After an absence of two days there is much to tell you so rather than make this morning's blog over long and tedious for you I will just cover the main themes and return to add detail as we go through the week.

Firstly, we had a terrific flood last evening.  It began raining at about 8.30 yesterday morning and this got progressively heavier as we went through the day so that by late afternoon it was absolutely foul.  As we drove up from Settle at 5.30 we could see that all the riverside meadows were under water and the river below Horton had spread well beyond its banks.  The lane up to Newhouses was passable in my 4x4 only by dropping to low gear and just running slowly against the oncoming flood.  Even then it washed over the bonnet and reduced Mrs F who was driving to a state of nervous exhaustion.  It carried on raining all evening accompanied by a power cut from 7.30 to 9.45 just to make life a little more interesting. 

Anyway, it's a marked contrast this morning with blue sky, sunshine, little wind and a rapidly falling river.  But I would recon that this flood was worse than the one we had on 19 January the day before I broke my leg.

Thursday and Friday saw me out at the crack of dawn with Jack S the fisheries scientist from the RCCT.  We were back pack electrofishing the side becks above Horton village and got some surprising results.  I will cover this in more depth tomorrow, but we what we were looking for was trout and salmon fry and we did find some.  What we also found was a strong population of native crayfish above the waterfalls in Ling Ghyll just above the old packhorse bridge.  What we also found up here added to the excitement as on one pass we turned up a very surprised brown trout.  Now given that there is little chance that a trout could climb the high falls on the Ghyll this population must either be a relic or have been introduced at some time in the far distant past.  Whichever, it surely suggests that we have not only wild fish in the catchment, but a native population as well whose genes may be vital in future for the welfare of our Ribble fish.

The Hot Pot supper was a tremendous success with some of us eventually crawling off to bed at about 1.30 on Saturday morning.  Over 40 members, guests and farmers sat down to the best meat pie yet and all were a lot heavier on returning to the bar afterwards.  The conversations flowed back and forth and new acquaintances were made and old ones restored.

Despite the late night the Council meeting on Saturday morning was a brisk, productive and lively affair to which the Bury Blond Bombshell added vocal accompaniment until banished to the car.  Much was discussed and I have been instructed to work up in detail my plans for the complete refurbishment of the interior of the club hut and bring these back to the next meeting in November.  The plan is to carry out the work during the closed season so that members returning to fish next April will be able to enjoy a facility that the club can be proud of.

That's more than enough to keep you going.  More tomorrow together with a few pictures.

Ian