Neil has some great ideas.  On Thursday I had a message saying he was taking the van down to the Monnow to camp for the weekend.  He’s taking Ollie & Shane [splendid fellows both], and that I was welcome to join them if I wish.  I had no hesitation in accepting.

It’s 10:30, Friday morning.  My van is packed.  I’m sitting in my conservatory trying to hear the TV [Paul Young - Hooked on Fishing, Golden Piranha in Argentina] over the noise of the rain bouncing off the roof.  The gutters are over-flowing, the bottom of the garden is starting to flood and there has just been an almighty clap of thunder.

If the weather on the Brecon Beacons is anything like it is here we’ll be more likely to catch Piranha than trout this weekend.

Early Saturday saw us loaded and northbound to our first stop, the Wild Trout Trust bash in Derbyshire.  Some fascinating talks on stocking policies, gene pools and the Riverfly Project and a chance to catch up with some old friends was followed by a guided walk of the rivers Bradford and Lathkill.  I think everyone was eager to get out on the river and get out of the most uncomfortable chairs a behind has ever had to endure

The river walk was designed to explain the habitat improvements made in order to support the decision to stop stocking in 2005 [?]. Whilst this was educational, what everyone was spellbound by were the profusion of wild browns and rainbows lazily finning and confidently taking the profusion of aquatic flies drifting over them.  Simply mouth-watering.

After an overnight stay in the Peak District and an early morning northward dash, we set up camp about 10 yards from the River Braan.

The rest of the day was spent in reconnaissance, taking in the breath taking scenery and being totally blown away by the amount of fish-able water within easy travelling distance from our base, the sheer size of some causing comments like the one from the passenger seat as we drove over the Tay bridge in Pitlochry, ‘Feck me!  It’s the English Channel!’

Having had our appetites well and truely whetted we were more than ready to fish on Monday.  At the reccommendation of the guy in the tackle shop in Pitlochry, we headed for the Tummel, just below Coronation Bridge.

For all other purposes the weather was magnificent.  Hot, cloudless blue skies, no wind.  Needless to say, this was somewhat less than ideal for fishing a strange river.  Very hard work but at least we caught fish and got rid of the yips.  I hear that the World Fly Fishing Championships will be held on the same stretch of water later this week -  I hope they have more joy than we did.

Fishing continued in the same vein under a mercilessly cloudless blue sky for the next few days.  Plenty of fly life in the air but very little on the water and no consistent ‘risers’.  Fishing into the darkness with very little success, frustration building, the decision was made to de-camp to the Upper Clyde.

We fared no better here, a few small fish caught, more lost, and the sight of a monsterous brownie hoovering up fry was our total return for a hard day fishing against the odds.  Neil claims to have had a huge pike brush by his leg in a pool at the tail of a riffle but, by then I think the sun had got to him [or me]

The following morning we were racing south, heading for home waters.  We stopped by the Annan for a couple of hours, just in case things were better there – they weren’t.

A bath, a decent meal and a very surprised wife set me up for the following day.  I met Neil at Waterloo Bridge on the Monnow where, apparently things had been tough too but, shortly after I arrived it started to rain.  Would this be what the river needed to freshen things up a bit?  Absolutely!

We both took fish.  Good, wild fish.  And last knockings found me in a long shallow stretch with a decent run under some low over-hanging branches.  There were rises so subtle as to be almost undetectable.  I swear the surface remained unbroken while the trout were sucking down flies from a few inches down.  Fly disappears, wait a few seconds and tighten – fish on!

I took four good fish out of that short section, the last being the fish of the day and possibly my fish of the season, a touch over 16 inches.

So we were back.  Older certainly, wiser maybe, more appreciative of just how good the Monnow is – absolutely.  Would I do it again?  Yes.  Would I do it with Neil again?  In a heartbeat.  I think it’s time for more beer & bullshit.

It started out as a half-assed plan, hatched during a closed season beer & bullshit evening with Neil [he of the jammy bugger smile].  Far too much bullshit and way too much beer, in fact, so much beer that I had to be reminded that a plan had bee hatched at all!

This was a very long time ago – a couple of seasons at least.  Since then we have been holding regular Strategy Planning Meetings in the same pub where the hatching first happened, with the result that asolutely nothing has been planned.  More bullshit, more beer.

Last November I bought a tiny camper van that will be our home for a week or so. 

Obviously, it would have been foolish to spend a week away without trying out the practicalities first so I used the occasion of the Monnow Social 2009 to give it a thorough work-out.  In hind-sight, this could have been a mistake.  Unfortunately, as regular readers will know, the Monnow Social is a weekend of liver abuse with a little fishing thrown in – irregular readers should take a look here and here to see what it’s all about.  And, as a picture speaks a thousand words, check out Gareth’s photos.

So, now that the scene is set I feel I can be forgiven for leaving the Social with images of Tony head-butting the table and Morgan trying to roger a red-hot BBQ but very little idea of how two grown men were going to get along in such a confined space.

Scotland.  To one born & bred such a long way south of the border, more of an idea, a concept  than a real place, where people live out there lives.  It conjurs up so many images, most of which were manufactured by English romantic poets, rather than having any real basis in the true oral traditions on this ancient land.  Wasn’t it Carlyle who accused Keats of ‘weak eyed mauldlin sensibility’?  He was probably right but, we are left with the impressions of our youth and there’s little we can do to shake them off.  One fact that no-one deemed necessary to pass on to me at school was aptly summed up by Neil when we were gazing at the map ‘Bloody ‘ell.  Big innit?’.

Big it is.  Not by comparrison the the Russian steppes or the American mid-west, but for us southern softies, accustomed to towns and cities being slowly stitched together by urban sprawl so that they form an almost unbroken conurbation from west to east, north to south – Scotland, at least from the map readers point of view, certainly has an awful lot of nothing.

So tomorrow, we head north, looking for nothing and hopefully finding a whole lot more.

I have just updated the MFA website with the news that the Habitat Improvement Program, started in September last year has been completed.

On 1st September 2008 we set out to coppice 7000m on the Escley Brook and 2500m on the Honddu. In the end we managed to do 10,500m on the Escley, all of the Honddu and 1800m or so on the Dulas. We have the fencing to compete this Summer, which is vital but much less visually exciting.

It’s difficult to under-estimate the amount of work that was undertaken and what a huge achievement it is to have exceeded the original targets by such a staggering amount.  Obviously, praise must be heaped on everyone involved, not least, the people behind the scenes, who have continued to drive this project with such energy.

If you have ever fished the Monnow or any of the tributaries, or if you plan to in the future, I urge you to head over to the web site, download the membership form, and post it – together with your fifteen quid – to the address on the site.  This work cannot continue without your support.

Don’t put this on your ‘To do’ list, get your cheque book out and do it now!!!!

Preparation for the 2009 Internet and Postal Auction is almost complete.  The Auction will run from 30th March to 8th April.

If you would like to support the fantastic work of this unique organisation you can download a cataloge here.

I guess we’ve al been in the situation where we can see our quarry, see that it is feeding, and go through the contents of an entire fly box trying to appeal to its culinary senses. You watch in anticipation as nature’s conveyor belt carries your exquisitely prepared morsels right over its nose, only to have them sniffed at, yet ultimately rejected with all the disdain of Greg and Jon turning up their noses at the Masterchef contestant’s offering of Honey Baked Mackerell with Candied Fruit Salad.

Frustrating ain’t it. Short of throwing rocks at the damned thing there’s no way that you and Mr. Trout are going to be on hand-shake terms before the day is out.

It seems to me that, with a little sensible application of genetic engineering we could imbue the trout with the feeding habits of mans best friend – imagine….

• Never again would you need to check the weather before venturing out.
• No more waiting for the evening rise, simply turn up at whatever time you have deemed to be dinner time.
• No need for boxes full of flies, in fact, you’d only need one, OK maybe a backup would be sensible.  It wouldn’t matter what it looked, smelled or tasted like.
• No need for stealth – in fact stealth would be a bad idea.  Just stomp up to the river making as much noise as possible.  By the time you get there all of the fishy inhabitants would be jumping up & down, chasing their tails with their tongues hanging out, streams of saliva hanging down like Fu Man Chu’s moustache.
• Delicate presentation?  Drag?  Forget it!  Any old ham fisted lob will do.  Old Trouty will have hoovered up whatever you threw at it and will be wiping its chops on the carpet before you know it.
• No need for a landing net either; the fish will probably follow you to your car.

I need to get out more.

This is an unashamed plug for the folks over at the Erewash Restoration Project.

A little over a year ago I read a thread on the Fly Fishing Forum aimed at raising interest in a restoration project.

I remember thinking ‘Good luck mate’ as, having grown up along its banks, my memory is of a seriously abused water-course absorbing the detritus of the East Midlands industrial landscape. The only fish I remember seeing were dead roach floating among the half sunk barges and oil drums.

It seems that my pessimism was mis-placed. In a very short time a team of dedicated people have surveyed the river, identified the major problems and involved local and national bodies in habitat improvement. All of this culminated in the formation of the River Erewash Foundation in November last year.

A Grayling stocking program has started and there are reports of wild Brown Trout being caught in the upper reaches.

This is a perfect demonstration of what a team of dedicated individuals with vision and enthusiasm can achieve in a very short time – good luck fellas!

The previous evening had been spent with Neil, planning our June trip to Scotland.  We both bemoaned our lack of success in the latter stages of winter as the once plentiful Grayling had evaporated; leaving a desert where earlier I had seen shoals of 60 plus on the fin by the tunnels.

“I’m fed up of chucking bugs”.  We both were.   We were both hungry for an opportunity to cast a dry.

I had no intention of fishing the following day but, the morning started full of promise. No wind, overcast and mild, with occasional brighter patches.  “If it stays like this ’til lunchtime, and we get a hint of sun there might just be a hatch big enough to spawn some surface activity” I thought.  So I loaded up the van and headed south.

Promise started to fade about half-way down the Motorway – dark clouds gathering over the Cotswolds and spits of rain garnishing the windscreen did nothing to maintain my early optimism but, ‘hey, I’m halfway there – might brighten later’.

I parked by the railway bridge and sat smoking and drinking tea, watching the clouds, wishing them gone; but, after an hour it became clear that the day would continue to be an unrelenting grey.  More bug chucking then.

I started below the aluminium bridge in water that was startlingly clear.  The ranunculus has already taken hold in the riffles that were opened up as part of last years habitat improvement program – fish spotting would be easy – except that there weren’t any!

The Training Pool proved fruitless, as did the section above the cascades, despite the fact that there were one or two olives coming off – I found myself doing the sort of fishing that I hate, step-and-fling, step-and-fling, covering all of the likely spots like an automaton – going through the motions with no real hope or confidence.  I should have stayed at home.

And then I saw a rise.  A confident rise, about seven yards upstream in a back eddy where the current cuts sharply across stream and collides with the roots of a large alder.  Twice more I heard the rise while I was changing my leader & fly and then..nothing.  I waited a good ten minutes and never saw the fish again so I put out a speculative cast, a back-hand, across the chest, over the left shoulder affair which, to be honest I made a complete Horlicks of.  Instead of landing a yard or so upstream with enough slack to counteract what would be horrific drag it landed bang on the money, in the exact spot that I’d seen the fish rise.

I didn’t have time to formulate the disappointment in my mind as a brownie intercepted the fly as it touched down – head and shoulders out of the water – a gluttonous take.

It’s so long since I have seen a trout, close up, in the net that I had almost forgotten how beautiful these creatures are.  I had no camera to record the event and my powers of descriptions fall very short of the required standards.  Suffice to say that my hands were literally shaking as I eased out the hook and felt the un-nerving pulse of life as the fish regained its strength and finally kicked away, down to its refuge, no doubt to sulk for the rest of the day.
I carried on, up to the railway tunnel, still speculating but, speculating with expectation now but a chilly downstream breeze had sprung up from nowhere and any realistic possibility of surface action had gone.  Time to pack up and reflect on the day.

I’d taken my first brownie of the season, albeit 2 days early.  I had seen only one fish, made an awkward cast and, ultimately netted it.  At other times this may have seemed to be a disappointing session but, for me, on that day, it was a roaring success.

I new something was different when I started fishing just upstream from the motorway bridge and I bumped into a couple of chaps coarse fishing; I don’t usually see a soul on the river but two – and coarse fishing as well!  very unusual.  Anyway, after an exchange of pleasantries and mutual checking of membership cards I set off to find a lonelier spot.  I hope you did well Eddie.

I was soon into a good trout which turned out to be a 16 incher – my best on this river.  This was followed by my smallest – in fact I think it is probably the smallest trout it is possible to catch on a size 10 hare’s ear – no longer that my thumb to the first knuckle.  I must have been fishing well because I don’t remember the slightest indication that anything was nibbling the fly, I simply lifted on intuition and there it was.  How it managed to gulp down the fly I’ll never know but it did and, even more surprisingly it shot of up-stream when I released it.  I thought it was a gonner.

Then I took a tumble.  To be more precise I stepped onto a bit of river bed that wasn’t there and I went right in, over my head.  This is where I discovered that the waterproof pocket inside Wychwood waders isn’t – waterproof that is.  Mobile ‘phone and a new pack of Bensen & Hedges finest ruined.  At least our two course fishing friends were nowhere near to witness my embarrassment.

I fished on in this soggy state for a while and connected with a couple of decent grayling but it soon became apparent that the magic had gone, so I called it a [very strange] day.

….as much as I used to.  Oh, I’m going fishing as much as I always did but, these days I find myself taking more and more time out just to be there, to soak it all in, to absorb that intangible something that makes fishing such an important part of my life.

Try as I might, I cannot hear the sound of one hand clapping but, at will, I can hear the murmur of the stream, the call of a dipper.  I can feel the sun on my back and I can see the shade of the canopy swaying over a calm pool while olives dance in the evening light.   To be able to call up these images and feelings at times of stress or sadness is a great benefit to me – to get that charge of tranquillity, that sense of peace when I should be fretting about this or that, to be able to go fishing without going fishing must do wonders for my blood pressure and hopefully make me a better person to be around.