The Tarn looked magical in the heavy hoare frost, mist and sunlight this morning.  The moorhen were diving and sending ripples through the mist rising off the water which even at 7c was warmer than the ambient temperature.  The swan family did there best to ignore me by staying down near the duck wall and a trout rose a couple of feet from where I was doing a water check.  I don't know who was the more surprised.  me seeing an iridescent nose right by mine or the trout seeing a rather squat red one.

The bankside check at Turn Dub went well with all the usual suspects present.  There are a lot of gammerid present here as well as more cased caddis on this upper part of the river.  Yet again the samples are dominated by heptagenia (over 35) and baetis (over 25).  There are a few stoneflies up here as well which is encouraging since the old records suggest that there should be more of these creatures present on the fishery than we have found so far.  Since the bed on this beat is very stony and difficult to sample I think the results are pretty encouraging.  If you consider that the findings represent what came out of an area the size of my boot times six the river as a whole must be teeming with invertebrates.

The find of the morning was a rather sheepish looking bullhead with butter yellow fins.  This came out of the sample taken at the river margin which also produced the only true mayfly nymph (ephemera).

There is a long book review in yesterday's paper which will be of interest to anyone who has a passion for country pursuits, especially fly fishing.  Sir Richard Heygate and his cousin Mike Daunt have unearthed rural tales and traditions as well as recounting their own experience of fishing, wildlife and shooting.  Mike was for a long time the fishing partner of the great Hugh Falkus and has taught many fishermen to cast on the southern chalk streams, especially the Itchen where he and Richard have a beat.  Another one for the Christmas list.

Ian