RH Fly Fishing

    Segars Carrier, part of the River Itchen system, ran as clear as triple distilled spirit. Heavily weeded in places but offering plenty of clear channels, holes and glides. I often struggle with malevolent trees and shrubs lurking just out of my peripheral vision, waiting for a chance to pounce on line, cast or tippet; today thistles, nettles, brambles, sedge, et al, joined ranks. High levels of vexation were soon reached, but the sun and 25C heat rapidly burned off the blue air.   I had rigged two outfits, one for dries and the other for nymphing, both with 3lb. b.s. tippet due to the lush growth in the stream and along the banks. The plan was to take time, stalking slowly upstream, fishing late afternoon and early evening. I spotted about three dozen spotties in all, three of which were probably stockers, the remainder smaller, wild Brown Trout. Two Chub passed, heading downstream, but as far as I could tell there were no Grayling. There were some fry in places, to...

    One of the things I’ve always enjoyed, aside from actually going fishing, is tackle tinkering. This hands-on activity can take many forms: cleaning your fishing kit, swapping or replacing lines, re-organising towards a new sense of working order, making bits of tackle, repairs and refurbishment, et cetera. It’s enjoyable and time well spent. It has a similar cerebral effect to poring through tackle catalogues, all grist to the mill of ‘What ifs?’,   the imagination is free to run.   Just because, I posted a photo of some old trout-fishing paraphernalia [cast packets, line boxes] onto Instagram and Facebook, and found some of the reactions interesting. This stuff belongs to a friend, arriving with an on-line purchase; we estimate it’s probably forty-fifty-odd years old, of very little value, but compelling to look at, touch, and imagine.   I am not a collector of old kit, although I do have some old stuff which I use today, on certain venues and occasions...

  It's hard to know if you're doing the right thing if you don't get any feed-back. When I started this blog, as a complete noob, I intended posting my content, but thought thatI might need to supplement my accounts and essays with editorials. I realise now that I'm not actually 'editing' anything, so is there any worth calling additional [random] items 'Eds' , my shorthand?  I could easily drop the 'Ed' and number sequence, it might look less clunky, but WHAT DO YOU THINK? I really wou;d like to have feedback from the readers: please comment or make suggestions; it's supposed to be more than a one-way outpouring!