I'm sorry for the protracted silence from Horton, but the gremlins have been busy again.  As regular readers of this column will know we have a fairly unusual broadband Internet service up here.  Due to the rather cruel and interesting geography of upper Ribblesdale the 70 or so households in the valley which enjoy the benefits of fast Internet access get it via a wireless network.  This necessitates having a small stick aerial on the roof and on Thursday of last week the engineers called to upgrade the equipment installed at my house.  I am now the proud possessor of a small grey box mounted on a pole attached to my chimney which beams a signal received from the station to the rest of Newhouses.  This worked wonderfully on Friday, but by Saturday morning it was dead.  we had some dreadful weather on Friday night and when the engineers came back to find the fault on Tuesday they discovered that a supposedly weathertight box was full of water.  I now have a new one which I'm assured is Horton proof.  We will see.

Sticking with more personal stuff for the moment, I am also the proud possessor of a new right eye.  Not the whole eye but the lens.   Last Monday I had the cataract removed and the difference is staggering.  I had no idea just how bright and vibrant colours are and can see better than I have done for the past 50 years.  The left eye will be done just after Christmas so I should be able to see a floating fly next season.

Did anyone see that fascinating TV programme 'The Accidental Angler' fronted by Charles Rangeley Wilson that went out over the weekend?  Charles is one of the founders of the Wild Trout Trust and writes extensively about game fishing all over the world.  This episode in his new series was about his pursuit of the legendary mahseer, the strongest fresh water fish in the world which can grow up to 120 lb.   Next Sunday he's after brown trout in Bhutan so it will be interesting to contrast this with their cousins in the Ribble.

I was at Grassington last Wednesday to attend a meeting called by the Environment Agency to discuss the problem of American red signal crayfish in Long Preston beck.  This is the only population of these alien crayfish in the Ribble catchment and their presence threatens not only our native crayfish but the future of all fish stocks in the river.  We went through all the options to decide what should be done about this threat and reached a unanimous conclusion that the signals must be removed.  This will not be easy but has to be addressed if we are to protect the Ribble ecosystem.  More on this in due course.

I'm off to Winchester on Friday to attend a fisheries management course at Sparsholt College over the weekend.  This will be a great chance to learn more about the practise and skills of river keeping and exchange ideas with fisheries managers from other waters.  So expect a round up when I get back and no blog this coming Sunday.

Finally a word of warning on rod licenses.  There have been a couple of letters in the Telegraph recently about the difficulty of obtaining rod licenses via the EA website.  One correspondent who bought his license on-line back in March is still waiting to receive it despite the season now having closed.  The EA's excuse?  They were inundated with requests at the start of the season.  Something that one might think that they could have predicted.  The moral is buy your license from your friendly local Post Office or better still use the one at Horton and help keep this vital village institution going.

Next update will be posted next Tuesday on my return from Sparsholt.

Ian