Well, that's it.  The end of the 2009 brown trout season and a rather odd one it turned out to be with high water making fishing difficult through most of the summer then low water proving equally problematic for the last three weeks.  Despite that fish were caught and a quick check of the returns on the club web site shows that 119 brown trout were caught and 24 visits to the river recorded giving a ratio of catch to visit of just shy of 5 fish which I guess is not too bad.  Of course there will be many more visits by members that are not recorded on the site and these will be both blank days and fish full so the real tally for this year is going to be rather different.  The returns do show where fish were caught and in most cases list the fly that did the killing.  Rather more info than has been available hitherto.

We did get quite a lot done this season including the refurbishment of the hut, a lot of native crayfish related work and a bit of electrofishing survey work.

Council's decision to switch supplier for the Tarn fish proved a good one with fish arriving exactly when and as ordered.  These fish earned nothing but praise being fully finned, fighting fit rainbows and blue trout which gave some excellent sport and will hopefully continue to do so until the end of October.

All we need now is a few days rain to lift the river high enough to enable the waiting salmon to make it up to Horton.  My gripe yesterday about the closure of the fish pass at Settle prompted a full and very helpful response from the Chairman of the RFCA and rather than repeat it here I have posted it in the news section of the club website.  The gist is that the pass is indeed closed at present and has been for the past two weeks, but the EA are monitoring the site closely and the contractors are committed to opening the pass when flow is at a level that would enable salmon to use it.

So now we look forward to the farmers supper tomorrow which promises to be the best attended for some considerable time with around 45 members, farmers and guests booked in to the Crown for supper.  The dining room will be cosy!

Ian