In our previous blog, which we wrote a few weeks ago, we were needing a serious flood due to the river being well below summer level. Our wishes were granted last week when we had some heavy rainfall over a few days and the River Whiteadder peaked to just under two metres.

As always, after heavy rain and the river level gauge exploding before levelling off and starting to drop; we always get extremely excited! Especially when it gets to around .70. Then we check our diary to see who the lucky client is. This time Stephan Jefferies was the chosen one. Landing his first Spring Salmon in the Long glide within 30 minutes and loosing another fish not long after.

One of our Syndicate rods landed a lovely fish in the head of the Ledges, around 9Ib on one of our Hot Head Willie Gun Tubes. We had more rain that evening and the river shot back up to over a metre. We lost a few days to high and coloured water then the river started to settle back earlier this week (30-5-24)

Our good friend and client Richard Berry who made our rod racks for our fishing hut was coming to fish with us for two days and travelling up from Somerset. Himself and his friend had made a salmon carving for our fishing hut as a gift to Chasing Fins and they had asked for no money, but for a donation to help for heroes which we did. We were excited to see the finished article which had been carved into Oak and would be mounted to our Fishing hut on our Ninewells Stretch.

The Day Richard travelled North we had a serious downpour of rain and the river came up to nearly a metre. Richard had never caught a Salmon so that was our mission and his dream. He comes up in his camper van which I am sure he he loves more than his wife, haha… so we picked him up early on Wednesday morning from the campsite in Berwick. We then headed straight to the river both excited carrying the carved salmon, a bag full of lunch and a Fly Rod fully loaded.

I took him straight to the Long Glide to teach him the basics. The chosen setup was our Sage One 9’6 8weight matched with a vR reel and single handed trout spey with a 10ft S4 Versileader. The chosen fly was a 1″ copper WG with orange conehead tied by Michael Currie. The river was a bit on the large side still and carrying quiet a lot of sediment but we stayed optimistic. Within 15 minutes of teaching Richard, he hooked into his first ever Spring Salmon. I couldn’t actually believe it. It happened so quick, talking Richard through every move to subdue this lively fish. Eventually the fish was in the net, a lovely Spring Salmon of around 7 pounds. The unfortunate thing though, which I wont go into much detail was that mid fight our fly rod tip snapped. So as-well as landing his first ever salmon, he landed it with a broken rod!!! A big hug and handshake, a few photos and then we quickly released the Salmon back to the river. Unfortunately that was the only rod we had taken up with us, so that was the end to our day. Mission Complete though and a incredibly happy Richard!!!

A few photos attached below of Richards craftsmanship and also a few of the fish we have landed recently.

Best wishes & Tightlines

James Armstrong- Owner & Head Guide/ Chasing Fins