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One new entry for May 2008. May 9th 2008 It’s summer and the weather is fantastic, the mayfly are just about to hatch and the fishing can never be better than right now. News from here is that I did get over to Bewl Water for a morning and fished with Andy lush of the Friendly Fisherman in Tunbridge Wells. Long time friend and we had a real laugh together out in a boat plus a rapid eight fish each, just to prove we can still do it!!! My fiancée, Sue, had her first trout on fly this past weekend and then had a ding dong battle with a 10lb carp on the fly too. Next step is a clear water trip and that usually gets the adrenalin going, then there is no recovery from the fishing bug. I see the Just Fishing series with Chris Sandford has been repeated many times of late. Seven years ago we filmed that, and NO, I don’t get any repeat fees and neither did I get anything in the first instance. Next week I will be on Sky Sports with Keith Arthur and that’s always a good experience. It’s seriously time to start carp on the fly now and I hope to be out in the next week or so, probably over to Newdigate (Dean House Farm) or Willinghurst at Shamley Green. Off to Grafham a week Monday for the Trout Masters Final where I help out the staff on Trout Fisherman and get the chance to see some old friends too. Then it will all too quickly be time to be setting off for Alaska. Full groups again this year and then Canada in August. Hopefully we will soon know who has won the Fulling Mill/Trout Fisherman competition to join me there.  I have been back just a few days from Chile and beginning to recover from the travelling. It really is a long haul. London-Madrid-Santiago-Punta Arenas-Tierra del Fuego. Great experience again but met with tough conditions once more on the mighty Rio Grande. Water was 58F and very low so it’s bye bye sea trout fishing. Last couple of days the weather turned to autumn and went cold so I really hope that my pal Shane Jones from Wales who followed me will find the fish on form. My plan had been to fish lakes more than the river and that worked well because for all my efforts with a 13 foot rod and Skagit casting I never had a touch on the river. OK a couple of resident browns but I only saw three sea trout show on top. My pal Lou Hegedus from Colorado had three sea trout, a small one and two of about 7 – 8lbs (guide speak that would be 11- 12lbs) . There was one other small sea trout taken from the group of eight so you can see it was pretty tough. Fortunately the lakes were good and I had some lovely browns to 4lbs although the longer ones were terribly thin. Maybe again a legacy of the warm dry summer that Chile has had. In one lake I had a rainbow of 6lbs that was one of the best battles I have ever had and if I had not been using a 10lb leader I would have been broken immediately. I see that the recent storms have made a fair mess on the fishery I manage so that will take some clearing away and some kind person let the cattle out twice so they have been round the banks such that I now have masses of 12 inch deep holes everywhere. Lovely. Makes me despair a bit when I try so hard to keep it looking good. Anyway, spring is just about here, fishing can only get better, the buzzer hatch will soon kick off and it’s time to dust off the gear and get out there. This Sunday (16th) I am off up to Birmingham to the Go Fishing Show to help out on the Trout Fisherman stand and then it’s nose down and on with some work. It sure is a wet time right now but it will mean we have another safe year for river levels and it can only help to keep stillwater trout fishing in good shape as the summer comes on. Hard to believe that the weather will get good but already you can see bulbs pushing up and the evenings are slowly pulling out. My fishing has been somewhat limited although I did get a nice grayling day with the trotting rod even if those darn spotty things were a nuisance. Been real busy on maintenance work on the fishery I run and with the wet winter it has meant I can’t burn leaves and have now got the most enormous heap accumulated. Doing well with catching up the left over trout and they are feeding well in the penned off section of one of the lakes. Several nice browns turned up so they will go back in again in May for the anglers to have another chance at them. I did two talks this last week, one for Albury Fly Fishers and one for Sussex Fly Dressers. Both were very well attended and they were fun nights. Several more coming up including speaking to the Fishery Managers Conference. You might have seen in Trout Fisherman that there is a competition to enter. You buy a tenners worth of co polymer from Fulling Mill and get free entry to a draw of which the winner gets an all expenses paid trip to Great Bear Lake with me in August. This is a fabulous trip and great experience. Peter Gathercole comes along too and I have a further 6 anglers booked with me. My summer trip to Alaska is now fully booked and that will be a lot of fun too. In addition I am off to Tierra del Fuego in early March to fish the big sea trout again as well as trout in the many lakes. Pleased to say that my divorce is now over and done with. Might be broke but I still have the shop and can start all over again. My life is happy now that I have the lovely Sue to share it with and we will make a great team for our future. Fiona continues to be ever more useful in the shop and especially with the web site which is coming along very well. Increasingly people use us instead of making the trip to the shop and we hope to further increase that aspect of the business. It’s gone cold now and trout fishing is superb except that it seems very few people are going which is a great shame. I have managed one trip for grayling when I was able to fish with John Goddard on the Itchen. We had a lot of fun and some pretty fish to about 1lb 8ozs, I didn’t physically weigh any this time. There didn’t seem to be many fish on this particular beat but they are so migratory that every day is different. Hoping to get a few more trips in this next month and would dearly love to go somewhere for the chance of a real UK specimen but they are so rare even though everyone who fishes seems to catch them repeatedly but always with no pics. Funny that. Week ago it was the annual dinner for the syndicate I manage and this was the 25th so quite a milestone. Speeches and presentations went off OK and I even got Chris Tarrant on his feet to tell us the story of his huge salmon in Russia. I have a few club nights coming up over the next weeks and that’s always fun but surprising how time consuming it is to prepare the show beforehand. This next weekend it’s time to start catching up the remaining fish from my syndicate lakes. Any that have gone thin get bonked and the others get put in a netted area and fed on for next season. I get some coarse fishing friends do the deed and they have fun while I can get on with leaf clearing and cutting chestnut for bank repairs. I have been doing some cutting back of shrubbery and it’s simply staggering that even on such a private and pretty place that I find drinks can stuffed deep into the bushes. What on earth is wrong with fishers that they can’t take their rubbish to a bin or take it back home. It’s that lovely cool time of year and by rights I should be coming back from Kodiak and steelhead fishing but this year I couldn’t go. There’s always next year and already my plans for trips are well advanced. It’s off to Tierra del Fuego in early March for another sea trout expedition to Cameron Lodge and also to look further at the lakes in the area for browns and brooks. July is always Alaska with outfitters, the Duncans, and this is the 20th year of running trips to the Kanectoc river. As of today there is just one space left for each of the weeks July 12-19 and 19-26. That’s amazing for this stage of the year, no doubt partly helped by the dollar rate but also because the fishing is so very good that repeat bookings quickly fill the trip. August I have a group of eight coming to Great Bear Lake in Canada’s NW Territories to fish lakers, grayling, pike and char. That’s always a wonderful experience and afterwards I head away to Nome in Alaska in search of the arctic grayling again. October should be Kodiak with a small group for the truly wilderness trip and somewhere in between there will be a shop to run, a fishery to manage, articles to write, lessons, maybe another book and for sure, a few trout trips. I did finally hear from the International Game Fish Association that the arctic grayling of 4lb 6oz that I caught this past August has been accepted as a world line class record. That’s quite a milestone for me and I am really pleased that I had it properly witnessed and authenticated so there can be no disputing it. Plan to get out soon and do some grayling trips here while the weather is holding steady. Took a day to Dever Springs to run a feature on Derek Grey who won a day with Trout Fisherman. That was fun and Derek had a great time. I took Fiona as well and she sneaked out her first ever blue, a truly gorgeous fish of 8 -8. Back in September I went to Denver to the Fly Tackle Dealers show and that was a great experience. It has led to me taking on the agency for Temple Fork rods and also for finding a few nice bits for the shop as well as meeting a lot of friends. Fishing is pretty good everywhere now and there is no doubt that the best of UK trouting is in the cooler months but it’s just so hard to persuade people to get out and fish. Short days, cool water and strong fish make for a good combination. Marvelous to hear of that giant salmon from the River Ness in Scotland and great credit to the angler for putting it back although I would have loved to know how big it really was. Good strong runs of salmon to most rivers can only be good for the future of this much persecuted fish. Well, it finally happened and on my visit to Nome in Alaska I achieved something I have been trying for these past 10 years when I caught an Arctic Grayling over 4lbs. The three best went 4.0, 4.5 and 4.6 with my pal Lou Hegedus getting one of 4 .1. I truly can’t tell you how many we caught which just fell short of that four pound mark but which of course are still remarkable fish. Take a look at the gallery page for a couple of new pics. I am hoping to enter for some line class classifications with IGFA and that will be a bit of fun if I can achieve a World Record status. These big grayling are incredibly old (somewhere in the 30 to 35 year mark) and the low population is very fragile in that it would only take the actions of a few selfish people to wipe out the stock of bigger fish. Fortunately the river system is very hard to access and for that reason it remains OK for now. Look for a feature in Trout Fisherman in the winter. Incidentally, the current issue has a feature on that greatest of UK anglers, John Goddard, and what a lovely man he is. I really enjoyed doing that feature and hope to get John out carping on the fly to add to his experiences. Wish I could say I had done some carping but my sole trip was to Dean House Fishery near Newdigate where I had fish to 15lbs on the fly. Otherwise it’s been endless grass cutting on my syndicate fishery to keep it looking good and the wet weather has meant that most fisheries are still in great shape. I keep hearing of the big browns from Chalk Springs and a few too from Avington. Dever Springs has been showing a lot of really good rainbows and I hope to see some of these fish as I have a few corporate dates coming through. As for what’s coming up I seriously suggest you start to look to next year if you want to book up a trip and as ever I welcome being able to advise from past experience. Well, what a summer so far. Lots of lovely rain and now it’s turning warm. Trout fisheries and fish farms have benefited hugely from the wet and it will mean rivers are in good shape for at least a year. Locally here the trout waters have continued to fish pretty well. There have been some weed problems and a few algal difficulties but overall it’s been OK if you are prepared to fish small or try dries. My syndicate water has kept up well and I was able to restock this week which is the first time in many years that I have been able to risk a July/August stocking. Grass cutting has been a pain this year as it just never stops growing and than last weekend a big old silver birch decided to fall over onto a dam and into a lake. That took a bit of dragging and cutting but it’s tidy again now. I was away for some of July with my annual groups to Alaska and it was another very successful year with some great fish recorded and already many repeat bookings. Next years weeks are July 12 to 19 and 19 to 22 and with the dollar rate at an incredible level this is a really good time to book an Alaska trip of a lifetime. I did a few other things this time to explore other options and am always happy to talk about trips whether or not you choose to come with me. Very shortly I will be away on one last effort to try for a 4lb arctic grayling and then that’s it for this years trips. Local fishing has been somewhat limited and no carping trips as yet but hope to get out very soon. I was 60 while we were away in AK and still can’t believe it. Fortunately there are lots of fish out there that I plan to catch and so it’s a very young feeling Mr C who plans to carry on regardless. Shop has kept up well and thanks to everyone who supports us rather than the dreaded internet sites. Fiona manages things very well while I am out teaching or whatever and is such a good fly fisher herself that she is real popular with customers. It's been an odd couple of months in that my personal fishing has been somewhat limited and yet I have been busier than ever. I did get down to Tierra del Fuego with a group to fish the upper parts of the Rio Grande. We hit very high winds coupled with high pressure and low, cold water. Not the greatest for sea trout and it was tough going but nevertheless fish to 21lbs were caught. I did much better on a nearby lake and had 28 browns to 6lbs, They were just the most wonderful wild fish and great fun. I think in future years I will promote the lake fishing here with the sea trout for evenings and if the river is in good shape then fish it in the day too but rely on those last couple hours for the big boys. I have had a couple of trips for carp on the fly and taken fish to 16lbs from Willinghurst but the continual cold easterly winds made that hard. The switch round to westerlies will really help as will the very welcome rain. It's been too dry for this early in the year. Trout fishing has been mostly very good and will be excellent now until it maybe gets too warm. I am seeing lice affected fish already and weed growth has been rapid but there are some wonderful fish being stocked and even the mayfly are already up. My syndicate fishery is looking great too and I finally managed to get the fallen ash tree out of one lake by wading in to chest high and cutting it into bits with a bow saw. That was a bit tedious but it is now cleared away. My new book on small stillwaters has been selling real well so that's gratifying. Lots of feature jobs to do for Trout Fisherman and next week I am up at Grafham for the Troutmasters final. Be good to see old friends there and talk to as many competitors as I can. One project is to get one of the monster browns from Chalk Springs at Arundel but those fish do drive me bonkers at times. Soon be running away to Alaska time in July and there are just a couple of spots left to fill. The dollar rate is so very good that this is the year to go and get some fantastic fishing and just pay for it later. Remember some of my earlier diary entries when we so badly needed water here in the South East. Well things are a bit different now and the land is saturated. It’s great for the early season fishing and I just hope that we have a wet summer too. Fishing news these past weeks has been confined to some feature work for Trout Fisherman and one grayling trip to the Itchen where I had three from 1lb 6oz to 1lb 9oz as well as some smaller fish and that rounded off my grayling winter. Lots of work to do on the syndicate I manage especially as I would no sooner get it cleaned up than another big gale would make a mess of it again. Fishery is open now and in good shape, I actually managed to tip off some of the grassed areas to tidy things up and with early flowers already out, toads spawning and spring on the go it looks great. Trout fisheries in the area have been fantastic these past weeks and in confirms once again that winter is the best time to trout fish. Wonderful looking fish that fight really well. I went out to Oregon a week or two back for a short break and to meet up with Jim Teeny and with the guide company I use for the Alaska trips. That was well worthwhile and I also got chance to visit the Leatherman factory in Portland thanks to Fiona for arranging that. Also met with Rick Pope of Temple Fork Rods and more on that later. Didn’t get to go fishing at all but that wasn’t the intention anyway. Just as wet out there and on the higher ground there was plenty of snow. I went out with the Duncans one morning to go elk spotting and there sure are some impressive beasts out there. Talking of the Duncans and Alaska we are just about done now for the coming summer apart from the week of July 14 to 21 when there are still a few vacancies on the Lower base camp. This is a prime week when the river is full of fish so with the dollar rate at such a level for us you should really think about a trip this year. I doubt it will ever be such good value again. In a few days time I am away to Tierra del Fuego in S America for a return trip to chase big sea run browns. Small group this year but hope to find some big fish. That’s it then ‘till the summer and Alaska but there are plenty of corporate days coming in and loads of casting lessons to keep me busy. It’s been an interesting few weeks with trout fishing having a complete turn round from the late autumn when it was still quite tough to catch to now when customers are starting to complain that the fishing is too easy. Hard to please everyone but it’s true that fishing is now really good and all the southern fisheries are on top form. Trout remain very high in the water and you only really need a floater or maybe an intermediate line. I have managed a few trips for grayling, nothing of any notable size but some nice catches, mostly to nymph tactics and I admit I’m still learning how to spot takes as I often can see the fish take the fly but don’t spot any movement on the leader or indicator. The grayling feature I did in the December issue of Trout Fisherman has made a few people rethink their views on the sizes of grayling and I have had lots of comments about the lovely pictures. Makes me want to go ahead with another trip next year but that’s not likely again until maybe 2008. In the meantime I have been busy booking people to Chile in March for the big sea trout and also to the regular Alaska trip in July. The pound/dollar rate is fantastic for us right now and this is the very best time to go ahead and book a trip. Had a couple trips to Dever Springs in November. I wanted to try for the gorgeous blues they stock at this back end of the season and took a Monday to go with Fiona. We found one blue in the larger lake which I only got one cast at and then saw two plus a sandy (gold) in the smaller lake. I got the sandy at 7 – 12 and the smaller blue at 6 - 8 but the bigger blue spooked every time I tried him. We also had beautiful rainbows to 7 –12 and it was a real nice day. I was there again a week later to do a corporate day and the big blue was still there and this time was beginning to look interested. It’s always a busy day for me and later on I was trying to hook a fish for one of the clients and only managed to get the blue by casting blind. It was 11 – 8 and a real beauty. Bit of a fluke but who cares. Next big thing for me is that my new book will finally be here mid month and I’m really looking forward to that. Hope it’s a good seller. It’s a rewrite of Trout from Small Stillwaters and you can have signed copies by calling the shop or using our on line store. Had my annual syndicate fishing dinner last week and that was a real nice evening. Chris Tarrant was there to receive the cup for the best fish. He is a very good angler indeed at many disciplines. Fishery is closed now and I am very busy clearing leaves and raking them out of the lakes. Having a few friends round too so they can catch up the left over fish which I then put in a netted off area and feed them on for re release next spring. Makes for a bit of fun and you would be amazed to see how easy they are to catch on bread. Shop is beginning to get busier for Christmas and that’s always a fun time trying to guess what to suggest as a gift for the guy who has everything. Fiona has stocked in a range of smokers and differing wood chips and that has provoked quite a bit of interest. That’s about it for this diary entry, have a good Christmas, get out fishing and drop by to see us if you are in the area. We have just updated lots of the pictures in the gallery with some of this years images, Enjoy!! Back from the annual Kodiak trip in search of steelhead and my group had a great time. Biggest fish was a 32 incher and best catch was 35 steelies released to one rod. We had lots of silver salmon to high doubles and as ever they were a real handful in the shallow, fast water leading to many broken tippets. Everybody got to see the fabled Kodiak grizzlies and before flying to the river we watched Humpback whales, sea lions and sea otters. Always a memorable trip and this time we got weathered in by a huge storm which even stopped jets leaving Anchorage. The float plane trip back across the mountains was interesting to say the least and everyone was real glad to make land. While in Anchorage I met up with the friends who make the reproduction fish in my shop and ordered another one. This will be a copy of the 29 inch rainbow I caught back in the summer. It’s always good to be home and at last we have some serious rain and slightly cooler temperatures such that trouting is becoming better every day. I’m hearing of good fishing at most locations and that will only get better. I’m convinced that winter is the best time to fish rainbows. My fishery closes shortly and now’s the time to hit the winter work programme. Started off by finding that two decent sized oaks had decided to fall over, one of them in a lake. I have got a lot of bank repairs to do and will be starting to cut chestnut trees and split them into wedges ready for hauling down to the lakes. Plans are to get a bit of grayling fishing done again this winter and if the pictures in the December issue of Trout Fisherman get you going then look to joining me on a trip abroad in search of the Arctic Grayling. I will be off to Chile in middle March to fish sea trout on the Rio Grande and as of now there are still a few places available. Then in the summer it will be my usual Alaska trip and already more than half of the available places are taken. This is memorable fishing and if you have ever had even half an inkling to do a lifetimes trip then check with me for more information. Dollar rate is good for us and it makes the trip semi affordable. Sorry it’s been a while since my diary was updated but you will know from the site that I travel to Alaska in July with groups of anglers. Now it’s back to reality and at last we have rain here in the South East. Trout fishing here has been real tough but is now improving. Don’t expect your fisheries to have an overnight improvement but it will happen over the next few weeks and then we get into a really nice period for trout. I have never seen the lakes on my fishery so low and I have run them for 24 years so that’s a telling as to how bad the summer has been. The Alaska trips were truly great this year. I went to the Nome area for my first week to look for really large arctic grayling and found them at last. It’s been a ten year search and this time I fished with a guy from Alaska Fish and Game Dept who ahs spent his life researching grayling and char. It was a fascinating time for me. We had to get to the rivers by small helicopter as this is the only way in and then float downstream in inflatable canoes. The first thirty grayling were all bigger than my previous best ever of 3lb 3ozs!!!!!!!!!!! I weighed ten at 3lb 12ozs and caught loads of magnificent specimens. These fish are at least 30 years old and a very precious resource. Then it was on to the Kanectoc where my groups had a wonderful year with the river full of fish. All species were great and the river is in wonderful shape with lots of 12 to 15 inch rainbows which is fantastic news for the future. Grayling too are recovering their numbers and everyone had a great time. I had my best ever rainbow at 29 inches on a sculpin imitation followed 30 minutes later by a 27 inch fish on a mouse. I then met up with Chris Terry in Anchorage and fished with him for grayling on the road system up towards Fairbanks and had beautiful fish to 18 inches and a day on the Russian River down on the Kenai to fish rainbows. That was a real interesting day and Chris showed me a few new tricks. Then it was off to Great Bear Lake in the NW Territories for grayling again. This vast lake was virtually calm all week and temperatures up to 85 degrees. Bit daft for an area above the arctic circle but great for grayling. The fish were fatter than I had ever seen and I had lots of three pounders with the best at 3lb 3ozs. Lake trout were plentiful and my friend Phil Jackson had one of 52 pounds on trolling gear. It was fourth biggest of the year and a fantastic fish. Now I’m back to grass cutting, stacks of casting lessons and doing the final picture work for my new book on Small Stillwaters. That’s all on song for end of year publication. Hope to get in a carp trip on the fly soon and have to start getting flights sorted for the Kodiak steelhead trip end of September. Already I’m looking to next summers trips and the Alaska weeks are filling up very well. That’s it for now but more news as I get back into things. and the season is well underway with a little bit of rain too. I have seen a few Mayfly these past few days and it will be the main hatch in the next couple weeks so be prepared to go fish of an evening or late afternoon to see the best of it. Some fisheries have suffered from algal blooms which have been brown through green to almost blue and now it’s the annual rising scum problem. Sounds like some nasty disease doesn’t it! It can be a real pain on the smaller, clear fisheries but virtually impossible to control and nature just has to work through it. I am now planning some carp trips and first evening will be Friday 17th at Willinghurst (weather permitting) so if you want to come along come look for me around the lower lakes near the cabin at about 5.30 onwards. Fiona went last week and had fish to 14lbs. I did a corporate at Dever Springs and that was a really nice day with a super bunch of people and great looking fish to 9lb 4ozs. Highlight was when an angler hooked a car aerial on his back cast as the car was leaving the fishery. He chased it down the road until he ran out of backing and the leader broke. All very entertaining. Went to Bushyleaze in Gloucestershire with Peter Gathercole to do a feature on Hawthorn fly for next years issue of Trout Fisherman. That went off OK and it was a job done. Then this last Monday I went to Grafham Water for the annual Troutmasters competition to help out on the day. Walking around the banks and talking to the competitors and generally making a nuisance of myself with the Trout Fisherman staff. Real nice to see people I hadn’t seen for years and although a long day it was good fun although I sure would have liked to fish. Apart from that I have just been working on the fishery I run and am now into weekly grass cutting plus winding up for the big religious play at the end of June. That has meant patching up some old fibreglass boats I got from Tim Small at Lechlade and turning them into boats suitable for a Sea of Galilee scene. Sometimes I have to wonder whether I am a fishery manager or what! Not long now until it will be time to set off for Alaska in early July and I’m really looking forward to getting away for some serious fishing. Still a few places to go if you can manage a short notice trip. Dollar rate is real good at the moment so give it some thought. Spring is finally here, the buzzers are hatching and it's time to fish. So, I got it all wrong for weather and went to Bewl Water in a howling gale. Reservoir is now 74% full and looking good but water muddy due to pumping. I fished for two hours just along from Yacht Club where margins were very muddy from waves but I got seven pulls and five fish including a 3 - 12 and an 8 - 4 rainbow. That was my personal best reservoir fish and I sure was happy Got a trip planned to Lechlade end of month and maybe get a feature done that day too. Hope to take a look for carp on the top at Willinghurst about that time as they should be ready soon for some fly action. Shop has been busy and lots of lessons piling in so that's always a good sign. My groups down to Tierra del Fuego had slow sea trout fishing on the Rio Grande due to high water but a trip to a lake saw them get browns to 9lbs. Wish I could have been there, next year for sure. At long last the cold east and north winds have gone and we have mild S Westerlies with a bit of rain. Although fishing has been very good on most small fisheries it hasn’t been much fun to be out in the biting winds. Early season diatom blooms have coloured most waters a mucky brown but that will work through as the water warms. Expect the buzzer hatches to really kick off in the next week or so and then the fish will begin to move higher in the water. They have mostly been at least four feet down, So, what have I been doing. Not much fishing that’s for sure but I did a corporate at Dever Springs which was real fun despite the cold wind. When the group were at lunch in the pub I took a couple of fish to be sure everyone had one to go home with and had a shock with a 12 -12 rainbow in magnificent shape that leapt clear by more than three feet on two occasions. I really wanted Pete Garthercole with his camera as it would have been a great shot. Fiona and I are getting on with the shop web site, man it’s a slog but we are making progress. Shop is busy now and masses of lessons coming in. I get a real buzz when someone clicks with fly casting and it’s such fun to see their face when the line suddenly shoots out straight. Should be inTierra del Fuego this coming week but I have had to drop out due to domestic difficulties which really can’t let me be out of the country for two weeks but my groups will be fine and I can use the time to work on the shop site. Fiona Cockwill - i have made some alterations in the forum to try to keep the number of topic's to a minimum giving i hope enough topic's for you to leave your comments in, we look at the forum regularly and respond to all reply's so do please leave your messages and questions for us and all our guests. A busy time of late. I went to the Fishery Managers Conference at Packington near Coventry and that was a great time to meet friends from around the UK and listen to some very good papers. I did the tail end piece and talked about carp on the fly while managing to make it funny too and send everyone off home with a smile on their face. Afterwards I drove on up to Kelso for three days on the Tweed. This was an invite from a long time friend and I thoroughly enjoyed fishing at Henderside. It’s really classy water with two great Ghillies, Kenny and John. They were so helpful and between them got my spey casting into shape. It was part boat and part wade in low, clear water with very few springers in as yet. I managed three salmon kelts and one sea trout kelt plus a few touches so I was very happy with that. Got to see some friends, Eric and Anne Matthews, in nearby St Boswells and think I might have fixed a grayling trip for the end of the year too. The drive back was a little scary in snow and slush. Lots of iced up fisheries this past weekend but things are changing now and spring really is trying to arrive. Three weeks time I’m off to Tierra del Fuego with a group to go fish the big migratory browns. That’s a big adventure and I hope we hit good water conditions this time. Before then I have a couple corporate days to do and the shop is beginning to get busy. Always a good sign is when the lessons start to get booked and already I’m heavily committed but with Fiona starting full time from April it should really help me. At long last we are seeing some very much needed rain. I know it’s easy to be a scaremonger in these times of Bird Flu and other worrying things but unless we have a very wet summer there will be a real shortage of water. The ground water levels are the important actual criteria and they are extremely low. However, it’s not all bad as the fishing is extremely good right now and will continue this way for some months yet. The buzzer hatches should kick off in a months time and fish will then be much higher in the water than they are now, currently some four feet down. Personal fishing has been somewhat limited this past month, just one grayling trip with a superb fish of 2lb 2ozs which absolutely made my winter. Lots of work getting my syndicate water up to scratch for March 1st opening and it’s looking good to date. Good news is that Fiona, my daughter, will be doing 5 days a week with me from April and progress is being made with getting the shop “on line”. We hope to have a real nice site and plan to be able to service all of our customers who can’t necessarily make a visit to the shop each time they want something small. Better the business comes to us than other internet sites and we do carry very large stocks. Couple of nice things happened this past month, gentleman returned a landing net we loaned him after 4 weeks so that restored my faith in loaning things to help out. Sadly I’m still down two rods and my own polaroids but you never know they too might come back one day. Second fun thing was seeing the 10 pounder caught at Vale End by Andrew Smith who has been having the most amusing time with his son Neil to see who can come out tops in the big fish league. First week of March I’m up at Coventry for the AGM of the Fishery Managers Association and then heading on up to fish the Tweed for 3 days. I have never done that before and I’m looking forward to a new challenge and learning something different. That’s the fun thing in fishing, there is always something new. Bit of an odd time of year in that we veer from mild to cold but remain with very little rainfall here in the South East. Fishing has been excellent and I have seen some lovely rainbows being caught locally. Managed a pretty good one myself this week when I was at Avington to do a Trout Fisherman feature. It was interesting because although the water was dead clear the light was so flat that it was hard to see. However there were plenty of fish and the big blue in the middle lake that I saw back before Christmas finally made a mistake. It was 14lbs and my best blue. Also had a couple more grayling trips with fish to 1lb 12ozs and might get one more in before it will be too late to be on the chalk streams. Fiona and I have been talking to customers about carp on the fly and so many seem to be keen to have a go that we have decided we will allocate a few evenings from May onwards to introduce people to the sport. Keep an eye on the site and we will post up dates. It will be at Willinghurst near Cranleigh in the evenings. Finally delivered the manuscript for my new book on small fisheries. 50,000 words! Got to complete the photos now and then hopefully all will go for publication. This means I can now devote my time to getting the shop on the web and we hope that it will be the next stage in the business and a help to all our friends who sometimes can’t make a personal call to the shop. Trip bookings are moving along well, the Chile trip for sea trout is completely full now for April as is the main Kodiak week in October for steelhead. The Alaska weeks in July are doing fine and there are still some spaces left to fill. Any day now I will be sending out letters to the syndicate members for the seasons start on March 1st and it really doesn’t seem possible that I will be grass cutting again when it can only be yesterday that I put the mowers away. I reckon we have got away with it pretty light this winter and there could well be more to come and in past years I have seen the first weeks of March with lakes all frozen so it’s not over yet. |