legs - a decent grayling with the stoats tail firmly in the scissors. He looks to be close to a pb and a quick weigh in the net reads 1lb 8oz, which would you believe it is my third fish at exactly that PB weight...!
It's another manic night in Kelso that evening (not really), with one local group in the White Swan absolutely tonto'd by 7pm and drunk sober by 10.30pm in the curry house....
Day two and whilst the barometer has settled back up at 1017 from a low of 1014 when we packed up the night before, it's a cold bright day and none of us are particularly confident. We spend quite a bit of time admiring a great trout statue in the Kelso Orvis shop to delay our arrival at the river - there's some thick heads and everyone knows it's probably going to be tough until it warms up a bit.
Even though I'm off the grog at the moment, the night's rest seems to have caused total muscle memory loss and I'm casting like a total arse, with a fly in the back of head, quickly followed by a ripped shirt during an aborted double spey; and finally a real personal highlight of embedding both barbs of the double silver stoats tail in my cheek and having to rip it out with the forceps while up to my chest mid river. It's tough fishing as well with no fish showing at all and I really should get a casting lesson....
A couple of the lads pack in at lunch to make the drive back to the North West but around 2.30pm a single fresh fish shows and I go for plan C, which is an attempt at the Gorogan, a big deep black holding pool on the beat, which is the size of Loch Ness and must be home to some fish, even if they are probably big wily browns that only eat haggis. It's a real schlep through brambles to get into the pool which has virtually nil flow to bring the fly round, but whilst an hour of effectively stillwater fishing produces nought there is at least a few fish (salmon) showing in there to keep the spirits up.
Trudging back at 3.45-4pm to pack up, a glance down at the river shows there a big hatch of olives and in an amazing turnaround smaller fish are now rising freely throughout the whole beat. A quick switch to the trout set-up produces and immediate response with 9 brown trout to a pound (would you believe it); 2 more decent grayling and parr galore, obliging virtually every cast for 40 mins until when playing a small browney the reel sings and it feels like a bigger fish has taken him. It's no pike or hook jawed male salmon though - a bigger brown trout has taken another of the spiders on the cast and the strangest fight ever, I finally land two in the same net!
Hitting rises with a short flick cast brings more grayling and after catching 17 reasonable fish in double quick time, I call it a day after plenty of late action but sadly not one pull from a salmon in two days....
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