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The River Tees starts it’s journey at Cross Fell, high in the Pennines and flows east for 85 miles though the towns of Middleton-In-Teesdale, Barnard Castle, Darlington, Stockton and Middlesbrough to its mouth at Teeside. The middle and upper Tees is a haven for all fly fishers, with a local phrase being ‘there is just something about the way Tees water flows’. For the fly fisher the Upper Tees is fast becoming world renown for its wild brown trout fishing. Due to High Force waterfall acting as a natural barrier the wild brown trout we believe are genetically an ancient species and although not big, they fight!

The upper Tees in character is an area of Outanding Natural Beauty, rugged moorland, meadows and waterfalls. As you move down the river to the middle reaches you come to the more settled and tranquil flows of the middle Tees, which harbours free rising wild brown trout and grayling fishing, and this year (2020) saw the catch of an incredible 6lb wild fish.

With the Tees draining an area of nearly 2000km2, we have no short supply of tributaries. The River Lune, River Balder and River Greta are the main veins to the upper system, and the River Skerne and Leven joining the lower. The River Tees is also nationally renown for it coarse fishing, this is mainly due to the instalment of the Tees Barrage, a tidal flood defence which has created an incredible habitat for many coarse fish species. The barrage was built in the mid 90’s to help drive post industrial economic regeneration. The river was in such poor state that very little thought was given to fish passage in it design. Consequently, the barage has had a negative impact on the recovery of migratory fish in the river. However, over the last 10 years, much work has been put into refining operational procedures to favour fish passage and we are starting to see better numbers of sea trout and salmon in the Tees.