THE TWEED 21 



On 23rd, Hon. Mr. Ward hooked and landed a fish on a silver 

 Wilkinson and found Lord Herbert's fly in its mouth. 



Below Kelso Weir, on the opposite side from the town, the 

 Teviot enters from the south-west. It is the largest tributary of 

 Tweed being about 39 miles long. A recent writer has copied an 

 error of a well-known angler's book of reference in stating that the 

 Teviot is 60 miles long. Sixty miles in the same direction would 

 be away across both the Esk and the Annan. It rises, however, 

 near the borders of Dumfriesshire. The chief feeders are the Ale, 

 Jed, Oxnam, and Kale. Numbers of fish ascend the Teviot, and, in 

 the autumn, the water bailiffs are usually busy in this district, for 

 the poaching fraternity are numerous and over bold. 



Hawick, Denholm, Ancrum, and Jedburgh, are towns in Teviot- 

 dale or Tividale if one must adopt an ugly abbreviation. On the 

 Teviot and the feeders named there are no fewer than 32 weirs. In 

 the case of not a few, fish can ascend without much difficulty, and 

 this in some cases in spite of the fact that no passes exist. Some 

 of the caulds are, however, much more serious affairs, notably at the 

 Bongate Mill cauld at Jedburgh, and at Millheugh on the Oxnam. 

 The latter is formed of natural rock, and both are almost wholly 

 obstructive to the ascent of fish. 



Though several of the feeders are rocky the Eule Water indeed 

 which enters at Denholm means, I believe, the rumbling sound 

 the lower Teviot, owing no doubt to the prolonged action of denuda- 

 tion, becomes quiet and rather sluggish, so that attempts have ere 

 now been made to increase the current by concentration, and so, if 

 possible, improve the fishing. Early Tweed fish, if they are lucky, 

 get up to Kelso, where their progress is checked by the cauld. The 

 quiet Teviot then offers itself as a further channel. Hence it 

 follows that not a few fish are sometimes caught in lower Teviot in 

 the months of March and April. Bull-trout, by which I mean the 

 round tail (S. trutta variety eriox), also ascend, but, as usual, are 

 little use to anyone. 



The Tweed after receiving the Teviot, is a river of such propor- 

 tions that boatwork becomes more or less necessary in fishing. In 

 following the river downwards from Kelso we have now the most 

 productive water in front of us. Leaving out of count the bends of 

 the river, the general direction is now north-east to Berwick, about 

 five-and-twenty miles. Hendersyde or Sharpitlaw of Sir Eichard 

 Waldie Griffith, Bart., the present chairman of the Tweed Commis- 

 sioners is on the left, and Sprouston, of the Duke of Koxburghe, on 



