February 2009 Twelve months sport

Thursday 5th February. I am obviously an expert at finding Giant Canada geese. The BTO website gives the weight range for a male Canada as 7lb to 11lb. The two that I shot this evening weighed just over eleven pounds and just over fourteen pounds. The BTO site also says "they are reputedly amongst the most inedible of birds" .
I had hardly started walking onto the estuary when what looked like the whole Dyfi population headed straight for me. I dropped to my knees in six inches of water and they came right over my head giving me a chance for an easy right and left. Leaving my geese in the grass I went down to the main channel to wait for the duck-flight that never materialised. Then I spent half an hour in the dark searching for my geese! In the end I had to send Copper to look for them.
This morning I had boasted to Ben that there was no problem using shot birds as decoys, as I did on Tuesday, because Copper would never bother to pick up birds that she had already retrieved earlier. Luckily she proved me wrong tonight and retrieved both geese a second time.

Wednesday 4th February. The real fowling weather didn't last long. I got out on the snowy night and found the estuary full of life. I sat out on the sands until after seven, listening to all the commotion but unable to see a thing, hoping that moon, waxing gibbous, would give me some light. There were lots of wigeon about, whistling and splashing all around me, but most were invisible. Four wigeon in the bag and I walked off the marsh surrounded by the squawking of wildfowl pushed off the hills by the snow.
I tried again last night, but the hard weather, and most of the ducks, had gone. Seven wigeon for four shots was pretty good considering there wasn't really a flight. A stalk at a pack and then three singles were all I saw.
No geese came near either night. I shan't go again unless we get another good spell of frost.
Copper has had a great season considering that I thought she was slowing down last year. She worked well on the pheasants and rough shooting but excelled on the estuary; creeping behind me when stalking, sitting quietly when flighting, then off like a rocket gathering the slain and the runners after a shot. Experience counts when trying to gather a winged diving duck in a fast-running creek or far out on the river.

Saturday 31st January. My bones are aching after the last long day at pheasants. There were still enough birds to give us the runaround all day. Now the forecast is for hard weather so I might not have finished shooting yet. I can feel the pull of the foreshore again!
The posh driven day was spectacular. We drove above the mist to shoot the highest drives in bright sunshine. There were hordes of birds of the highest calibre, and on one drive, the stunning "seven-twenty", up against a 700 foot waterfall, my barrels got as hot as they have ever been.
Next evening three of us flighted a hilltop pond for a brace of mallard each. I'm not sure which day was the more memorable.

Tuesday 27th January. Shooting on alternate days gives the dog, and my hips and knees, a rest. Nothing spectacular; the woodcock thinned out after the thaw, and the ducks disappeared from the estuary, but the pheasants have stayed around and the syndicate shoots have been excellent. Last Saturday I missed two woodcock put put every pheasant that I fired at in the bag- eight or ten birds towards a total bag of sixty.
Tomorrow, with some trepidation, I'm joining the big guns on a posh driven shoot at the Brigands Inn. They will be high birds and lots of them. Let's hope no-one is watching!

Friday 9th January 2009. The hard weather seems to be coming to an end, but has provided some excellent sport. I spent the first day of 2009 on the estuary, struggling to carry off a great bag of wigeon and teal plus a Canada goose. I made a couple more visits later in the week, sitting into the dark amongst ice-floes and surrounded by the calls of mallards, wigeon and geese. The mallard must have been frozen off the inland ponds and made a welcome addition to the bag. One night a pack of wigeon tried to land on top of us, mistaking the silhouettes of our heads (Copper's and mine) for ducks. The next night a short-eared owl kept swooping low over us. Midge was with us, curled up in a ball on top of the creek-edge, so perhaps she was the bait.
Inland there have been plenty of woodcock and pheasants around and we've had a couple of lovely days in the hills.
The game pie (Fallow venison, hare, rabbit, squirrel and woodpigeon) was a great success, and the gamebirds have been in great condition so I've been plucking and dressing every night.
Walking the hills, or the bog, every day (carrying heavy bags of game!) has led to a deterioration in various of my joints. I'm fine all day, but crippled at night. So, it looks as though I'm going to give it a rest for two or three days in the hope that I recover sufficiently to enjoy some serious sport for the last couple of weeks of the season.

Wednesday 31st December. At last the rains have gone. After a week of frost we can walk the hills dry-shod in search of game. Yesterday Ben and I wore ourselves out for four pheasants, a woodcock and a pigeon. And a squirrel which will be the excuse for a game pie.
This evening I sat in the dusk by the river and was surprised by a cock pheasant flying past, up to the woods to roost. He never made it. Woodcock flitted about but none came close, and the duck never flighted. I'll start the New Year on the estuary before dawn. If I wake up.

Monday 21st December. The daily pheasant cull has been curtailed by the arrival of the French contingent. Looks as though we have to feast on Christmas Eve as well as Christmas Day. No oysters so I'll have to dig into the permafrost to see if we've got a trout or two.

Monday 15th December. That's the worst of the Christmas rush out of the way. Time for me to poke my head outside and see what is happening in the world. On Saturday I dusted off the gun, and the dogs, and had a mouch about with Uncle Emyr. Not much came my way, but we did finish up with a couple of pheasants, a woodcock and a mallard.
Yesterday I filled the van with seaweed for the garden, and filled a bucket with fat mussels, while being entertained by the whistling of a pack of wigeon in the Leri mouth, opposite.

Friday 5th December. Of course the rain did follow me. Roads in Moremi were impassible so I dumped the car in Maun and hopped around the Delta by plane. Not much fishing but I followed wild dogs and lions on the Kwando River. Then, chickening out of miles of soft sand in the Kalahari, I headed west until I hit soft sand at Walvis Bay on the cold Atlantic. Finally, I spent a day fishing in a dam near Windhoek, catching beautiful wild carp on dry flies and, casting to tilapia, hooked a brute of a catfish that took so long to land that I got the backs of my knees sunburned.

Thursday 13th November. I'm trying not to mention the weather. Where have I been? Well not fishing or shooting, anyway. Our first day's pheasant shooting clashed with the always excellent British Flyfair and our next day's pheasant shooting will clash with me getting off a plane in a South-West African desert. In between I've been busy selling books and having some fun with publishing. Our first Flyfisher's Classic Library edition, Three In Norway, is at the printers right now, and the second edition of Hampton's Angling Bibliography, sixty years in the making, was delivered this afternoon.
Tomorrow I spend the day on the train with a case full of books- the only time I ever get to read! An overnight flight then before heading west from Windhoek to attempt a round-trip taking in the Okavango Delta, Chobe and the upper Zambezi. Two weeks to do it in and I'm hoping the rain does not follow me. If it does I might just turn off into the Kalahari and drink beer.

Wednesday 29th October. I've been using the rotton weather to produce and mail my catalogue, and to start to lick the Flyfisher's Classic Library into shape. Even mushrooming has been quiet and in the garden I'm preparing for winter. Tomatoes are almost at an end, but I have found something to extend their season and will record it here as a reminder to myself for next year. I bought a couple of plants of a variety called Cherry Fox, and later struck a couple of cuttings from their sideshoots. None of the plants suffered from the blackening or dying off that overtakes my main crops of Shirley and Gardener's Delight with the onset of winter. They made long vines and are still green and growing with healthy trusses of fruit. Let's hope I can find some next year.

Tuesday 14th October. What Indian Summer? If it comes now it will be too late for the mackerel, and maybe for the bass. I've used the lousy weather to get on with my catalogue so there is now a chance that you will receive one before Christmas. On Sunday afternoon the wind dropped for long enough for me to mouch down the estuary in the dinghy, but there were no signs of bass. Maybe still too much fresh water in the river? I finished up with a handful of little whiting from just outside the bar.
On days when it has been dry enough I've had a few late girolles and the first of the winter chanterelles.
All my friends to seem to be catching salmon. I suppose I can't complain about not catching them if I don't fish for them.

Tuesday 30th September. No zander. I had a mouch along the Severn as I passed through on Friday, slipped on the bank and strained my knee, and failed to catch any minnows for zander-bait. Anyway, by the time I'd spent a day buying and selling pike books I'd had enough.
Went shrimping on Sunday and found whitebait and bass. By the time I returned with a rod a westerly gale made the rocks unreachable. Rotten weather now- time to work on my catalogue.

Thursday 25th September. I took Jon and Philip to the Llanbrynmair lakes on Tuesday evening. The cold easterly made Coch Hwyad dour but we found a bit of a rise in the lee on Gwyddior in the dusk and Philip took a big-headed two-and-a-half-pounder. Just a bit bigger than the biggest that I have ever caught there!
Next day the wind was still wrong; the Ardudwy lakes would all have been flat calm. Eventually we plumped for Nant-y-moch where we caught a few trout before searching fairly fruitlessly for fungi. A capful of hedgehogs and a couple of boletes were just about enough to fry up with the trout. I'll be less rash with my promises in future!
I did spot a lot of oyster mushrooms halfway up a beech tree, but they'll have to wait until I can borrow the warehouse ladder after the P.A.C. Conference. They pikeys meet in zander country; I won't have time in the daylight but I might try to poach one after dark. Small fish for bait might be a problem- can I use my prawn-net in the canal?

Tuesday 23rd September. Fantastic weather and crowds at the Midland brought the outdoor game fair season to an end.
I have friends coming to fish today, so I prospected the estuary in the dinghy last night. The north-easterly breeze was a cold wind once I got outside the bar, and on such a small slack tide I failed to find any fish apart from lesser weevers. So, we won't be going there. There are plenty of bass around, but they are feeding on whitebait out on the reef at the moment. Looks as though, despite the bright sunshine and easterly wind, we might be trout fishing.

Tuesday 16th September. Last week family stuff took us to the Marches where we found drifts of chanterelles, but few ceps. We usually find lots there a little later in the season but we saw so many old and rotten specimens that there must have been a good flush as early as August.
Inspired, I pinched an hour one afternoon and checked a favourite plantation, finding enough hedgehogs and chanterelles for a good feed.
Ceri and I spent the weekend in London, looking for food, books and culture. We managed to combine all three in visits to Borough Market, the Globe Theatre, innumerable food stalls on the South Bank, and several bookfairs. A Chesapeake Bay soft-shell crab sandwich in a gay pub in Soho impressed me. Actually, all of the food impressed me.
What were we doing in a gay pub in Soho? Well we were just walking the streets reading menus and that was the one that drew us in.
Off to Weston tomorrow to inspect our pitch for the Midland Game Fair this weekend.

Some time in early September. The savage jackdaw is taking chunks out of my ankles while the girls eat breakfast with their feet tucked up under them. We are despairing of summer; I'm considering towing Ruby down to the tip and leaving her there; and I've booked a hire/camper/4x4 in Namibia so that I can dry myself out in November.
The river is running bank-high; too high for me to flyfish with my puny tackle. I've spent a few short sessions fishing with various plugs and minnows (I can't bring myself to say spin-fishing), but after an hour of continuously hurling a lure my shoulders tell me to stop. Fortunately, after only twenty-four hours, the pain abates.
Chatsworth Country Fair is a day out for hordes of townies. I was quite glad when a rainstorm sent them all home and, for the first time ever, I closed the stand early and drove home in the daylight.

Some time at the end of August. Just back from the Fens and about to leave for Derbyshire. Quy Water produced a few small pike and perch and a bagful of mushrooms, and the Fenfolk rallied around as usual, buying bagsful of Tales of the Old Molecatchers and How to Smoke your Hedgehog. Let's hope that summer starts after Chatsworth.

Friday 15th August. Lowther was as good as expected- two days in a sea of mud and the third day cancelled.
Back home to find sea trout in the river; small ones but lots of them. I get it wrong almost every day; if I take the flyrod I find the river brown and rising, when I took my spinning rod I had sewin darting at my swivels all the time.
Yesterday morning I went out prepared to flyfish but had to abort and go to work instead. I'm going to try again this morning.
Yesterday evening I took Jim to Llyn Bodlyn. I intended to bypass Bodlyn and head up to Llyn Dulyn, farther up the mountain. However, there was a good hatch of sedges that I couldn't ignore, and plenty of little trout were rising. Jim, who had never caught a trout on the fly before, caught two on a nymph and slow sinking line. Fishing a team of flies on a floater, I rose a few but only landed one. Yann came with us but had to make do with wet feet and midges. As a consolation we watched peregrines and a barn owl, then I raced back and caught the Red Lion in Dinas just before last orders.
The year is getting more and more frantic. I'm buying books at an undiminished rate; selling them pretty fast, too; trying to fit in in all the family stuff, and going fishing twice a day, as well as dashing around the country to game fairs. Think I'll give up sleeping.

Wednesday 6th August. Nipping out in the evenings for an hour on the river, I seem to be catching a sewin each time, but all small. Last night, as soon as I started wading down the middle of Cerrig Cochion, an otter porpoised upstream towards me. He posed close to me for the camera that I wasn't carrying, then carried on past. I'm not seeing any fish moving and it seems to me that the sea trout are pretty thinly spread. I was going out tonight but right now it is hammering down. Serious rain. Lowther tomorrow. I remember that red mud.

Sunday 3rd August. I'm still here but with little to report. The CLA came and went. We stayed dry, but it was too hot for people to carry bags full of books. Ruby has had an overhaul and is awaiting a gap in the game fair schedule and an improvement in the weather before getting her bottom wet. I took Jon on the Dyfi one day but, despite lovely fly water, we failed to find sea trout. There are a few around but they are not at all widespread.
This afternoon I should be building shelters for pheasant poults.

Monday 21st July. French friends, Laurent and his family, have been camping in Corris for two weeks of almost incessant rain. Hopes of boating for bass, or even mooching for shrimps and prawns, have been washed away. Now they are heading back to France, the sun is shining, and we are packing the vehicles for our wagon-train to Blenheim.
Two evenings I braved the rain for three sewin and a basketful of mountain trout.

Wednesday July 9th. Got home from Scotland to find that all my nectarines have fallen and Ceri has scoffed them all. I spotted a few ospreys, bought good books from Mr Leakey in Inverness, and spent several pleasant sociable evenings sheltering from the rain.
Fished a minnow down the Bwtri Run at dusk last night. The water was lower and clearer than I expected; just one sewin in the bag and one lost. Plenty of rain today bodes well for the river.

Sunday June 29th. An injured hand has cost me two days fishing and possibly a sea trout or two. It improved enough for me to accompany Mr B to the hills this morning. Cloud and rain dogged us and only a few very small fish came to hand. Then, mid-afternoon, the cloud lifted and a few olives started coming off. I finished with four fish from Coch Hwyad averaging close to a pound- the best I've caught from there for a year or two. My trout, together with my creelful of small perch, filled the smoker tonight.
Packing for Scotland tomorrow so no more news for a week or so.

Thursday June 26th. We travelled home from Ireland via Birmingham to pick up my new (old) Range Rover. Last night was grey and stormy so I headed for Ardudwy after dinner. I got to Llyn Bodlyn about 9pm, wreathed in cloud. Initially I only rose tiny trout but as the light faded more and more fish grabbed the little muddler-minnow on the point. By dusk they were fighting over the flies and I had caught enough for a fry-up. The walk back around the lake in the dark was interesting and it was after midnight before I got home to clean my fish.

Wednesday June 25th. Just back from Northern Ireland and a stormy wet game fair. Ben and I returned to Carrick-a-Rede after ten years to find National Trust car-parks and coachloads of tourists. The rock-fishing was just as good as it used to be and we had a spectacular couple of hours. As I was reeling in a full-house of three small coalfish a big pollack twice tried to grab them at the surface. Changing to a rubber shad I hooked and eventually landed two of the biggest pollack that I've ever caught from the shore. Then changing to bait I caught a wonderfully colourful wrasse. On leaving we discovered that the NT had locked the iron gate in the wall at the top of the cliff at the end of the rope bridge. After half an hour of cursing and calculating I robbed a hand-rail rope and, safely roped-up, we effected an escape worthy of Zorro.

Wednesday June 11th. Took Yann down the estuary in the small dinghy last night. We both lost garfish on the troll, then I drifted on the making tide and caught a few small bass on fly. We witnessed a shipwreck when the only other boat out, a local fisherman with three other anglers on board, who was fishing the white water on the bar, bumped bottom, shipped a wave over the side and filled with water. I couldn't help much in my tiny boat but stood by until the lifeboat took the the four of them off to Aberdyfi, leaving their boat. Then I chugged home upriver in a flat calm.

Sunday June 8th. We have a houseful of visitors for my father's eightieth birthday party. All are now abed while I'm pot-watching the second of four huge spider-crabs, which will never come to the boil while I watch.
I met the editor and The Doctor at the Brenig on Friday. We each caught a couple of nice stockies, while I lost fish, one after the other, all day. I was interested and depressed by my experiences in the evening when I fished down the bank towards a group of three anglers. All three rods were on the ground but periodically a fish would leap out of the water in front of them. At this, one of them would rush to his rod, strike like a cod-basher, and reel in a three-pound trout. One of them caught five in the hour or so that I was there, while I missed a couple of rises and caught one fish on a small muddler. This, then, I assume, is fishing the booby. I hate to sound elitist but this certainly was not flyfishing and I found it slightly depressing.

Tuesday June 3rd. Took a day off on Friday and accompanied Mr Burnett to the hills. Llanbrynmair was said to be crowded so we headed for Talybont and Llyn Penrhaeadr. The road has deteriorated on the twenty-five years since my last visit, but we only got seriously stuck once; nothing that a pile of rocks and a jack couldn't sort out. It was a little too calm but but a lovely rise to olives was going on when we arrived. I caught a good half-pounder immediately but the trout were very selective and we didn't catch the basketful that I expected. Half a dozen troutlings each, then we left for a tour of the other Talybont lakes; New Pool, Nant-y-cagl, Dwfn and Conach.
Last night I made my first visit of the year to Llanbrynmair. It was a wet, misty, night with lousy visibility. I had not anticipated the midges, but they obviously knew that I was coming. It was after 10pm that the sedges appeared and the midges slackened their efforts slightly. First a small trout, them two good Coch Hwyad fish of a pound and a half each grabbed my big palmered sedge. It was all over by 10.30.
To avoid disturbing the farm late at night I took a previously untravelled route off the moorland. It wasn't such a good idea on such a foggy night and I had a hair-raising half-hour before eventually reaching a tarred road about five miles from where I expected to emerge.

Tuesday May 27th. A week ago today found me adrift on Grafham Water. A rash promise in January led to a three-day visit to the inland seas of the East Midlands. It took me a day and a half to work out how to catch rainbow trout cruising through swarms of daphnia twenty feet below the surface. I watched the experts and eventually managed to present my epoxy buzzers stationary at great depth. So, the first day I blanked and the second day I caught eight fish up to six pounds. On the third day we decamped to Rutland Water where similar tactics, but in shallower water, accounted for some beautiful fish including a couple of four-pounders, a seven pound pike and a nice perch.
On Thursday night I left my companions and drove through the night to Kent, then by ferry to Ostend and via the traffic-jams of Antwerpen to Breda where the Dutch Flyfair had been resurrected. It had been six years since the last Dutch fair in Zwolle so it was great to meet all of my old friends. Much beer was drunk and we had several memorable international dinners.
Somehow I managed to come home with a bagful of flies and yet another travel rod. I popped out this evening around nine o'clock to try a line on the new rod. I hadn't fished the little reservoir for about ten years; surrounded by forestry, it is always sheltered and glassy, and its small wild trout hard to deceive. First flick under the nearest bush with one of Marc Petitjean's wiggly nymphs and I hooked a trout that immediately weeded me and I was lucky to land. Then the midges descended, or ascended, in great force and I had given up by ten o'clock. Eleven ounces, he weighed, including the inevitable newt.

Tuesday May 13th. I picked a bucketful of good peeler crabs about a week ago. I gave them a good try on the middle estuary, but without success, and a session in the Leri produced a baby bass at every cast.
Last night I took the small dinghy to the estuary to finish the crabs off. I ignored the gulls working far upstream - the bass are safe there anyway - and headed down to the bar. It was too choppy to anchor the little boat on the drop-off so I sat just inside the mouth. I straightaway foul-hooked a large sandeel on a Toby lure, so the crabs had a reprieve. Despite fishing for an hour into the dusk with the sandeel for bait, no bass materialised; just one big dogfish that had me fooled for a while. A few gannets were working and prospects look good.

Sunday April 27th. The website crisis was overcome but leaves an aftermath. It will be some time before I can access this diary page.
It is almost May and the bass are piling into the estuary and the lakes are calling. My greenhouse and much of the garden is planted so I am thinking about fishing.

Tuesday April 22nd. Hackers have been attacking my website over the weekend. I have Naughtymutt, Zetnet, and my friend, Deri, working flat-out to sort it out, and to protect me, and you, from internet nasties. Yesterday I spent a couple of hours behind a rotovator, tilling the garden. This afternoon I escaped from website trauma to spend a couple of hours behind my new big shrimp net. It proved too large for working around the rocks- I would have caught more prawns with the smaller net. Nevertheless I finished up with a fine haul of shrimps, prawns and odds and ends. Today's by-catch were flounders, small mullet and a couple of nice soft crabs. Time for bass-fishing!