It's been a fairly dry, but cold week so by yesterday the river was quite low for this time of year.  All that changed late yesterday and we have had a lot of rain over night lifting the water considerably.  In fact it's rather wintry this morning with the fells standing out white against a clearing sky.  Most of the white stuff is hail rather than snow which has been drifted deeply by a bitterly cold east wind.

Despite the low water salmon are still moving up to Horton and our brown trout are making their way up to the spawning gravels in the upper river and side becks.  With the drop in temperature it will not be long now before they start to breed so let's hope for no sudden spates before the redds have time to compact down.

The goldeneye are back at the Tarn in fair numbers and when I was up there yesterday I saw a pair of dabchick scurrying for the shelter of the reed bed which was already occupied by the swans.  The water quality in the Tarn has been remarkably good this year with no evidence at all of algae and very little colour in the water.  It's crystal clear now and possible to see just how extensive the weed growth has become over the summer.  By my estimate there are about a hundred fish left in from the seasons stocking so it will be interesting to observe how many of these are caught next season as with a change of supplier next season and the guarantee of larger fish it should be possible to identify the 2008 stock.

That's always assuming that the cormorants don't feast on them over the winter.  The Tarn has been surprisingly devoid of cormorants this Autumn, but by past experience it's after Christmas that they seem to arrive in numbers.  Obviously some keepers have more success at obtaining licences to cull these pests as Warren Slaney posted a picture on his blog a couple of days ago showing one cormorant that has eaten its last trout.

Now that the season has ended I can get on with the work to transform the hut and plans for this are now well advanced.  We will begin by lining and insulating the place then move to installing the fittings.  If all goes well then the place should be finished well before the start of next season.

Ian