Sanity Restored

The last few months have been enduring in one form or another with building work happening in our home being delayed over 3 months by the company who was carrying out the refurbishment and being busy at work myself with a new project rolling out the doors, which all took its toll and I wasnt far from throwing the towel in completely.

After over 3 months late the building work was completed at 10pm last friday so we had all weekend trying to restore some order into our home & lives. We arent still quite there yet but it's a far better place now than it was over a week ago.

So on thursday night I decided to head straight to the river from work and have a moment of sanity in my life, but that was not meant to happen as Im sure my rod isn't meant to look like this....

My trip was over before it even began!





Heading home and seeing as I had my camera in the car I stopped off by the new additions that have appeared around the town where we live.

This artwork has been sited just as you enter the town from the new bypass road and I have to say I like it very much.

The town also has a new sign

Im still unsure about this as I prefer the old sign which was done in natural stone and sits directly behind this one a few yards closer to the town. See if anyone can spot the fish in the picture....No prizes if you do..

It was nice of the boss at work to appreciate the job I had done over the last few weeks in getting the project rolled out and he passed on a nice gesture on friday night before I left work... 

The best medicine for a Scotsman  and it went down nice on friday night as I chilled after a hard week at work.

So with a repair job done on the tip of my rod courtesy of a bit of heat removing the eye from the broken piece and some glue & whipping thread the rod was repaired & ready for action albeit a few cm's short of 10ft.

Last night after dinner I ventured up the Dale to try it out and return some sanity to my upturned life.

The first thing I came across was this fungi at the base of an old oak tree where I park the car, I think the heat has got to it as well, as the top has crystalised in the sun.

Walking up to my start point, I was amazed although with the drought conditions we have endured over the last month or so how fast the vegetation has grown and completely covered a path I use to enter the river, so with wading stick in hand I had to beat a new path to the river. 

As I sat and tackled up taking in the sound of the water running over the rocks it soothed my soul and I have to say I was at peace for the first time in weeks. I sat and watched a pair of kingfishers dash up and down the river from my concealed spot on the bank and nature is definitely a great healer, it was great to just sit listen & watch.

It was now time to see how the repaired rod would fair and it didn't take too long for the first Par to take a liking to my dry fly. What better way to test the rod than start out small, hoping that they would get bigger, fingers crossed.






Thankfully I didn't have to wait too long to find out as the next species to take a liking to the dry fly was this nice Grayling.

Its nice to see Grayling of this size back on this stretch as they have been absent for a couple of years with only really small Grayling making an appearance in the past.

The trout were keeping a very low profile and the only things rising were the small Salmon Par so I started to have some fun with them and after 15 or so of them decided to head upstream to where I could hopefully tempt some bigger fish.

I spotted a smutting fish which I initially thought to be a Grayling as it was hardly breaking the surface to suck down the flies and after a few casts it took my artificial, only to be confronted with this Brown Trout.






Not 5ft from where I had taken this fish I seen another fish smutting, so drying my fly I cast over in the direction of where I seen it and immediately I had another fish on.

another Brown Trout.

With nothing else moving I decided to take time out & watch the sunset over the Dale, The Geese off in the distance coming into roost for the night, and a couple of hares running away from me as I climbed the bank to take the photograph.





I sat for nearly 30 minutes soaking in the peace & quiet apart from the sounds of the river behind me.

Deciding to head back downstream towards the car I stopped off at one particular run to see if any residents were there and after 2 casts I could just see the rise in the gloamin as a trout rose for my dry fly.

The largest fish of the evening and sanity was well and truly restored. Oh & the repaired rod it works just fine.