Fishing Tower & Hollows Beats, Diane Owen, Paul Stephenson, Joe Hazelden, I Hewartson and T.Jones all managed to catch a number of school sized 1lb to 2 1/2lb sea trout, some in diffcult circumstances when dissolved oxygen levels were low and made fish lethargic and reluctant to take.
On the Mid & low Irvine house beats, Paul Stafford landed a 2 ½ lb. sea trout on silver stoat, M. Savage used like fly to land one slightly smaller, as did T. Jones except he caught a brace to 4 1/2lbs.
Mick Horner caught 4 sea trout to 3 1/2lbs using light tackle and worm. Peter Graham landed a sea trout on mepp , but after hooking& losing another 3 had to settle for the one in the bag. Craig Carson landed a brace of sea trout to 2 lbs at Petes hole whilst Ian Steele settled for an 10lb salmon instead
Not having fished for 20 years, Don Collie of Edinburgh , got the bug and within 3 minutes of getting a start, hooked and landed a nice wee grilse from House Stream. The drag was set tight on the reel and had it have been a larger salmon , the hook hold would have surely parted. He did well to land it.
Some bigger salmon appeared at Willow and Cauldron beats with Jonathon Massey landing one of 12 1/2lbs on F/C , Ray Hudson 11 lbs on a Dunkeld single and Veteran fisher Charlie Stephens , also reported to have had a good fish. Some good sea trout were caught too, Paul Hurst landed a brace on spinner to 2 lbs, B. Gilby had a 2 pounder on worm, Dave Laidler enjoyed 3 in the day to 2 lbs on fly and then followed up with 4 sea trout to 2 ½ lbs toward the month end. Gordon Mason landed a fresh school sea trout on spinner.
The number of school sized 1 ½ to 2 lbs sea trout have increased this year, more like the type of fish we used to get, although there are still bigger specimens to be had.
On Tower & hollows Beats, Ian Pugh, T. Whitcher and T. jones all had school sea trout using silver stoat variants,Ian Hewartson likewise. Hugh Berridge landed 4 sea trout to 2lbs in a day on mepp, followed by another 3 the largest of which was 3 1/4lbs . Also making skillfull use of the spinner , Mr. Constant caught 4 to 2 lbs. Michael Craven of Yorkshire also fished mepp to land 3 sea trout and a brownie. Retired head river watcher Irvine Wylie, now well into his eighties caught an 11 1/2lb salmon from Caul Pool on F/c. He also sends his best wishes to all those he used to see on the river.
Sport on the permit beats of Canonbie , low Liddle and Langholm was also encouraging. Jackie Allan had a brace of sea trout to 2 ½ lbs from Moat . Colin Rutherford a 2 pounder from Liddle at Black kist on Black Pennel. Steve White a brace to 1 3/4lbs on needle fly at the Dubh. Michael Currie a 1 1/2lb sea trout on T/B/Silver and Ross currie one a wee bit bigger.
James Feehan of Newcastleton was delighted with his capture of a 15lb Salmon from Low liddle at Harelaw
Further up Liddle, Tommy Newton caught 3 sea trout on rapala and several lost more, in a day session during which he said the pool just came alive with a big run of fish.
Back at Canonbie, St.John Soulsby had a similar frenzy at the wires, hooking 6 in a short space of time and landing 3 of them.
Fishery manager Iain Bell mentioned that he has been thankful for the efforts of fishers with collecting sea trout scale samples , which are passed the 100 mark now, but keep them coming. One or two rods have omitted to fill in details such as where caught etc. He says that this information is vital, to establish which tributaries are or a re not their home of origin.
At a meeting of solway Sea Trout Group, next years steps with Celtic sea trout project will hopefully include the deeper Marine part of the equation as well as the estuary work which has already been started.
A big flood at the end of the month with good tides will hopefully see some more grilse bouncing into the beats.
