River Tweed Fishing Report Monday 1st to Saturday 6th July

Upper River

Horsbrugh Beat: “Rain throughout the season has brought fish into the upper system” says Kenny Annan. One fish has been caught so far and with the next lift of water he expects to see more. Recommended flies: small dark patterns, mini tubes, small singles & doubles.

Kailzie Trout Fishery: Fishing has been slow and challenging this week, with the best time to fish in the evening, where anglers have been matching the hatch. Activity from anglers for both trout and salmon has been minimal on the river at Kailzie. Tuesday, Ben McCallum, Education Officer, from the Tweed Foundation introduced adults from the local community to fishing on the trout lake.

Peeblesshire Angling Association: Wind has affected catches, but once it died down, trout were seen coming to the surface

Middle River

Boleside Beat: Had a good week with 5 salmon caught (notably Gordon Rennick caught a 15lb & 17lb on a monkey tube fly) and more fish lost. Sea trout are not here in good number, two were caught last week, including a 10lber.  Anglers have been successful when varying their fishing time to suit conditions. Recommended setup: short intermediate tip, summer flies, Black Francis fly.

Lower Pavilion: Fish were caught on Wednesday (2), Thursday (4), and Friday (2).

Tweedswood Beat: Phil Ellis has passed his FFF double-handed casting exam, congratulations. Monday he welcomed Ryan Bunyan a beginner to fly fishing.  Ryan purchased a  double handed rod at the start of June and with some excellent tuition from Phil he hooked 3 fish and landed 2 at 12lb and 8lb. Later in the week Phil hosted a Ladies Charity day, raising funds for the Tweed Foundation. The ladies had a great day with excellent tuition from Phil, no fish were caught in the challenging downstream wind. The River at Tweedswood is now on a summer low - still plenty of fish about and starting to see a few sea trout. Fish in the beat are preferring to sit in the faster water. Tweedswood’s season has started well with 31 so far. This time last year the beat had only caught 2 salmon! Their next fish will equal last years entire catch! Phil recommends small flies size 16 and 18 on the dropper and small leaders. Showers are forecast this week, ample fish and fresh fish are clearly creeping up the system.

Drygrange: We caught up with Ian Davis who fishes Tuesday and Saturday on the beat. His group have caught 8 fish, with 3 to Ian’s rod, making it the most sucessful season so far. He believes the seal pushing salmon up the river above Kelso has helped. Recommended fly: size 10 Editor.

Bemersyde Beats and Dryburgh Lower: Both having good seasons, ahead of their 5-year catch average.

Mertoun Beat: Finished in the high teens last week, Middle Mertoun caught 9 salmon and a sea trout, which takes Mertoun beat’s catches to over 150 fish

Rutherford beat: Continues to fish well with 4 fish and a sea trout, taking their catches to 99. June finished with 62 fish, its best since pre-2019.

Lower River

Junction Beat: Finished the last week of June with 18 fish taking their total to 142, and their second best June on record. This week the river has been slowly falling and is now an inch on the guague. As I write this report (Sunday 7th) Kelso has witnessed some intermittent heavy thunder storms and torrential rain, the type that runs over the gutter! 

Sprouston Beat: 6 fish on Monday, 5 on Wednesday to Rober Jolly’s party. Rods have caught a total of 93 fish this season, marking their second-best June on record.

Birgham Dub: Fish caught most days last week taking their  total this year to 85.

Carham Beat: Good water levels and water temperature mid-high 50s. Fish have been seen moving through the beat and rods have caught 4 sea trout and 3 salmon. The Matthewson party fished Tuesday, Colin caught a 7lb salmon and 5lb sea trout and his wife Jane a 10lb salmon. The beat hosted a ladies charity day on Saturday raising funds for the Tweed Foundaiton and introduced women to fishing. Thank you Lee and Peter for your excellent tuition and generosity. Recommended flies: small, half-inch brass tubes, Snealda’s etc. Weather this coming week looks unsettled, and rain is forecast.

Lower Birgham: Has had a fantastic week with fish caught every day. Monday produced 6 fish and Tuesday & Wednesday 3 fish. Fishing Carhan yesterday I caught up with Tom and congratulated him and his rods on a great week. He said “We were lucky to have a fresh run of fish arrive with us on Monday and they stayed around till Saturday. Fish caught every day, finishing on 17 salmon and 2 seatrout, by far the standout week of the year….so far! Sea liced summer salmon with most ranging between 9-13lb.

Lees Beat: I caught up with Andrew Douglas Home and he reports Lees finished on 10 and lost the same amount, one angler had 5 on during his morning fishing and everyone got off. The forecast for next week remains cool and unsettled, certainly no heat wave, with possible proper rain on Tuesday/Wednesday.

He has kindly allowed me to include the following from his TweedBeats report within this fishing report. 

“I hear from my kind correspondent that Tweedmill, an online catches agnostic but one of the best beats in the lower river, had a good week (19 salmon) with 9 of them caught on Saturday, with fish aplenty seen at North Bells (old netting station). The reports from down that way, normally excellent for sea trout, are that, unlike last year, there are, so far, very few”.

Tillmouth Beat: Speaking with Willie Elliot he too confirms that good numbers of grilse are entering the system along with some big salmon. Tillmouth rods caught fish most days and reported 4 on Friday taking them to 12 salmon this month so far. 

Lennel Beat: Opposite Tillmouth beat caught 13 fish this week. 

Milne Graden: Finished the week with 5 fish.

Boathouse and Canny: Mark French welcomed Ben McCallum, TweedStart Education Officer, and TweedStart Ambassadors for the first of 2 days salmon fishing, thank you Mark. Running fish were seen by the young ambassadors and Mikey fishing the pool in front of the fishing hut lightly hooked a couple, which sadly did not stay on. The Tweed Foundation would also like to thank Ladykirk and Norham Angling Improvement Association for the opportunity to fish for wild brown trout on the day. 

Beats below Norham: From Thursday onwards anglers fishing these beats caught fish. Pedwell beat caught a 20lb salmon. Horncliffe caught their first fish and Tweedhill rods reported fish Thursday, Friday and Saturday along with a sea trout on Saturday. 

Finally I would like to quote Andrew Douglas Hume “There is now a certain consistency to the catches indicating a slow and steady build up, almost from top to bottom of the main stem, albeit the very lowest beats are still lacking anything but the very smallest activity. 

The downstream dearth proves what long term observers of salmon habits know to be true, they like to meet friends on their journey upstream, no friends and they won’t stop until they come across a pool populated with at least one or two likely looking lads/ lasses; much like us in a pub, walk in and there is nobody there and the immediate thought is panic, leave and try your luck elsewhere, but full of lively cheer and smiling faces, and “Oh, this looks like fun” and you settle in for a session. The lack of kelts, then endless flooding, followed by plenty of marauding seals have conspired to deprive the lowest beats of residents. The lights for incomers are permanently green.

Catches - you can view catches for both TweedBeats and FishPal and other non reporting beats in the Fishing section of RiverTweed.org.uk the official website of the River Tweed Commission and Tweed Foundation

Salmon availability for the month of July - check the River Tweed website for both FishPal / Tweedbeats and some non reporting beats. 

Trout fishing availability for the month of July - visit the Trout Angling page on the River Tweed website. 

If you are a trout angling association and your details have not been included please get in touch with anne@tweedfoundation.org.uk 

Thank you to the boatmen and ghillies for your fishing reports. Anglers please keep emailing your fishing news to anne@rivertweed.org.uk and tag us into your Tweed fishing trips on social at River Tweed News. 

Best wishes

Anne

The Tweed Foundation Annual Auction will go live in November. If you would like to donate an auction lot to support the work of the foundation and education program, TweedStart, please email anne@tweedfoundation.org.uk