Well, it's one members lucky day today.  On Monday evening I took a call from a rather distraught Edward who lamented the loss of a favourite landing net, one which had travelled all the way from New Zealand only to be lost on Friday on the banks of the Ribble.  Edward was after salmon just below Rowe End and put the net on a rock whilst he fished the first pool down stream of the bend.  On turning to collect the net he discovered that it had gone, presumably washed away by the current which is quite strong just here.  I promised that I would keep an eye out just in case the net had caught up in the river downstream from where it was lost.  I have just returned from a stroll down to the sewage works and lo and behold I have the net!  It was bobbing in the current just below the place it was lost.  So Edward, if you read this do give me a ring and I will arrange to reunite you with your net.

The meeting with Natural England went slightly less well than I had hoped in terms of achieving everything that we wanted.  It was clear from the outset that we will have to demonstrate that we have taken every available step to deterring our cormorant problem before NE will contemplate a more permanent deterrent.  But we have made a useful contact who seems genuinely interested in the way in which we manage the Tarn and its wildlife and who will work with us to ensure that our fishing interests and the needs of the many creatures that home by or in the Tarn can coexist happily.  I now have a much clearer idea about how to devise and implement a strategy that will minimise the adverse impact of the cormorants that over winter here and will make arrangements to put these in place before the end of the fishing season.  The plan is to leave these in place until the end of March next year when the birds usually leave to raise a brood.  We will monitor the effectiveness of the measures we take, see how things go and talk again to NE in the spring.. 

It's a dry day so far, quite warm with almost no breeze.  The river level is about 2 inches above the norm and is flowing quite strongly.  Almost perfect for trout and not impossible for salmon.  I did see a couple of fish taking fly on the bend at Rowe End, but could not get close enough to the hatch to see what was being taken.

Ian