Looking good - early season hopes

With the river running steady at 1m on the gauge at East Stoke the river couldn't be looking better. The winter floods have given the river bed a good clean and the runs look superb. The large inaccessible pool at the top of our beat has now been by-passed by the main river. A walk there a couple of weeks ago confirmed what i felt might have happened. The big question now is what difference will this make to the fishing on our top beat? On a positive note I would think that the fish might be spread out a little better.

New season - new river

After a very wet winter one can only imagine the effects on the river and its lies. As ever, on the Frome the river will be very different to the year before with some old lies destroyed and some new ones created. I'm even wondering if one of the pools on our top beet has been completely re-formed. I had hoped to go down and do some bank work this weekend but finding the bank may prove difficult. Currently the river level at East Stoke (between our two beats) is sitting at 1.48m. A couple of years back I wrote a blog post when i had a fish at 1.35m, fishing was a tad tricky as there was a long wade just to get to the river.

As the Season starts on the first of March, there will be little hope of getting to cast a fly for at least 2 or three weeks. Not an ideal start to the season but i look forward to surveying the "new" river once levels drop

Boys night out

I had been looking forward to doing something a little different for a few months, a friend Nick had invited me to join him and Tim for a night fishing the Woodmill pool on the Itchen for Sea Trout. I'm sure we are all the same when it comes to the countdown to a long awaited trip - checking the weather every few hours. If its not good news, look at a different website until we find the weather we prefer. Sadly, on this occasion, it was totally crap whatever website I looked at. Nick did a great job in re-assuring us that all would be OK. After a rendezvous and Nicks house and a very tasty meal we set off into the wind and rain to fish Woodmill. Nick has fished there a few times but neither Tim or I had fished it before. It sounded a bit strange from Nicks description and with a tidal range of several feet sounded rather challenging!

Painful loss

There has been a fair bit of action down down on my Sunday beat since the weather has cooled down and with a slight rise towards the end of the week things were looking up. I planned to go down on Sunday afternoon / evening as opposed to my usual morning jaunt. As I 'enjoyed' the imposed morning no fishing time I had a message from Tony showing a nice fish being returned.

Return to form at last

After a few weeks of very little fishing due to family commitments, holiday and extreme conditions I was happy to be getting some fishing time in finally. Over the last few weeks I have only managed an hour or two here and there. Last week I planned an early assault with a friend Nick.