The most challenging trout season on the chalk streams I have ever experienced.
Child A 2.0 continues to thrive and I grimly predict that if matters progress as they have done during the past two summers, this river will be unfishable and possibly run dry periodically during his lifetime.
Possibly mine if I maintain the sustained and determined consumption of red wine, tomatoes and dark chocolate that guarantee to extend life.
It has started raining,
We have had a lot in the past few days and Storm Stone Cold Steve Austen (didn't he grow roses?) promises much, but we need months of weather like this to restore normal order to these parts. Some of the spawning gravels remain dry, but trout will adapt in the coming months and find some spot to kick up a red. Waves of avian predators will undoubtedly make merry in the low water and I anticipate an increase in damaged fish during and after spawning.
In arboreal news, has anyone seen any acorns?
Conkers, yes, Beech nuts, yes, hazelnuts, yes, but a complete dearth of acorns.
I only noticed when Madam issued a request for acorns and their little pipey cups for some craft project she had planned at the local primary school. I have looked every where and we haven’t an acorn on the place, nor on the senior oaks at the cricket club or along the track down to the common. Not sure why, but guess it had something to do with the very late frost in early May.
During my quest for acorns I did disturb what I had down as a Goshawk, I have not seen one for years, but it was a similar shape and half as big again as a Sparrowhawk and a little less agile in flight. There is also a Hen Harrier ligging about on the common that has put in an appearance about the place, languid in flight they always look on the cusp of falling out of the sky.
We’ve had the first few frosts, nothing too hard but enough to check grass growth that had resumed its’ verdant hue after a summer in beige. Many types of funghi are putting in an appearance although the edible field mushroom picking period was early and quite short. The wild hop that absorbs our garden hedge is covered in hops and the grape vine has a heavy crop that I have been feeding to the chickens as they make us shiver.
The dodgy grapes make us shiver, not the chickens.
I don’t think chickens can shiver, but they do seem to like dodgy grapes.
They are a fruity bunch and also lap up melon, cucumber, kidney beans and peas. My Courgettes and squash on the allotment were inedible, wizened in the sun I could only cut them with an axe, split down the middle the chooks peck out the seeds and turn them into some of the best eggs we have had for a long time.
I’ve been pulling cress for two days. When summer levels are low I allow it to grow out into the river and pinch the river, maintaining a quicker rate of flow. It helps to keep the water temperature a degree or so lower and prevents blanket weed conquering all. However it can smother ranunculus, depriving it of light, so in anticipation of an increasing amount of water in the river I have pulled it out. This year a lot of silt has accumulated under the cress, deposited by a falling summer river that lacked the energy to carry it’s load of fine suspended solids.
Two rods have had a go for grayling.
There have been a few big lumps about throughout the summer, a two pound grayling is big for this stretch of the Dever and there are at least three or four approaching that size. Grayling were seen spawning this spring (it’s on here somewhere) and there are pods of small grayling fingerlings skittering about which is great to see following a few years in decline. Brer Grayling is the poor relation in the much vaunted but deeply flawed National Trout and Grayling Strategy introduced in 2015, and while we are all encouraged not to cause too much of a kerfuffle during the trout spawning season, press on regardless boys and girls with your diggers and dumpers during the grayling spawning season.
On another note, why are “Iron Chancellor” John Healey and Reggie Perrin never seen in the same room together?
Because Leonard Rossiter died thirty odd years ago - ed
Oh, ok, we’ll park that one then,
Unless!
Reggie did fake his death for a second time and walked out into the sea, (he did have previous with this kind of caper), only to emerge as the Chancellor of the Exchequer and start a third life in politics.
Definitely died in 1984 – ed
We’ll never know, same eyes and grin definitely, all I’m saying is that the clues are there and Reggie may be hiding in plain sight.
Late news just in: The opening skirmishes of Storm Stone Cold Steve Austin are upon us and already I have a tree in the river. Nothing too substantial but the first of a heavy load of tree work that must be carried out this winter. It’s out with the chainsaw in the morning.
