Despite the river being at least 6 inches below what I would consider decent water it seems to be fishing well. David R brought a guest up this morning who had not fished here before.  According to David the guest is a river expert and was looking forward to testing his skill against our shy wild brownies.

When David dropped off he ticket this afternoon I asked him how the day had been.  It seems that his guest was well pleased by his visit to Horton and had landed 7 fish around New Inn. One of these was a pound and a half which seemed to delight him.  Another was estimated to be around a pound with the remaining 5 all in the 6" category.  Many more of these young fish were seen, but not caught.  So evidence continues to build that our wild brownies are recruiting well with plenty of small fish well dispersed throughout the fishery.  This bodes well for the future of angling on the upper Ribble for these small fish are now well past the most vulnerable stage of their development and most should mature into cracking trout that will make fishing here a real delight.

It's been a fine and warm afternoon with more good weather forecast for tomorrow.  The midges are out in force this evening making it virtually impossible to remain outdoors for any length of time.  It's at times like this that I regret giving up smoking a pipe 30 years ago for the only real way to combat the wee beasties is to get a good fug up going just under your nose.  Midges home in on carbon dioxide in exhaled breath so you either have the option of asphyxiation through holding your breath or contracting mouth cancer by pipe smoking if you wish to avoid being eaten alive up here.

Still, our Yorkshire midges are nothing compared to their Scottish cousins and my sympathies are with our club members who arrived on South Uist today.  if the weather is as warm and still in the Hebrides as it is at Horton they will be driven mad by the end of the week.

Ian