Salmon Fishing on the Tweed

A goal for my trip was to do some salmon fishing in Scotland. I brought equipment to do so (and didn't bring enough for the mountains.) In a talk I gave at St Andrews early on, I announced my interest and suggested that anyone who might know how I might achieve my goal of salmon fishing should talk to me. Edwin Brady came later and said his father was a long-time salmon fisherman and had rights to fish on the River Tweed, one of the most storied salmon rivers in the world.

When Edwin's father Allen visited St Andrews sometime in early March, he stopped in my office and we talked a bit about fishing and showed one another our flyboxes. At that point he invited me to fish the Tweed, though he said he would wait to call me until the Springers were in and the water was at a decent level.

Springers are the spring run salmon that may tend to be smaller than those picked up in the fall run, but which are fresh and bright and quite lively fighters. A good springer could go as much as 25 lbs, though generally they are smaller.


Scottish fishing is a highly structured affair since all water is private. This means that you always pay to fish, essentially renting the right to fish from one bank of the river in a particular section. For less popular waters (e.g. the Eden that flows through Cupar) you can buy a season ticket and have access to a stretch of river that is miles long. On more popular water, you purchase the right to fish a beat whose length is maybe 100 yards and only from one side of the bank or from a boat in that stretch. On the Tweed, beats can go for from around 40 pounds to as much as 400 pounds per day.
Each section (which may consist of many individual beats) is managed by a ghillie whose services are included in the price of the beat.


In late April, I got the call that I would be able to fish the river on 3rd of May. The section is known as Lower Lennel. THe Tweed here is the boundary between Scotland and England. I was scheduled to fish in the morning on the beat known as the Pot pool and then fish the Bottom Wellington (Wellie) in the afternoon. The ghillie was Douglas Tate (Dougie) and he guided me to the Pot Pool. After fishing the main bit by wading in from the Scottish side of the river, he took me out in a boat which I fished from for about an hour. We discovered that aside from fishing, we had a common interest in stalking. He is an avid deer stalker and, being a ghillie on the Tweed, has many connections. He helps in a culling operation in the Highlands where he killed more than a hundred and fifty Red Deer last year alone. Dougie left me to my own devices around 10:30 to and I fished hard, trying to get the hang of the highly technical Spey casts which are the fundamental technique for casting the 14 - 16 foot long double-handed rods used in salmon fishing -- but concentrating on trying to get good long drifts through the best holding water.

At lunch (1 PM) the anglers break for an hour. Allen met me on the bank of the Pot a bit after noon and we ate lunch together at the bothie shown behind us in the photo. My waders were leaking a bit and my arms were tired from casting and the rest was welcome. Allen had planned on coming up to the river with an old angling partner, but his friend was too ill to make the trip. The other anglers proved good company, including Christopher who sang me the 1955 number one hit Jimmy Young hit "The Man from Laramie".

After lunch, Allen walked upriver with me to the Bottom Wellie beat. He stayed with me for a bit while I fished my way down the beat, giving me some confidence that I was not doing too bad. The wind was blowing downstream (from my right to my left) and so I was doing my own cobbled version of the double spey cast where you drop the line upstream, then downstream and then out with a backhand. After Allen left, Dougie came by and spent part of his afternoon trying to teach me Spey casting techniques with a more suitable rig than my own. It is hard for me to convey how truly bad I am at taking instruction in physical activities. If you try to imagine taking dancing lessons from Fred Astaire and you might have some idea of my Spey casting lesson in the afternoon. As I beat the water, with each cast, prospects for actually catching a fish diminished to nil. I resigned myself to the idea that Spey casting is a highly technical skill and that I was getting excellent instruction. Dougie tried to teach me the single Spey cast, which I was no good at with the intermittent downstream wind, and also the circle-C which I was a bit better at.

One fish was caught and released in the morning (on the same beat I fished in the afternoon) and that was it for the day. Two had been caught the day before. Once hope I realized I had only photos of Allen and myself. I'll get more photos of the river and surrounding environs next time.