Stirling Effort
19/09/06
I organised Salisbury
& District AC's first work party this weekend
just gone. Arranged for people to turn up and get
wet, bruised and stung for a day on the Nadder just
outside of Wilton. To my great suprise six people
turned up and set to strimming, felling, clearing,
strimming, strimming and uhmm some more strimming.
One of the group even decided that a swim was in
order, before he started work!
Obviously I'm not in the photo but I was there, at least for some of the day! I took a bit of grief from the 'workers' as I ended up going back and forwards into Wilton in the truck more than once, a visit for chainsaw oil, a visit to the chemist for some "ouchbuggeritI'vebeenstungbywasps" medicine. But the real chaos came bacause as I was feeding Mark the night before, who'd come down from London village to help with the clear up, the rising main inside my house broke. I'm amazed how much water could come out of the pipe in the 2 mins it took me to get to the stop cock and get it turned off. So Saturday morning when I should have been doing 'macho gardening' on the river bank I was sorting out plumbers, ripping bits of ceilings out and lifting floorboards to get at the leak.
Anyway, by lunchtime I was back on the river and we all cracked on. By 4pm we were all aching in places many of the older guys had forgotten ever existed and decided to head for a swift half in one of the local pubs. The river looked amazing as we left, still wild definitely, but tamed a tad. It's still not a fishery for the faint of heart, it's still a long walk from the car park, but the hard slog of all those that turned up has improved this fishery enormously.
As the main recipient of the improved fishery, well I do live very very close to it, I'd like to thank them all for improving 'my' fishing ;)
Up until this weekend, those verges were all head high. You can thank someone used to trimming the verges on the test as his day job for sorting that part out. Enough cover to crouch behind but low enough to be able to cast over and see fish now :)
Obviously I'm not in the photo but I was there, at least for some of the day! I took a bit of grief from the 'workers' as I ended up going back and forwards into Wilton in the truck more than once, a visit for chainsaw oil, a visit to the chemist for some "ouchbuggeritI'vebeenstungbywasps" medicine. But the real chaos came bacause as I was feeding Mark the night before, who'd come down from London village to help with the clear up, the rising main inside my house broke. I'm amazed how much water could come out of the pipe in the 2 mins it took me to get to the stop cock and get it turned off. So Saturday morning when I should have been doing 'macho gardening' on the river bank I was sorting out plumbers, ripping bits of ceilings out and lifting floorboards to get at the leak.
Anyway, by lunchtime I was back on the river and we all cracked on. By 4pm we were all aching in places many of the older guys had forgotten ever existed and decided to head for a swift half in one of the local pubs. The river looked amazing as we left, still wild definitely, but tamed a tad. It's still not a fishery for the faint of heart, it's still a long walk from the car park, but the hard slog of all those that turned up has improved this fishery enormously.
As the main recipient of the improved fishery, well I do live very very close to it, I'd like to thank them all for improving 'my' fishing ;)
Up until this weekend, those verges were all head high. You can thank someone used to trimming the verges on the test as his day job for sorting that part out. Enough cover to crouch behind but low enough to be able to cast over and see fish now :)
Moving Home
06/09/06
I've a theory, and maybe
this is more noticeable on the Nadder, that fish are
alot more mobile than we normally think. As the
Summer temperatures soar and the water warms the fish
definitely abandon most of the river and hole up in
the biggest deepest pools. You'd have been forgiven
for thinking that 90% of my local stretch at Wilton
was devoid of anything but coarse fish during
July/August. Well, with the cooling of temperatures
experienced in the last week or so, the fish have
suddenly re-appeared in the shallower stretches of
the river.
I was having a bad day yesterday, loads of work to be done and my Crohns disease was making me grouchy, miserable and distracted (or more so than usual!). So by 2pm I'd had enough and threw on my waders, grabbed the rod from its hooks on the wall and ambled the 50m or so up the street to the river. Within 15 minutes my entire mood had changed, I felt at peace just being there, kingfishers flitting up and down the river, fish rising, flies buzzing and the modern world dissolved into the background. I only stayed out for an hour and a half and then went back in to finish the report I was working on but it really amazed me how such a short space of time on the river can have such a positive impact on me. People wonder why I live 100 miles from my office and work from home as much as possible, well I can't explain it to many people as they just wouldn't understand, but I have to think that without the ability to just switch off for an hour or so Crohn's would make any stressful day in the office unbearable.
Once again I'll leave you with a couple of photo's to help you unwind if you're unlucky enough to be stuck in that office... I feel for you, I really do.
It's amazing how close you can get to a fish without spooking it if you go really slowly, this one I think must have been blind as I could have reached and touched it from this distance.
Hows that for an action shot! A Nadder brownie decides that cdc & elk really looks like dinner. BAM
If I didn't know that the river hadn't been stocked in a while I would have sworn this was a pellet fattened fish, in reality it must just be an extremely greedy fish. One too many trouty McDonalds I think. Half an hour later the same fish was taking from the surface in exactly the same spot.
I was having a bad day yesterday, loads of work to be done and my Crohns disease was making me grouchy, miserable and distracted (or more so than usual!). So by 2pm I'd had enough and threw on my waders, grabbed the rod from its hooks on the wall and ambled the 50m or so up the street to the river. Within 15 minutes my entire mood had changed, I felt at peace just being there, kingfishers flitting up and down the river, fish rising, flies buzzing and the modern world dissolved into the background. I only stayed out for an hour and a half and then went back in to finish the report I was working on but it really amazed me how such a short space of time on the river can have such a positive impact on me. People wonder why I live 100 miles from my office and work from home as much as possible, well I can't explain it to many people as they just wouldn't understand, but I have to think that without the ability to just switch off for an hour or so Crohn's would make any stressful day in the office unbearable.
Once again I'll leave you with a couple of photo's to help you unwind if you're unlucky enough to be stuck in that office... I feel for you, I really do.
It's amazing how close you can get to a fish without spooking it if you go really slowly, this one I think must have been blind as I could have reached and touched it from this distance.
Hows that for an action shot! A Nadder brownie decides that cdc & elk really looks like dinner. BAM
If I didn't know that the river hadn't been stocked in a while I would have sworn this was a pellet fattened fish, in reality it must just be an extremely greedy fish. One too many trouty McDonalds I think. Half an hour later the same fish was taking from the surface in exactly the same spot.
Winds of change
01/09/06
So summer had lulled me
into that comfortable slow stupor. The weather has
been calm, hot and dry for a long long time. We've
had the odd bit of drizzle but on the whole it's been
a long hot summer in Wiltshire.
Walking murphy along the river this week I was so busy looking backwards at the signs of summer I didn't notice autumn creep up on me and 'SLAP'. I can't prove it but I think it was autumn that thwacked me round the head while I was looking the other way. I have reason to believe autumn caught my suprise on it's Nokia. It's probably doing the rounds of seasonalhoodiethug.com as we speak.
I often wonder how all those millions of people living in cities feel about seasonality. Is it just the thing that marks the change of clothes in the shops? The inconvenience of strawberries going up in price at the Chelsea Budgens? August's paralel lines marking the freshly harvested fields, the symetrical stacks of straw bales and fields dotted with round bales are now fading, I saw my first ploughing this week and the march of the seasons continues apace in the countryside. Perhaps it's just because I'm out in the natural environment alot that I notice these changes, perhaps it's a country thing to notice them, all I know is that the changes in season are always welcome. Every time the seasons change here I find myself thinking ahhh this is my favourite season. I think this year I said it in spring, mid summer and now autumn. Trout season may only have a short span left but I have piking, grayling fishing, snowboarding holidays, warm jumpers, coats, scarves and wooly hats to look forward to. The smell of an autumn bonfire, a pint of ale next to a fire in a good pub. What's not to like and look forward to?
I'm fairly convinced I'm the only person around wishing for a wet miserable winter though. Seeing the state of the rivers I'd ask you all to raise a glass with me and toast:
'Here's to a bloody miserable winter. May it rain solidly for 5 months'
Walking murphy along the river this week I was so busy looking backwards at the signs of summer I didn't notice autumn creep up on me and 'SLAP'. I can't prove it but I think it was autumn that thwacked me round the head while I was looking the other way. I have reason to believe autumn caught my suprise on it's Nokia. It's probably doing the rounds of seasonalhoodiethug.com as we speak.
I often wonder how all those millions of people living in cities feel about seasonality. Is it just the thing that marks the change of clothes in the shops? The inconvenience of strawberries going up in price at the Chelsea Budgens? August's paralel lines marking the freshly harvested fields, the symetrical stacks of straw bales and fields dotted with round bales are now fading, I saw my first ploughing this week and the march of the seasons continues apace in the countryside. Perhaps it's just because I'm out in the natural environment alot that I notice these changes, perhaps it's a country thing to notice them, all I know is that the changes in season are always welcome. Every time the seasons change here I find myself thinking ahhh this is my favourite season. I think this year I said it in spring, mid summer and now autumn. Trout season may only have a short span left but I have piking, grayling fishing, snowboarding holidays, warm jumpers, coats, scarves and wooly hats to look forward to. The smell of an autumn bonfire, a pint of ale next to a fire in a good pub. What's not to like and look forward to?
I'm fairly convinced I'm the only person around wishing for a wet miserable winter though. Seeing the state of the rivers I'd ask you all to raise a glass with me and toast:
'Here's to a bloody miserable winter. May it rain solidly for 5 months'