To Fish or Not to Fish...

Despite an excellent breakfast at Haughton Castle on 15th August my guests had rather low expectations for the day ahead. The appalling wet weather and a major release from Kielder meant that the river was well over 4.5ft above summer level. Fortunately Kielder had reduced the release from 50 cumecs to 30 and with improving run-off from the burns the river had dropped over a foot and a half and the water clarity was decent.

Alan Greenhill had never fished a river before but he learnt very quickly. Spinning on the edge of a deep pool Alan hooked and landed a sea trout of 4.5lbs. Alan Liddel, an experienced angler and Martin Farrer wandered off searching for any easy spot likely to hold a fish. Martin hooked and lost a leaping sea trout in the neck of the Rack. Alan Liddel hooked 4 fish in total in Harry’s Cave landing an excellent 1.5lbs brownie and 2 sea trout to 3.5 - 4lbs. Despite the fact we saw very few fish, by travelling light and searching all the quieter waters we found them.

I fished off a difficult bank and hooked a fresh salmon which took off so fast downstream I initially thought it was foul hooked. However it settled down and after passing the rod to myself round trees and bushes I eventually found better ground and landed the fish. Its downstream surge and leaps were probably due to the fact that it was hooked in both top and bottom of the mouth. Fish tend to panic when this happens.

So from what appeared to be the hopeless conditions the river supplied, if you are prepared to search for the more comfortable spots, even in very high water there is always a chance. Today the weather was kinder, the sport good, and the “crack” even better.

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