How to Read a Salmon Pool on the River Tyne

Everyone wants the fish. But the anglers who catch Atlantic salmon and sea trout consistently aren't luckier than the rest — they read the water better. Before you make a single cast on the River Tyne, it pays to understand where a fish is likely to lie, and then to cover that water with the right tool in your hand. Here's how I approach a salmon pool, on the Tyne and anywhere else.

Where salmon and sea trout lie

A running fish is looking for two things: respite from the main push of current, and a sense of security. That combination is what you're hunting for. Look for the seam where fast water meets slow, the crease behind a boulder, the gentle glide over an even bed, and the softer water along the far bank. Atlantic salmon will hold in surprisingly skinny water when they're fresh and settle deeper as they colour up. Sea trout — our sea-run brown trout — sit tight in the day and move into the tails and glides as the light goes, which is why they reward the angler who keeps fishing into dusk and dark.

Nothing is fixed, though. Height and clarity move fish constantly. As a river lifts and colours, holding fish slide to the edges and into slacker water; as it drops and clears, they drop back into the deeper, more oxygenated throats. Read the river you've got in front of you today, not the one you caught from last week.

Learning to read the water is the single biggest thing you can do to catch more fish.

Reading the pool from top to bottom

Think of a pool in three parts. The neck is the fast, broken, oxygen-rich water at the top — a magnet for fresh fish in warmer conditions. The body, or main glide, is the steady holding water where most fish sit and where a well-swung fly does its work. The tail is the shallowing water where the pool draws down before the next run; fish drop back into it to rest, and it can be dynamite for sea trout in low light. Start at the top, cover the water methodically with a step-and-swing down the pool, and give every likely lie the chance to produce.

In high water conditions, fish are being pushed into the banks. The fish pass created soft water on the inside - a hot spot when the water rages...

The right tool for the water: rods

Matching the rod to the pool is half the battle. On big, heavy water a double-handed Spey rod gives you the line control, the reach and the ability to mend and manage a swing that nothing else can match. On medium water, tighter pools or where there are trees at your back, a switch rod is a joy — light enough to fish all day, powerful enough to punch a line out. And when the river is low and clear in summer, or when you're working intimately for sea trout, a single-hander lets you fish fine and delicate. Pick the rod that suits the water and the conditions, not the one that flatters your ego.

101cm from the "inside seam" of fish pass

Lines, tips and flies

The same logic runs through your lines and flies: size and depth to the water. Carry a range of densities and be willing to change. A full floater is perfect for warm, low water and a fly fished near the surface. As the water cools or rises, add a sink tip or a poly-leader to get the fly down and hold it in the taking zone, and step up to a heavier fly — a brass or copper tube — when you need to reach fish lying deep in cold, coloured spring water. The fly's job is to swing at the right depth and speed in front of a fish; the line and tip are how you make that happen.

Fishing a pool in rotation

When you're sharing a pool and fishing in rotation, you'll often end up covering the same water twice — and that is a good thing, provided the two of you are complementing each other rather than competing. Send the lightest line through first: the floater, or the least disturbance, presenting the fly high in the water. The angler following behind then comes through with a denser line, showing the fish a fly at a different depth. Between you, the pool gets fished right through the column, top to bottom — one angler's pass sets up the other's. Don't race down the pool. Slow down, fish it properly, and let the water do its work.

Warm, low or|and technical water? Single handers are underrated yet very precise tools!

Learn to read the Tyne with us

The Tyne is such a good river to learn on precisely because it offers so many different characters of water. If you'd like to learn to read it properly — and understand the season, run by run, or what a first guided day looks like — that's exactly what we do at Bywell. Get in touch and come and find some fish.