What a truly appalling day we had here in the valley yesterday.  It was raining hard first thing, but by mid morning we had a sleet blizzard driven along by a fierce south east wind.  A trip to settle to order the Christmas turkey seemed more like a form of extreme sport.  We were lucky, later in the day some poor devil had overturned his 4x4 at Studfold.

By evening the river was in full spate and looking angry with foaming stopper waves at Newhouses.  Fingers crossed for the salmon redds which are now building up and will still be pretty lose.  The trout will also be starting to spawn.  It's been a bit wet to spend much time looking in the side becks for evidence of spawning brownies, but this morning is a bit more calm and we have less rain so I may well venture up to drain mires this afternoon for a quick look.

I mentioned some weeks ago the book by W Carter Platts that the Hon Sec lent me.  This is an absorbing read, full of practical advice on how to nurture a wild trout fishery on spate rivers and preserve brown trout.  It should be essential reading for anyone managing a spate river and I can't fathom why it's not more widely known. The language is a bit archaic (it was written in the early 1920's), but it has an innocence and poetry missing from modern technical papers on the same subject.  What really stands out is the importance that Platts places on ensuring that sufficient food is present in the fishery waters to sustain the population of wild fish you are trying to preserve.  Here he maintains that watercress beds are vital to a healthy trout population and regular readers will recall my blog about a hatchery down south where strong, fit fish are being bred feeding on nothing more that the washings from an organic cress farm.  So, nothing new under the sun and I can think of a number of places here on our own fishery where we might try to establish a good crop of cress.  Even the spare tanks at the hatchery might prove suitable for this.  The aim is to breed shrimps (gammerid) and snails that wash into the main feeders and river.  Experimenting will be fun and we already have a record of gammerid populations against which to measure changes if any.  The MAA did this early last century and they had a number of ditches at the hatchery which were used for breeding shrimp and snails.  Again, nothing new.

Talking of the MAA in times past, my regular correspondent yesterday sent me a document about times past at Horton which includes an account of a dinner on at the Golden Lion.  I have only had a quick skim so plan to read this fully later this morning.

Thanks to those of you who offered to plant trees.  The weather has been too bad recently to even think about organising this, but I will be in touch with you once I have an agreed plan.  The saplings will keep in good condition for several weeks where they are.

Lastly, my apologies for any spelling errors in this blog.  I am using for the first time my Christmas present to write this.  We invested in a laptop and the keyboard is a little different to that on the Big Black Beast in the office.

More next week.

Ian