So after all that cold stuff, over the last few weeks we have had proper heavy rain. The Lake District is traditionally famous for doing rain very well, but after a particularly wet weekend, Monday stirred wild winds into the mix and it was an epic journey just getting the Beagle to Windermere,on a wild day when we were booked to go fishing but the weather called the tune and invited the orchestra as well.. There is an inevitability about weather and sometimes as a guide you have to make tough decisions, but there is a balance in life. Kevin and Richard came over for two days and the weather stole one of them. But the next morning it all settled down and the sun came out. With the lake four feet up and with the remains of the storm drifting aimlessly on a flat calm surface,we motored out through the flotsam. Anchoring quietly in fourty something feet of water there was hardly a ripple, and a with baits out into the deeps, we we shared of those curious angling moments where you all feel somewhere deep down, the Zen of fishing….. and you know for certain there is a chance any minute……… And then the float moves. The next hour or so was just the stuff of dreams I’ll leave out the two on at once , the slow take or the a big upper double to the boat, then off. and all the other events. We didn’t even have time to get the kettle on! Great fishing, and something to talk about on the way home. Five or six chances on a wild day makes for a grand adventure and a story to tell. Which is what happened next morning when it rained hard and steady all day, and on a misty atmospheric lake, Gareth Stockdale had a great time with baits on the downdrift side of a fifty foot hump. No really big ones but again lots of activity and some great looking fish like this one on a snurged smelt. Off to Derwentwater this next weekend to run in an outboard motor for an hour or two. I might even take a rod with me…Unless of course…it rains!

Tarra

Kevin Appleyard and how to show hold a pike!

Gareth Stockdale, …and it rained all day!

One on a snurged bait