Hot on the heels of the tale of the two large Tarn rainbows comes news of a very large Tarn brownie.  Now, it's about 5 years since we put any brown trout into the Tarn so any that do turn up here have spent a good few winters in the Tarn since unless evolution has taken a large leap forward in Ribblesdale they can't have walked from the river.  Malcolm B dropped by last evening to tell me that he had just had a major tussle with a fish that he estimated weighed in at over 4lb.  It was certainly too large for the boat net and had a tail that a salmon would have been proud of.  This monster brownie went back in so it's still there nursing a somewhat injured pride and cursing its greed.

The swans have hatched 4 cygnets overnight.  One unfortunately has deceased, but the remaining three look fit and healthy and are already out on the Tarn watching the parents dive for food.  There are two unhatched eggs in the nest so have a result from half the clutch that was laid. 

I was up at Turn Dub first thing to do the monthly river fly check.  Results look good and sampling in a moderately high river was much easier than the near drought we had last month.  I even found some gammarus this time along with a host of bullhead fry.  Our wild brownies will not go hungry.

Ian