2006
31/12/06
2006? As a year, it can
piss off.
No really, I've had enough of this year now. Of course, it's new years eve so my timing couldn't be better for a bit of a retrospective of what has turned out, undoubtedly, to be the worst year of my life.
I was uhmming and ahhing about writing anything here about personal life but then I figured why not, it's my site, it's my life. I'll try to keep the negativity to a minimum as noone likes a whiner (weiners on the other hand are crap-tastically tasty sausage type thingys from the states and I've heard fatties just can't get enough of them).
So, negative points out of the way in a short number of sentences, but boy are they big negatives...
1) Began the year by being diagnosed with Crohn's Disease. Better than the many alternatives that were being floated past me by the medical fraternity, but still, an incurable, hard to manage life changing illness. So by turns over the year I've been flat, depressed, physically ill and sometimes cranky (I know, hard to believe!). This must have been hard to live with but after all, I've only know about it for 12 months so I can't be expected to be ok with it all right away can I? Well, this leads me onto point 2.
2) In a shock move my year ended by my wife leaving me and having an affair with her boss (just not in that order).
So on a more positive note, Like my boy in the picture below I'm going to be pegging it towards 2007 as fast as my feet can carry me. Onwards and upwards as they say. I mean, seriously, it can't really be any worse can it? At least I'm going to get alot of fishing in this year.
If you know any single 30 something females send em my way :)
So as I sit here nursing a glass of cold cider, about to go out to some friends for new years eve, I wanted to wish you all a good 2007. May it be full and happy.
Malcolm
No really, I've had enough of this year now. Of course, it's new years eve so my timing couldn't be better for a bit of a retrospective of what has turned out, undoubtedly, to be the worst year of my life.
I was uhmming and ahhing about writing anything here about personal life but then I figured why not, it's my site, it's my life. I'll try to keep the negativity to a minimum as noone likes a whiner (weiners on the other hand are crap-tastically tasty sausage type thingys from the states and I've heard fatties just can't get enough of them).
So, negative points out of the way in a short number of sentences, but boy are they big negatives...
1) Began the year by being diagnosed with Crohn's Disease. Better than the many alternatives that were being floated past me by the medical fraternity, but still, an incurable, hard to manage life changing illness. So by turns over the year I've been flat, depressed, physically ill and sometimes cranky (I know, hard to believe!). This must have been hard to live with but after all, I've only know about it for 12 months so I can't be expected to be ok with it all right away can I? Well, this leads me onto point 2.
2) In a shock move my year ended by my wife leaving me and having an affair with her boss (just not in that order).
So on a more positive note, Like my boy in the picture below I'm going to be pegging it towards 2007 as fast as my feet can carry me. Onwards and upwards as they say. I mean, seriously, it can't really be any worse can it? At least I'm going to get alot of fishing in this year.
If you know any single 30 something females send em my way :)
So as I sit here nursing a glass of cold cider, about to go out to some friends for new years eve, I wanted to wish you all a good 2007. May it be full and happy.
Malcolm
Phototastic
21/12/06
I know, 2 updates in a
week, something must be up!
This update is nothing more than a way of showing off a couple of pictures. New camera is working well, just really need to get a tripod so I can get on with capturing some more detailed shots. Got to get that aperture number higher and my hands just arent that steady. But anyway, photo's below. Enjoy
Thanks to the wonder that is ebay I'm now amassing a bit of photography kit... Got a rather beaten up but still in good shape EOS5d the other day, full frame really is rather spiffy! Incidentally, new camera can print up to A2 so if anyone would ever like to buy a print let me know. Might even be a way of making up some of the cash for hosting this site or buy me a tripod :)
This update is nothing more than a way of showing off a couple of pictures. New camera is working well, just really need to get a tripod so I can get on with capturing some more detailed shots. Got to get that aperture number higher and my hands just arent that steady. But anyway, photo's below. Enjoy
Thanks to the wonder that is ebay I'm now amassing a bit of photography kit... Got a rather beaten up but still in good shape EOS5d the other day, full frame really is rather spiffy! Incidentally, new camera can print up to A2 so if anyone would ever like to buy a print let me know. Might even be a way of making up some of the cash for hosting this site or buy me a tripod :)
muddled and befuddled
18/12/06
So, with one thing and
another that's been happening in my life of late I'm
fairly morose company. When I woke up this morning to
a cold drizzle with heavy clouds in the sky the
weather was really matching my mood, the only
difference was that a perfect match would have been
towering thunder clouds and torrential rain.
Being once again signed off work because of Crohn's disease I couldn't face another day of sitting in the house staring at a computer screen so I threw my stuff in the car and headed down to the New Forest. I was determined to wet a line, whether that be through fishing or it raining on me while I walked a small stillwater Salisbury Club control called Leominstead.
As I drove through the forest my spirits matched the dreary music on the car's CD player and the forest seemed to agree with me. Everything was soggy, brown and subdued. The cloud was sitting at just about tree height, giving everything the impression of being stuck under a very damp duvet. Even the sounds were muffled as I got out for a quick cup of tea from my flask on a sodden picnic bench.
I got down to Leominstead at about 11:00 and found one other man fishing, he soon decided that I was disreputable company and left for the day. It was probably the fact that my first cast of the day got stuck in a tree behind me...
The weather started to clear somewhat and by 1:00 it was a lovely, if somewhat overcast day. The sun cheekily poking it's head through the clouds from time to time and not a breath of wind ruffling the lakes surface. Being outdoors is, I find, always a tonic for the soul and today was no exception and by the time I packed up at 2:30 I was feeling much more at peace with the world. More at peace, not entirely at peace... Trouble still looms as I get back to Wilton and the trip is fading from my memory as I write this now, but enough gloom, the day was a great success. A testement to the power of fishing on ones phsyche and a tribute to the relaxing nature of becoming more attuned to nature. Even a somewhat contrived, packaged nature of the sort found at stillwaters.
Fishing a small black gold headed thingy about 30 seconds down, floating line, 9' leader on a very very slow figure of eight retrieve resulted in 3 lovely rainbows being caught and returned. The tell-tale head banging being a sure fire indication of whats on the line long before the silvery flash just sub surface confirms it.
I could see fry being corraled and picked off in a deep corner and switching to a small white fry type pattern I crawled through the bushes a bit and flicked the fly out, having removed it from the undergrowth twice (I wouldn't want to give any illusion of casting ability here). The fly plopped into the water about 10' from the bank, but in the area where the fry had been panicking minutes before, so I left it to sink. After the 25-30 seconds were up I slowly started to bring the fly back, it must have been quite close to the lake bottom, when I felt a thud on the end of the line. The line shot off and I could tell straight away that it didn't feel like a rainbow, I could also tell that it was pretty big. I know, my epxecations of 'big' aren't really that much from fishing the Nadder most of the time, but this felt like a good fish. After a few hard and fast runs I brought the beauty nearer to my net, no way to unhook in the water here, I couldn't get close enough. Just as it approached the net I got a big fin break the peaty coloured surface, followed by a flash of dark brown. I'd done it! I'd been hoping for a brown from this lake for ages, I'd finally connected to one. And a beauty too...
The picture does no credit to the actual weight of the fish, for some reason it was just, dense. Not a fat fish, just one that was really really solid. It must have weighed, and this is complete guess work, over 4lb. I slippped it back into the water and it shot off, with a contemptuous flick of it's spade like tail. Back into the murky depths, back to terrorise some more fry.
Ahhh, the great outdoors, I love it.
Being once again signed off work because of Crohn's disease I couldn't face another day of sitting in the house staring at a computer screen so I threw my stuff in the car and headed down to the New Forest. I was determined to wet a line, whether that be through fishing or it raining on me while I walked a small stillwater Salisbury Club control called Leominstead.
As I drove through the forest my spirits matched the dreary music on the car's CD player and the forest seemed to agree with me. Everything was soggy, brown and subdued. The cloud was sitting at just about tree height, giving everything the impression of being stuck under a very damp duvet. Even the sounds were muffled as I got out for a quick cup of tea from my flask on a sodden picnic bench.
I got down to Leominstead at about 11:00 and found one other man fishing, he soon decided that I was disreputable company and left for the day. It was probably the fact that my first cast of the day got stuck in a tree behind me...
The weather started to clear somewhat and by 1:00 it was a lovely, if somewhat overcast day. The sun cheekily poking it's head through the clouds from time to time and not a breath of wind ruffling the lakes surface. Being outdoors is, I find, always a tonic for the soul and today was no exception and by the time I packed up at 2:30 I was feeling much more at peace with the world. More at peace, not entirely at peace... Trouble still looms as I get back to Wilton and the trip is fading from my memory as I write this now, but enough gloom, the day was a great success. A testement to the power of fishing on ones phsyche and a tribute to the relaxing nature of becoming more attuned to nature. Even a somewhat contrived, packaged nature of the sort found at stillwaters.
Fishing a small black gold headed thingy about 30 seconds down, floating line, 9' leader on a very very slow figure of eight retrieve resulted in 3 lovely rainbows being caught and returned. The tell-tale head banging being a sure fire indication of whats on the line long before the silvery flash just sub surface confirms it.
I could see fry being corraled and picked off in a deep corner and switching to a small white fry type pattern I crawled through the bushes a bit and flicked the fly out, having removed it from the undergrowth twice (I wouldn't want to give any illusion of casting ability here). The fly plopped into the water about 10' from the bank, but in the area where the fry had been panicking minutes before, so I left it to sink. After the 25-30 seconds were up I slowly started to bring the fly back, it must have been quite close to the lake bottom, when I felt a thud on the end of the line. The line shot off and I could tell straight away that it didn't feel like a rainbow, I could also tell that it was pretty big. I know, my epxecations of 'big' aren't really that much from fishing the Nadder most of the time, but this felt like a good fish. After a few hard and fast runs I brought the beauty nearer to my net, no way to unhook in the water here, I couldn't get close enough. Just as it approached the net I got a big fin break the peaty coloured surface, followed by a flash of dark brown. I'd done it! I'd been hoping for a brown from this lake for ages, I'd finally connected to one. And a beauty too...
The picture does no credit to the actual weight of the fish, for some reason it was just, dense. Not a fat fish, just one that was really really solid. It must have weighed, and this is complete guess work, over 4lb. I slippped it back into the water and it shot off, with a contemptuous flick of it's spade like tail. Back into the murky depths, back to terrorise some more fry.
Ahhh, the great outdoors, I love it.
Rain Ho!
01/12/06
So the last week has seen some fairly heavy rain, or as it's known in Northern Ireland, light drizzle. The rivers are still up days after the rain, springs that have remained dry for 3 winters are actually running and all in all it's nice to see some real flow going through the rivers. The weather looks set to continue in the nice wet, miserable pattern for the next 5 days at least. Time for me to break out The Smiths and The Cure and sit in my darkened room for a while. Failing that I can be cheered by the reported sightings of large salmon moving up the Avon, that Christmas isn't far away, and perhaps more importantly, that means my snowboarding can't be far off either.
When we did the most recent work party on the Nadder we piled up some pretty large trunks of trees in an out of the way part of the river, good animal cover etc. I went back a couple of days aferwards and staked this wood in place just in case. Uhmm, well, we seem to have lost it. The water level is still very high so maybe I just can't see it, but I have a sneak suspicion that the spate tore it free and all that wood went spiraling off down the river. Hopefully I'll find it caught up somewhere on our stretch but I'm not holding out much hope seeing as how high and fast the river has been running.
