Smolts Galore!

The seemingly interminable non-Spring of 2013 rolls gently on, at last a few glimpses of the sun,but everything natural, in terms of flowers, trees, insects etc., appears to be 3 or 4 weeks behind. One thing, however, to brighten the horizon, is the excellent numbers of smolts in our water. All the rivers, from the larger Tamar to the humble little tributaries like the Wolf and Thrushel, are stuffed full of both salmon and sea-trout smolts. These brave, beautiful little bars of silver are currently dropping down every night towards the sea, helped by smatterings of rain and decent flows in the rivers.
I cannot recall seeing so many, the pool above the gauging weir at Polson on the Tamar was alive with them, dimpling the surface across the whole pool. Their presence has not gone unnoticed by the cormorants, fortunately just before our licence expired, so did one of a pair seen on the Tamar.
This superb smolt run augers well for the future, many of the sea-trout smolts were as much as 8 inches long, and these will be back in the river again by July, having at least trebled their weight. The run of school peal should be good this year, as for the salmon it will be one or two full years before they return.
Trout fishers have been reporting these smolts from all the beats, along with a few nice brownies, best around 10 inches, and an odd grayling.  Fly hatches are just now starting to build, I saw more Grannom on the Lyd this morning than I have done so far for the year. Large dark olives and large brook duns are about, we are expecting the swarms of black gnats soon, and of course May is very much the fly fisher's month. David Pilkington  

One swallow doth not a summer make!

It certainly was April Fool's Day. Tim and I were working on the Tamar yesterday morning,  getting the riverbank back into fishable order after the winter floods, and there was a swallow. I looked again, expecting someone in a Jester's outfit to be playing it on a bit of nylon, but no, it really was a swallow.
The sun was out but the bitter east wind cut like a knife. Just briefly, while digging silt out of a flight of steps, in a very sheltered spot, I shed my coat, and contemplated shedding my jumper. Standing back in the wind on top of the bank admiring my work, I was glad I didn't.
Down beside the water, in the sun and out of the wind, new growth of nettles and celandines was thrusting hopefully upwards. A pair of grey wagtail flitted about, hoping for a hatch of fly, rather like the anglers. On Easter Saturday we saw a peregrine carrying some unfortunate songbird, being given serious grief by a pair of ravens.
There does seem to be some faint hope of this present arctic blast moving elsewhere by next week. The trout and the anglers will all be very grateful. David Pilkington.