It's a wet start to the week and after a dry couple of weeks it looks as though the last couple of days of the 2008 trout season will be wet.  The forecast is for quite autumnal conditions around the middle of this week so those members venturing up to Horton for the Hot Pot supper on Friday and who are planning to stay over and fish for salmon on Saturday may well find some decent water. 

It looks as if the dining room at the Crown will be full on Friday as we have nearly 40 members, guests and landowners confirmed as attending and a few more always turn up unannounced. It should be a convivial evening despite recent sadnesses in the club.  Sandra always does us proud with a meat pie to fill even the most ardent trencherman. I anticipate that belts will need to be loosened a notch on Saturday morning and a bracing walk along the river will be the order for many. 

The Craven Herald last week carried quite a long article reporting an interview with David Hinks, Chairman of the RFCA and a MAA member.  David was explaining why Ribble anglers are seeking assurances from The Settle water turbine company that their proposed power generation plant at Settle weir will have no adverse impact on migratory fish.  Far too many have jumped on this particular allegedly green band wagon and the company concerned seems to regard the proposal a done deal even though the planning application has only just gone in for consideration. There are many issues concerning the ecological impact of the scheme that need to be resolved.  It would be remarkably foolish to permit this development on the grounds of its benefit to lowering carbon emissions only to see it negate all the hard work that many have done over the past few years to turn the Ribble into one of the finest salmon rivers in England.

The Herald perversely accompanied the article with a photo of the weir in full spate as much to infer that there is always plenty of water so what's the problem?.  A full spate is a condition that prevails only infrequently.  Normally the weir flow is low enough to expose the rocks in the pool below and this is far more typical showing why any abstraction here must be offset by an improved fish pass that permits migrating fish to pass the weir in low water acerbated by turbine abstraction.

We will watch these developments with concern and interest.

Ian