I would like to wish you all the very best of health and happiness for the coming season and a peaceful time. To all the nice people that I know, have met and enjoyed spending time with on the water, my friends, it has been an absolute honour and pleasure!
I would like to say a very big thank you to John Norris of Penrith for all their exceptional help and support, not just to me and the various causes I am attached to, but to the community and the superb service of the staff and the great after sales they do.
It has been a tough season again everywhere. The weather patterns of late have been the main driver of that, we have often had to adjust many times the way and especially the times we fish for certain species. The trout and grayling stock are there, the sea trout have returned in higher numbers this summer, the spring and summer salmon are in great shape, but the autumn run continues to decline. It has been tough, but it has also been very enjoyable!
What will the new season bring I wonder? It will be whatever you want it to be, get out on the river and enjoy it for what it is and what it does for your soul! The fish behavior, just like the weather is constantly changing, the more time that is spent on the water the better we understand that and are able to adjust. It should be interesting to see how some of the beats on the Eden have changed, possibly old pools disappeared and new pools formed when the levels drop, it will all have to be relearned again. I remember the same scenario in January ten years earlier, the river bed was strewn over the fields after the floods, how could anything living possibly survive that? By late February, kick samples were quite good, the fish were there in the pools and it all just carried on as normal (probably as it has done since the last ice age), I just think nature is amazing!
We have experienced some serious floods again over the last few weeks, there have been so many people in Cumbria made homeless and businesses ruined. A terrible and devastating thing to happen at any time of the year, but near Christmas, I cannot find the words!
