Weather - Dull, 16ish degrees, started to drizzle
Water - Too high
Where - Above Telfords Bridge
Method - Mepp size 3
Total - 0
Online the river level looked just about fishable and since the forecast was for more rain (and therefore another increase in levels) I headed out for a bit. However on arrival it was apparent that the river was probably still too high. I had a quick thrash with no interest whatsoever (a couple of bumps, but I think that was the bottom due to using a bigger spinner than normal). My waders are a bit leaky above the 'welly' so I wasn't able to wade below the bridge to try there too.
On my way into Valleyfield I was swithering about whether to try a couple of more pools or call it quits when it started to drizzle. I didn't swither any longer and headed home.
In the absence of fish, I thought I'd show the graphs below for North Esk, Almond & Water of Leith for corresponding timescales over the last couple of days. Although their catchments are similar, they don't always correlate this neatly.
The North Esk graph overlaps with the graph on my previous post. It shows the water level would have been about +30cms when I was out on Sunday night (8th July).
I was in Edinburgh on Saturday and took some photos of the Water of Leith (at about 2pm, so past the high peak you can see on the above graph) which I'll post in future. I want to show them next to photos of 'normal' conditions. I'm extremely sceptical about the worthiness of the recently constructed flood defences. It has to be said I know nothing about 'water management'. But if you wade, you'll know how strong seemingly little amounts of water can be. And if you frequent rivers, as I do, you see how high they can get at certain times. A lot of riverbank construction seems to be very well suited to summer conditions. Saying this I don't envy the job of trying to control a flooding river. But it seems obvious that widening the upper stretches of a river without doing anything to the lower stretches is creating a bottleneck. I understand some of the flooding in Edinburgh over the weekend was exacerbated by high tides backing up the outflow even more.
I'm quite familiar with the Almond (there is a link to the Cramond Angling Club on my front page). On the SEPA page it claims that flows up to 3 metres are "normal". If it flowed for long at 3 metres, it wouldn't be long before Cramond itself was in the sea. It is quite an angry beast anywhere above 1 metre. I am unsure how they reach their definitions.
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