Mixed fortunes have dominated the fishing over the last two weeks. Some days good whilst others, not so good. Usually by this time of the year we have turned a corner and the fishing is very good, but with the extended warm period of a long, dry, hot summer, we are still playing catch up. The rain over the last week has certainly helped things along as has the stocking of some fantastic brown trout, which are now regularly being caught.

Perhaps unusually, the best of the catching has once again been to dry flies – a mixture of small and black, daddies and yellow owls have been the most effective patterns.

The best of the catching has once again been middle to the southern end of the loch, with relatively few being caught towards the top end reed bed. Those that are being caught at the top end are mostly brownies. Boat and bank are fishing evenly well.

The water temperature this morning was 13 degrees C, clarity is perfect, and due to a couple of days rain, the levels are thankfully starting to rise a little bit again. In short, everything is heading in the right direction. So with just 8 weeks left until the end of our season, we encourage everyone to make the most of what remains as it will be well worth the effort.

Les Lockey has kindly sent in a loch report and some photos for the week he spent here last week which is included on the end of this report after the Charity Day report.

 Our Annual Charity Day

Last Sunday, we once again held our annual charity day in support of The St. Abbs Independent Life Boat. This is called The Lad(y)s and Dads Competition with the main prize being the “L” of a Length Trophy for the winning team. With the results being even at 4 wins a piece, it was all to play for in this, the ninth year, of running the event. In the end, it was the Dads who came out victorious despite a valiant effort from the Lad(y)s.

Needless to say, the whole day is centred on people having fun and raising money, with the competition element secondary to this. Once again, the weather was perfect on the day, whilst 24 hours later it would have been hard to see how we could have held the competition. Maybe, someone is looking down on us? Bacon rolls to start the day and a slap- up barbeque at lunch time, courtesy of us, always means that people are well fed. And this year we received a tremendous amount of home baked cakes and confectionary as well.

Our huge thanks for all those who helped go to:

Glynis, Christine, Joy, Sue and Marie for the superb cakes.

Karl and Bill for the venison burgers

And to:

Gordon, Sue, Glenys, Christine, Mikey and Dave (responsible for the superb photos which are at the end of this report below) for the help that you give us. We would find it hard to cope without your on-going support and it is much appreciated.

With the fall-out from COVID still upon us we were unable to sell boat flies and raffle throughout the year and so we thought that it would be difficult to raise as much money as we had in previous years. We need not have worried. Donations from members, holiday guests, angling clubs and the generosity from the people who took part on the day meant that we exceeded all expectations. We should also mention that we raised money through the sale of fishing tackle that was given to us from people who had lost loved ones that regularly fished here and who wanted their tackle to go to a good cause. Thank you all.

A healthy part of the money is always raised via the raffle and we would like to thank all of those people who donated prizes for this year.

We are already thinking about next year and would therefore ask that if anyone has anything at all that they could donate to the raffle, we would be very grateful to receive it. Please dig deep for this very worthwhile cause.

We will soon be making the necessary arrangements to hand over our donation to the Life Boat of St. Abbs and we are delighted to announce that the total amount this year is a fantastic:  £1395.00

The break- down is as follows:

Monies from fishing:                                                       £660

Raffle monies:                                                                £325

Donations from anglers, holiday guests, angling

clubs & from the sale of tackle:                                     £410

                                                                TOTAL:    £ 1395.00

We are delighted to have raised so much and to be able to hand over this sum to St Abbs Independent Lifeboat and I think it’s fair to say that a great day was had by all and that everyone, including us, are already looking forward to next year!

Fishing reports from Anglers:

Fishing Report by Les Lockey.

26^th Sept – 1st Oct. 2021.

My week started with the Lads and Dads charity competition and once again we were blessed with fine weather and good fishing conditions which really helped to make the day a real highlight of the season for all who were present. Apparently, I was first to land a fish and although my boat partner, John Dow and I brought 11 fish to the boat, it was John who just edged it with six fish to my five. I did however manage to catch a whopping perch of about 2lb on, believe it or not, an almost static FAB!

For the rest of the week the weather took on a decidedly cooler, more autumnal feel, with periods of bright sunshine often accompanied by showers and strong blustery winds which did little to enliven the sport.

With few fish rising, my main approach was to target the areas close to the shoreline particularly around the old decaying weed beds in search of potential fry feeders, using a long midge tip line and either a black minkie or a rabbit fry pattern which produced some very nice browns to about 3.5lb. When rises did occur, they were short lived and quite localised, so success was down to being in the right place at the right time. On the few occasions I found rising fish, they were once again quite fussy and even well- presented small black dries would usually be met with swirls and inspections, but invariably rejected. I did however manage several browns on a flat daddy, including two in consecutive casts.  My tally for probably my most difficult week ever at Coldingham, was 24 fish – 17 browns and 7 rainbows.

Les sent in the following pictures of some of the browns he landed.

Visiting Clubs:

Club days over the next fortnight are:

Tuesday 5^th October – Ellem Club

Sunday 17^th October – North Berwick FFC and Cockburn AC

Other News:

Please note: That on Sunday the 10^th October we will also be holding the annual Coldingham Loch Cup competition, which means that during the day the loch is closed to all other anglers.

Charity Day Gallery:

The gallery below is from the Charity Day all photos kindly taken by Dave Whalley and shown here with his kind permission. We haven’t labelled many of them but Dave has said that anyone who wants copies of these photos are welcome to have them. Please get in touch with Gareth or Carmel if you want copies of any sending to you. Some of them are really lovely keepsakes – thanks again to Dave for taking them.