Too cold for the hill lakes.

Monday 18th May 2009 Still too cold for the hill lakes. On Friday DB accompanied me on an exploration of the Ardudwy lakes. Llyn Tecwyn Uchaf yielded nothing so we moved to scenic Bodlyn. Unfortunately the cloud never lifted so David never saw much more than the length of his fly-line. We heard a couple of distant splashes but saw neither trout nor the rugged mountain that overshadows the lake.
Also on Friday we took delivery of the first copies of our new Flyfisher's Classic Library edition of Edmonds & Lee's Brook and River Trouting. They look really good and I am immensly pleased to have made such a great book available.
The Dyfi is brown at the moment but the cold rain doesn't encourage me to prospect for an early sea-trout.

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Wednesday 13th May 2009 May is when I was going to go fishing, but the cold East wind has kept me at the computer apart from book-buying sprees. Donald Downs' books went to auction on Saturday and I came home with a van-full of souvenirs of that great character.
The closest I've been to fish was canal-dipping for snails and tadpoles for my green-house pond. The resident shoal of minnows and a lonely goldfish were being engulfed by algae and weed so I've introduced a few grazers. An albino grass-carp and a handful of giant pond snails and a few ramshorns have cleared the algae and are working on the weed. I hope that the frog and toad tadpoles will populate the greenhouse with insectivores and slug-eaters.

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Wednesday 6th May 2009 Last Tuesday I mounted a pre-dawn raid on the bass rocks but without success. It looks as though the colour of the water has a big affect on float-fishing (and flyfishing) for bass.
Since then I've been preoccupied with the Falconry Fair. The first day was successful with good sales of the new Imprint Accipiter II. The second day was wet and miserable, as was I, having foolishly sampled a glass of dodgy cider in the beer-tent the previous evening.
I fished a team of flies down a windy flat just above the tide on the Dyfi last night. The river was cold and lifeless - I'll let things warm up before I try again.

April bass and prawns

Found the prawns back in force on Saturday. They kept me so occupied that the tide was well on the turn before I realised that the bass were there too. Another angler had several but I only managed one small bass before the tide pushed me off the rocks. I did miss a lot of bites, most of which resulted in a headless prawn. I was using huge prawns and I guess that if I'd used smaller ones I would have hooked more fish, but that they would have been small. I tried again on Sunday but the wind had veered South and the water was coloured - no bass but enough prawns for tea.

New falconry website

Inspired by my Danish flounder and hoping for an early bass, I ventured a paddle in the South Swash yesterday afternoon. Nothing to report except a big flattie trodden on and shoals of sand-eels. I really ought to devise a way of catching them before the summer. Maybe I can buy a fine-mesh cast-net when I'm in the US next month.
Back at the shop, I opened my Falconer's Magazine and realised that I was advertising the new Falconry Books UK website, but that it was not yet live! I quickly chased Nigel and we made the site available. It will be a day or two before it is completed but at least it is visible and working.

Denmark - Flyfishing for sea-trout, flounder & herring

Thursday 23rd April 2009. Back from the Danish sea-trout El Dorado! Actually all the action was between 6.00 and 6.15 each morning- then I did book stuff and watched birds. There were some sea-trout about and I also fluked a flounder. The sea- and marsh-birds were spectacular and made the pre-dawn starts well worthwhile.

After the (jolly and successful) Flyfair I headed north to drink beer with old friends Sarath and Anne Marie Seneratne, then had a delightful last day exploring the West Coast. In a series of happy and accidental discoveries I found an excellent antiquarian bookshop, roadside flocks of barnacle geese and golden plover, and then stumbled on the herring run at the mouth of the fjord at Torsminde. After an hour of studying the herring fishers I managed to nip into the only place in the harbour where I could find room to roll out a fly on a sinking line, so was able to add salted herring to my brimming tub of gravad sea-trout. The weather was glorious and I would have been happy to stop for another week! At Hvide Sande just down the coast they were also hauling out herring and were preparing for a Herring Festival this weekend. Let's hope that the next Danish Flyfair coincides with the herring run.

Easter - Danish Fly Festival - sea-trout fishing

Sunday 12th April 2009 How nice not to be at a game fair for Easter weekend! I'm cleaning the greenhouse, potting on plants, getting the mower out- all the things normal people do.
The Range Rover let me down yesterday. I took it for an MOT test before going to Denmark, and a leaking oil cooler was discovered- too late to get a new one before Wednesday's ferry. I've changed my booking so that I can take the van. It may have done me a good turn really 'cos I can drive to the shore each evening and fish for sea-trout before sleeping in the van.

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Wednesday 8th April Travelling down the Wye valley to pick up a fishing collection from Chepstow, I saw one lone swallow over the Usk and the first bluebells and apple blossom along the lower Wye. Lunched in a walled garden in a Herefordshire vineyard then collected yet more FFCL books from the binder.
We have so many good falconry books these days, many of them unique to us, that I am launching a new website and am busy working on a new falconry book catalogue - all before the Falconry Fair at the beginning of May. So, I'm saving my casting-arm until I get to Denmark next week.

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Fishing Llyn Coron - Shovelers and Greylag Geese

The big, big tide wasn't quite as big, big as I had hoped it would be. I guess I should have been there in February. The only spoots I saw were too fast for me and I came home with an empty bucket. I chanced upon a netsman with a small haul of turbots plus a couple of bass and mullet- inspiration for the coming season.
Yesterday I also came home with an empty bucket. Following in William Roberts' footsteps, Dunc and I took a look at Dyffryn Ogwen- too high and cold for trout fishing yet- nothing to be seen but goats and orange-plumaged hikers. So, we descended to sea-level and had a cast on Llyn Coron, another lake on Roberts's list. Too cold here, too, but fun to fish somewhere so different, with a sandy bottom and swan mussels, snails and hog-lice. Wildfowl abounded and I enjoyed watching shovelers and grey geese, neither of which I see at home. It's a good job I took Duncan 'cos he hooked a fish briefly, and he saw two seatrout jump. My only contribution was to find a wind-dried dead perch of about a pound. I noted the lack of piscivorous birds- no cormorants, divers or grebes, herons or egrets- and guess that means that what fish there are here are pretty big. The lone local that we came across- not fishing, of course- said that we were a month too early and should return when the hawthorn fly is on the water. So that's what we'll do.

Spring tide - mussels and bargain books

What a lovely day! There was a hard frost and everywhere is white, but it's going to be bright and warm. This is the time of year that I carry trays of tomato plants into the greenhouse in the day and back to the house at night. Maybe after today they can stay out.
Big, big tides today. I collected a lot of huge clean mussels yesterday so we feasted last night. The clocks have changed to I might get time this afternoon to try for spoots.
I've got another bucketful of mussels to cook before lunch. Then, should we have Friday's venison stew tonight, or cook the mallard I got out of the freezer yesterday, or make a soup with the mussels? Too much food!
Busy this week making more office-space for the Flyfisher's Classic Library, shifting mountains of books and increasing the range of the office computer network. Despite threatening to buy less books, I have bought a vast quantity of remainders this week including Buckland and Oglesby's Guide to Salmon Flies and Fly Casting with Lefty Kreh, both of which will be popular at less than half-price.