Sex on the beach..

I like a brew when I am out fishing. The thermos flask is the favoured method of carrying a hot drink to the river for many an angler, I prefer the Kelly Kettle. There is something inherently satisfying about making a fire that boils the water that brews the drink. It's also good karma to drink the water that the fish you are after live in..or am I just weird?

Obviously safety is important around fires. The preferred place for lighting up the KK is on a nice stoney gravel bank, well away from woody debris. If this is not an option then I use the heel of my boot to clear a nice soil bed for the KK base to sit on. This can always be covered up after you have finished. Always, and always pour water onto the fuel after you have finished, make sure it gets a good soaking as well. That's the safety bit done with.

So what's the best drink from a KK? A fine cup of tea is good but only from the very purest of waters. Rivers that have a slightly earthy taste, or are perhaps a little coloured are best used for making Coffee. Strong instant coffee covers the taste of the worst water and so this tends to be my drink of choice these days, not that I fish the worst waters but that our rivers are often carrying extra water! The river Ecclesbourne has some lovely pure water and makes a fine brew. It was our destination for the latest outing as well.

The WTT has been undertaking some fine restoration work and parts of the river were unrecognisable compared to last year. A lot of effort has been put in to creating some great Trout habitat. The WTT does a fantastic job and if you ever fish rivers for Trout I would encourage you to join and support them. The laws will change in a few years time and the stocking of triploids will become law, with diploids no longer available from fish farms. Any association or syndicate that is serious about its river Trout fishing should be seeking advice from groups like the WTT on how they can best prepare for these changes. Moreover, it's really nice to catch wild, river born Trout.

http://www.wildtrout.org/

This section of the Ecclesbourne is made for a couple of anglers sharing a day. There is a weir smack bang in the middle and it takes about two hours to fish each section, above or below it. So we started there and adopted our usual 'short stick' system for selecting which of us had the longer walk.

I fished the lower section and caught from the off. There were a few Grannom on the water and one or two Olives. However, the no-colour Klink had been tied on at the car and that’s the fly I fished, all day. One fly, seven fish - magic! It has now been retired to the hall of fame on the peak of my fishing cap, the first to do so this year.

By the time I reached the middle of the beat again there were 5 fish recorded, the best 14" and the smallest 10". We found a suitable gravel beach and the KK went on for the second time today. It was at this point that KG pointed out a pair of "Eels" in the shallows.

You never stop learning when fishing and you never stop experiencing nature. I had seen Lamprey attached to branches dragged from the river but never actually seen them swimming. I guess that’s because for eleven months and 3 weeks they live in dark water, under woody cover. However, for the first time in 30-odd years fishing rivers I was watching Brook Lamprey spawning. Fantastic!!!

We swapped over and I headed up towards the road bridge, which is where a lot of the work has been done. Upstream weirs, woody debris and a lot of sweat and toil have changed the nature of this section of river. In a couple of years this will pay off and then clubs investments will hold it in good shape. It's a shame more clubs and associations can't see this!

I hope the EA latches on to this as well. It would be good to see a system similar to the US's Gold Medal system introduced to rivers here. Personally I think whole rivers should be given the catch and release status, especially those where managing bodies have invested a lot of effort and money to restore habitat. We need more rivers like the Derbyshire Wye.

The last fish was another 14" over wintered beauty and although I was an hour early finishing by the time I had trekked up that hill to the car and sorted my fly patch out I was ready for a pint, which went down really well....as did the second!