After almost persistent wet weather since the close of the season it's been a gloriously sunny day here in the valley.  We had the first sharp frost of the autumn this morning and this abrupt change to cold weather will trigger thoughts of spawning in or wild brown trout.

A glance at the metcheck forecast for tomorrow reveals a chance of snow flurries so here comes winter.

I mentioned a while ago that one of our esteemed members had just published a book on north country fly patterns.  In my mailbox this morning arrived the first review of said tome.  Gavin tells us that;

I have just finished reading Mike Harding’s new book “A Guide to Tying North Country Flies”. It is a fully informative little book with many old and localised fly patterns along with many of the old faithful patterns and variants that we all use on our rivers. Mike should be congratulated on producing this book in the spiral format and with its entertaining ease of reading hopefully will encourage more anglers who do not tie their own patterns to have a go.

So here is something else for the Christmas list and a chair by a warm fire with a glass (or two) of malt.

I'm off tomorrow to look at the hatchery with crayfish Paul who has an "idea".  More on this in due course.

Ian