BOING!

28/03/06

I have just returned from spending some time in more wintery climes, getting my fix of clean cold air, avalanches, heavy snow and French cooking. Let me tell you, I'd rather take the avalanches than the strange Savoyarde stews any day but if anyone was to offer me a belouga burger from Chamonix I'd probably bite their hand off (you have to have had one to understand!).

avalanche-debris
Avalanche Debris. The actual slide stopped 50m to the left of the photo, the downed and broken trees are solely from the force of the air in front of the slide... The snow stopped about 2m from five houses in a small Hamlet. Lucky Lucky Lucky!

malc-snow
Yours truly enjoying the fresh air and wishing he was anywhere but walking through a major avalanche zone

malc-jo-snow
Much more relaxing... Joseph and me stop for a while to check out the ladies :)

Now on my return from France imagine my surprise when I saw that spring had sprung, BOING, in my absence. The daffodils are out along the river, looking a little beaten from yesterdays gale force winds and rain, catkins adorn the hedgerows and the Nadder has finally got a half decent flow. Perhaps it was just actually being away from England a while that made it appear more obvious but I'm really beginning to feel like spring is firmly on its way.

Of course heading out to buy my Rod License has helped and knowing that this Saturday is a fishing day is subtly focusing my attentions on the river and fishing (subtle like a brick to the head...).

I also recieved a lovely parcel from the USA today courtesy of www.burfish.com - My new tiny tiny rod for the Nadder! A 6' 2# rod, I fished most of last year on a 2# rod but it was 8'6" long. This new rod feels so tiny in your hand I feel like it might break as soon as I hook a 2lb fish but I'm assured that they are robust and anyway, it has a no-fault warranty... I'll let you all know how it gets on after the weekend, I'm hoping for a nice calm opening day, otherwise its back to the heavy rods :(

First Update for 2006!

09/03/06

It’s the first update for 2006, in fact its my first update since I put my ramblings online.

Winter has reared its head again, there’s snow sitting on the hills over in the Chalke Valley and the daytime temperature is around about the bloody freezing mark in my official temperature gauge. It’s hard to feel like the trout fishing season is just around the corner when I look outside today but having looked carefully at the calendar I am confident that spring is not too far away. This update was really just intended to add some more content and allow people a bit more information about what to expect from the site.

I have arranged for information from the EA regarding rainfall and water flow to be sent to me weekly so I will publish this here along with some more subjective fishing reports throughout the summer.

I have the entire river from Salisbury to where the Sem enters upstream of Wardour now in detailed maps from 1926 that I will be redrawing to emphasise the river course and adding to the site once I can find an A3 scanner in Salisbury.

Anyway, more to follow soon, I promise! I might even correct spelling and grammar errors at some point ;)