Andy Murray
Andy is a Durham man and has lived in Wooler in Northumberland for a while before moving to Tweedside. Andy worked for the House of Hardy for most of his working life as a casting tutor and dealer liaison officer. His casting prowess has taken him all over the map giving tuition in Norway, USA and Canada . His casting skills range from dry fly for trout in small streams to double-handed rods in foaming Norwegian torrents. His wife hails from Stockbridge on the Test so he really is steeped in top quality fly fishing! Andy’s son Hamish and daughter Harriet also have the flyfishing bug.
Andy now promotes G Loomis rods so if you wish to contact to him about casting tuition or G Loomis rods( a series of rod clinics is being compiled) please take a look at www.andymurrayfishing.com
Andy Murray at Wellington Pool
The Tweedsmill Beat
Tweedsmill is a beat on the lower Tweed below Coldstream near the junction of the Tweed and the Till.It is one of the most prolific beats on the river.You will see from the pictures of the main pools that the Tweed is wide and thus a lot of fishing is done from boats-especially when the water is above the average level.The season opens on February 1 and closes at the end of November. The bulk of the fish are caught in the Autumn at the end of the season although big springers are still taken
Bottom of Wellington Pool
Last season was a record for the Tweedmill Fishery with over 1000 fish landed. The beat also recorded the highest percentage of returned fish for the Tweed river system. The largest fish was caught by Carol Parry and weighed approximately 26lb, the fly used was a Doug Special! (a variation of an Alley Shrimp) The grilse run was especially good with the fish in good condition and a good size, we were even catching sea-liced grilse in November! which made interesting fishing as the next fish could have been in the high 20s. Water levels for last season were on the higher side with very few days lost to too low water or too high. A good year also for seatrout with fish being reported in the high teens.
We fish 4 rods that are being looked after by Dougie Tait and myself.
Dougie Tait
During the closed season we rest up as we are working 6 days a week for the remainder of the year, no bank holidays off for us!! In the summer months apart from working with the rods we have other tasks to perform such as boat maintenance - re-pitching, painting and repairing as our boats are a traditional construction of wood, these boats are made in Norham, on the Tweed , and cost in excess of £2000. Some beats have gone over to fibre glass, which are more easily maintained but in our opinion are not as good and don't handle the same as the traditional boat. Banks need to be maintained, ie strimming and mowing. All these things make the job very varied.
Pot
Our most successful fly would be a cascade and variations of, probably a size 8 or 10 will account for the most fish. With the water being fairly steady we did not need to go to larger tubes, traditionally associated with backend fishing. Indeed only the last 2 weeks did we go to full sunk lines.
Border Maid
The River will no doubt have changed as we have had high water since the close of the season, so I am looking forward to learning the new undulations of the bed. |
