Friday, November 20, 2009

100mm ! make that nearer 300mm

Well, the forecasters underestimated slightly - instead of the 100mm forecast on Wednesday, some areas of Cumbria received over 300mm of rain

As you can imagine, the effects of all this rain were devastating, with the areas around Cockermouth, Keswick and the west of the county worst hit - 100's were evacuated from their homes and bridges washed away in the worst floods since 2005.


The flood defences built around Carlisle since the 2005 floods appear to have kept the flood water out of the city which I would imagine is a massive relief to the residents that were flooded out last time



Flood banks keeping the water out of Carlisle

Stoneyholme Golf Course

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Never Say Never ?

Never say never...... well apart from this coming weekend because we won't be fishing around here - after 100mm plus of rain last night the rivers in this part of the country are in the fields and with another 100mm forecast for tomorrow I wouldn't like to think what sort of a state we'll be in on Friday.

The pictures below were taken at the end of October 2008 but if I'd had my camera today the shots would have been the same.



On a positive note.... I did manage an outing on the Eden last weekend - A call to the Environment Agencies Rivercall service last Saturday stated the river level was o.75m above summer level and falling - a touch high, I thought. Another call on the Sunday gave it at o.5m and falling so I decided to go for it.

The river at Penrith was still a touch coloured but worth a go - my philosophy in these conditions is 'give them something they can see' so on went a bright pink bug on the point, bright orange in the middle and bright yellow on the top dropper plus BB shot 150mm up from the point to ensure it was bouncing bottom.

Unfortunately no pictures from the day - my camera was playing up - but sport was good considering the conditions, my first fish was a 17" (43cm) Grayling to the pink, followed, two casts later, by a 16.5" (42cm) one to the orange.
Six more followed, all to the pink - so it turned out a good session in a water that I would have said wasn't worth fishing a few years ago and some still do, I had the river to myself today - It just shows, you can never say never.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Salmon fishing again

For some time now I've had an itch that's needed scratching and that itch was salmon fishing, so this year after a sixteen year break, I decided to do something about it and get back into it.

My Trout fishing has suffered badly but I thoroughly enjoyed the season - and didn't do too badly considering that by all accounts this year has been very poor for Salmon on the Eden, I caught two, a 7 1/2 lb Cock on the fly and a 15-16lb Hen on the spinner (shown below), the Hen was caught after the 10th September when all Eden Hen Salmon must be returned to the river




The damp weather continues, curtailing any hopes of getting out for the Grayling - I've only managed one outing so far this winter, the river has been out of sorts for the last two weekends and prospects for the coming weekend are not good, with yet another band of rain and strong winds heading in from the West on Friday - How Depressing !