I am suspicious.  Perhaps it's my natural paranoia, but maybe others can see something that I can't.  Following our riverfly monitoring session on Saturday I got a phone call from the secretary (who was present on Saturday) suggesting that the club invest in a life jacket for me.  I can't recall staggering around the in river or emulating the Venerable Member and taking a dunking, but maybe I give the impression now of verging on the suicidal.  Seriously though the jacket is a good idea for the occasions when it's unavoidable to be in the river in high water.  This is a river whose nature can change quickly and in spate it's pretty lethal.  The volume of water this far up the catchment has to be seen to be believed and we are coming up to the spate season.

I took a troll round the fishery yesterday.  The Tarn early on was a picture under a bright blue sky with a fair bit of turbulence stirred up by a stiff north west wind.  This picked up quite quickly after I wrote up the diary yesterday.  Down at the Tay bridge there was some evidence of the campers who were on the field over the weekend.  A small weir has appeared just down from the marker pool (Parson's pool) which will be gone on the next flood.  A member emailed me to say that he had a run in with this group on Saturday when he found them worm fishing in Parker's wood.  Heated words were exchanged especially about the dead trout they had with them.  I will talk to the farmer here about reminding his visitors that fishing is off limits.

The hatchery is coming on a treat.  It has naturalised far quicker than I had imagined possible.  Not only is there luxuriant growth within the perimeter fence but the bare concrete of the ponds and channel is gaining a good covering of algae and weed.  The channel was flowing very strongly yesterday despite the recent dry weather and the water in the ponds looks clear and healthy.  Before I set off for London today I may well take the net down to the hatchery and see how the invertebrate population in the channel is getting on.

It's another cracking morning with a cloudless blue sky, no wind and a distinct autumn nip in the air.  Far too nice to be cooped up indoors staring at a computer screen.  So work will be polished off quickly this morning!

Ian