FISHING IN THE BEAUTIFUL BORDERS
I took the opportunity a few weeks ago to visit friends in Hawick, a picturesque town that straddles the River Teviot in the Borders area of Scotland. It’s a mere two and half hours from East Lancashire and an area that is so often by-passed by tourists and holiday makers as they travel north to Glasgow, Edinburgh and beyond.
I took the A7 north of Carlisle and within a couple of miles the traffic had all but disappeared and the flat landscape began to change into gentle hills, woods, dales and with masses of wild flowers along the edge of the road.
Hawick is the largest of the Borders’ towns but it is compact and lacks traffic congestion. It’s handily placed for river and loch fishing which is mainly for brown trout in the summer months with salmon in the rivers, particularly in the Autumn. The Autumn run on the Tweed and Teviot is world renown but there are fish in the rivers every month and some good movement of salmon after a good rainfall.
The Teviot At Hawick
I walked upstream from Hawick town centre for several miles and, as my eyes became used to looking, I noticed that there were a lot of small brown trout in evidence. With the polaroids it became easier to spot individual fish in the pools and glides and there were fish up to a couple of pounds but it is difficult to truly estimate the weigh of fish in clear but running water.
In most parts of the river, wading would be safe and comfortable and because the river was quite low a medium sized rod and line would do the job; down to eight and half foot and a four or five weight line with a twelve to fourteen foot tapered leader. Locals advised traditional wet flies, either singly or in a team of three but fish were quite positively taking food out of the surface film and a small dry fly would also be effective in these conditions.
In the Town water by the road bridge one of the locals was spinning into deeper, faster water but seemed to be conducting a fruitless search on the two occasions I passed by.
The Teviot flows on from Hawick and eventually joins the Tweed at Kelso. Salmon are taken through the year but the Spring and Autumn fishing is much sought after and can be expensive varying from £ 20 – £ 100 per day depending upon the beat.
The Tweed At Melrose
What a beautiful town! Again, like Hawick, compact and neat with a magnificent ruined abbey that is well worth a couple of hours of anybody’s time. See the burial spot where William Wallace’s heart is reputed to be buried in a special urn, look at the outlines and walls of the abbey church and even the monks latrine and main sewer drain!
The river Tweed is a much bigger affair than the Teviot, even in low water conditions in mid-July. It is accessible for walkers and anglers alike and I took advantage of this for a half-day ‘recce’. I examined pools and lies, found excellent access points and talked to anglers during this session. There were a couple of boat anglers with ghillies spinning the pools without evident success.
The wading anglers I spoke to each had a fish on the bank and were fishing the fly on floating or sink-tip lines and thirteen and fourteen foot rods. Apparently there had been some rain further inland in the hills during the night and several fish had been spotted running the river with a couple hooked and grassed.
With care, the wading looked safe enough in the clear water but there were quite a lot of boulders of various sizes on the river bed and both anglers adopted a one-foot-at-a-time method of moving about.
Brown trout were in the streamer weed beds in good numbers and occasionally one would dimple the surface but the fishing that day looked exclusively geared to salmon rather than trout.
Loch Fishing
Akermoor and Acreknowe Reservoir, permits from the three Hawick contacts below.
These two are accessed from Hawick and offer good rainbow as well as brown trout fishing at very reasonable day ticket prices and are set in magnificent scenery.
Prices
Most trout fishing, whether river or loch, is much cheaper than in England with some association waters in the £ 1.50 – £ 5.00 per day bracket. Most of the contacts below will be able to point the angler in the direction of very affordable brown trout fishing with easy access and safe wading.
Salmon fishing is more expensive but association waters are considerably cheaper as are some hotel waters for guests. Lowest price in Summer that I could find was £ 10.00 per day. Some Autumn fishing is as high as £ 500.00 for a week but some asking about suitable beats at tackle shops, etc will uncover much lower prices for a day’s fishing even in peak periods.
FISHING CONTACTS
River Tweed
Peebleshire Salmon Fishing Association, Blackwood & Smith, 39 High St, Peebles. Telephone: 01721 720131
JH Leeming, Tweed Salmon Fishing Agent, Stitchill House, Kelso. Tel: 01573 470280
Tweed Valley Hotel, Walkerburn. Tel: 01896 87036
Gala Angling Association, 3 St Andrews St, Galashiels. Tel: 01896 755712
Melrose Angling Association, C/O Croall Bryson, St Dunstans, Melrose. Tel: 01896 822400
CD Grant, Newsagent, Newtown St Boswells.
Forrest & Sons, 40 The Square, Kelso.
Tweedside Tackle, Woodmarket, Kelso.
River Teviot
Tweedside Tackle, Woodmarket, Kelso.
Hawick Club Premises, 5 Sandbed, Hawick.
Hooked on Hawick, 4 Silver St, Hawick.
The Pet Shop, 1 Union St, Hawick.
Recommended Hotel Accommodation At Hawick
After a three day visit I can in all honesty only recommend one hotel because it’s the only one in which I have stayed in this area. Try the Elm House Hotel just off the main shopping street in Hawick. It’s a little oasis on the edge of town with its own private parking in a secure court yard.
It’s owned by twin brother, Forbes and Lindsay Neish (Forbes is the one with the moustache) and they are following in their parents footstep and keeping the hotel very much in the family tradition. They have about twenty rooms, an excellent bar serving several good draughts including Tennents 80. The restaurant is genuinely first class with a good selection of moderately priced wines (£ 7.50 for a fine Chilean white that would cost treble in Manchester or Glasgow) and main courses which specialise in local beef, lamb and fish.
You will get a cheery and helpful welcome, very clean and well appointed rooms, very good bar snacks and excellent a la carte restaurant meals. Strongly recommended.
Contact: Elm House Hotel, 17 North Bridge Street, Hawick, Borders, Scotland. Tel: 0450 72866.
