Day of Fishing by JA Pinkney (Monday, December 8th)

Dad and JA were picked up by their fishing guide, Ron, around 9:30 and the rest of us were happy to just take it easy. Mom and Stacey hiked around the Bairnkine farm – along the sheep trails – and had a chance to talk to Matt (one of the owners). While we were relaxing at the farm, Dad and JA were fishing on the River Tweed near the town of Kelso.

Fishing the River Tweed
By JA Pinkney
When we arrived at the River Tweed in Kelso we quickly put on our waders and headed for the water. As we were preparing to enter the water we saw a large salmon jump out across the river. At this point I started to get exited and couldn’t wait to get started. We slipped into the water and thankfully had neoprene waders as the water was just a bit chilly. They had a good amount of rain over the weekend so the water was higher than usual and much murkier. We started off with a quick instruction lesson from our guide. He showed us the finer points of nymph fishing (it is a technique of fly-fishing). I quickly headed off slightly down stream while Ron watched John since he has not been fly-fishing in many years. We started off the morning with several bites and a number of hook-ups, but we weren’t able to land anything. This is typical when trying a new type of fishing. You will spend the first part of the day trying to figure out what you are doing and then the rest of the day actually catching fish. At about 1 pm we were starting to freeze from standing in the fridged water for so long, so we got out of the river and headed into Kelso for lunch. We had some tea, coffee and a nice warm lunch while our feet thawed out and then it was back into the water. While we were out at lunch it cooled off quite a bit and the clouds came out covering the sun we had earlier in the day. After several more hours of fishing we were losing the feeling in our feet so we decided to call it a day. No fish, but we had a great time and learned a new fishing technique that I will hopefully get to use again in the future.

Meanwhile, the rest of us went into Jedburgh for some lunch at the local pub (of course), and then it was back to the cottage. We made dinner and played games in the game room right off the kitchen.