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Hiroshima Diary (Avon T-259, 1955)

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A late Great Crested Grebe brood, on Meadow Lake. This year has seen grebe nesting and rearing young out in the middle of the meadow shown above. Regular readers will know of my fascination with the vast numbers of mollusc shells that make up a large percentage of the silt banks on the inside of river bends. The recent floods have piled further huge volumes of shells on the banks, along with a frustrating volume of rubbish. This is the downside of the welcome floods that clean out the detritus and silt from our rivers. I've just received a call from Paul Greenacre to let me know he has also opened his account today, in the form of another twenty pounder. Hopefully Paul will send me a pic and a little more detail later.

A weather update for readers wondering about the conditions in the valley. I am writing this between the two edges of the low pressure, mid morning, so we will shortly have the following front adding to the situation. We have got away with only minor tree damage. Odd large tree but the majority are minor branches. We do however have a rapidly rising river. Its currently reading at 21.75m on the height gauge at Ibsley Bridge. At that height it has ust begun to flow over the Harbridge road and the bund between the bridge and the hatches. At that height the meadows are flooded and the Avon Valley Path is unusable. You have to also bear in mind that there is more yet to reach us from higher in the valley and a rise of a further foot in the levels is possible, certainly if we see further heavy rain. Alternatively the government cough up millions in the “Making Space for Water” scheme and we let the valley revert to a swamp. On what is recognised as a heavily modified river system and one of the most biologically diverse rivers and river valleys in the land that would quite simply be negligent.Grey heron at the nest, taken whilst undertaking the heronry census count. Numbers of Grey heron in the valley have crashed over the last twelve months. Its difficult to attribute the cause, possibly avian flu, or more likely the closing of the nearby fishfarm that provided a significant proportion of their diet. We have seen many corpses in the valley, starvation or disease we will never know. The second shot, taken as they were sat out preening alongside the South Marsh, shows ten Little Egret, plus two Cattle Egret. The roost still contains over twenty Little or Cattle Egret, plus several Great White Egret. trying to seperate the Little from the Cattle Egret is almost impossible as they come into roost as they arrive so late, just as the light is fading.

I'm going to stop at this point for fear of depressing readers, who may have made it this far, beyond the point of recovery. Suffice to say there's plenty more in a similar vein with a similarly depressing outlook. The bream were spawning today and the carp were doing their best to eat the eggs adhering to the roots of the willow. A couple of shots of our stunning chub, with a tale to tell. The first is a very wet Steve Kenchington, the second a dry David Redfearn. I do have a shot of David looking considerably wetter, having been unceremoniously dumped in the river when the bank gave away beneath his feet. Fortunately for David, fishing mate Kenny was on hand to assist in regaining terra firma. The recent rain and extremely high river have given rise to some stretches of extremely unstable bank and the utmost caution must be taken when getting near the edge. Below a couple of photos recently taken by Dave Charles, as he sat waiting for events to develop.The saving grace, in my personal case, is that during my fifty plus years of association with this river I must have ingested or absorbed gallons of Avon Water. I can only hope my gut has developed the self preservation measures that are comparable to a reversed osmosis system with an in-line nano-filter! A day away yesterday saw me bobbing about out in Poole Bay. After the last seven of our consecutive boat trips have been cancelled, due to adverse weather, it was good to get out to chase the whiting about. Please take note, the East Mills flume is currently showing 1.18, which is the cut-off height for spinning. As such, as of now spinning is not allowed at Somerley. They're still at it. Another otter has fallen victim to the traffic. I'm not sure whether thats the fifth or sixth in the last few months, on that deadly couple of miles of the A338.

The river coarse season is underway, the Meadow complex is open and the salmon season remains closed. I'll try and put some meat on those bare bones over the weekend, as I discover what has been landed. I imagine the start on both lakes and river has been slow today, with the blazing sun sending everything and everybody in search of shade. As it was the first day of spinning, with us, I thought I better clip out the Bridge Pool and the weirpool. I always leave them until this time as they are not recognised fly water and it also discourages the idiots that think its a public footpath. Thank you Hants CC. From the bridge it still looks as if the weirpool isn't accessible, which is deliberate for the reason above. The areas of the weirpool that are worth spinning have been clipped out. I didn't wade the small outlet stream and clear the other side as I didn't have waders on. Anyone wishing to fish the tail of the weirpool would do better to wade that small section anyway. Don't ignore the last few feet of the retrieve alongside the Water Dropwort that is shading the first four or five feet of the water. In bright conditions fish love to lay up under this margin covering, only showing on the final seconds of the retrieve.

Cattle crossing below the island

Four photos that capture the magic of the Hampshire Avon. The first is the view upstream into the Breakthrough Pool, taken from the point where the scrubby willow has been scoured out during the recent flood. A pool that has a list of specimen fish to die for; thirty pound pike, eighteen pound barbel, eight pound chub, double figure bream and even the odd roach and perch. The second shot is the tail of the "Breakthrough" oddly enough known as "Below the Breakthrough" This is a classic salmon lie where big twenty pound fish are regularly taken. Immediately down stream, the third shot is the run into "Ashley Pool" under the powerline, a lie that has great history of large salmon. Before in the fourth shot the pool itself, home of chub to a massive nine pounds, plus huge pike. It is the diversity of the Avon that is its magic, being able to provide anglers from different disciplines the chance of the fish of a lifetime. It came as quite a surprise to me the number of different fungi the group found in just a couple of hours. The link below will open a list that Mark has kindly produced showing the number and variety. He also tells me there were one or two more they have been unable to ID successfully. Its amazing that the weird and wonderful world of fungi can be found right under our nose. A flavour of the variation can be seen in the photos below that Mark also very kindly sent through, for which I thank him once more. There are however two characteristics of Chris that I will always remember him for, firstly his enthusiasm. Not only for his fishing but for everything he came across in life. He was delighted to see other anglers doing well, always willing to provide a helping hand or spot of advice. Advice that so often proved successful in helping others achieve their goals. His almost photographic memory allowed him to recall incidents and fish from decades earlier. To add to his photographic memory he also had the photographs. I've probably seen more fish caught by Chris than any other angler I've met. He just loved to share his successes and allow us to feel the excitement of each and every capture. I could put up a shot of another flooded field but I'm sure you'll see plenty of them over the next few days. This is the water height gauge at Ibsley Bridge showing 21.75, a small rise on yesterday and its still rising. It still has a long way to go if we are to see levels of previous years when the Harbridge road, which is currently dry, was impassible for six weeks. To reach those record levels we need a further 300ml rise. I hope we don't see a repeat of these super high levels this year as it will certainly make the start of the salmon season difficult and for a poor end to the river coarse. Paul has kindly sent through a video clip showing the release of his fish. Many thanks Paul and congratulations on a super fish.

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