One year on (nearly) and where am I?

Well, this whole blog malarkey turned out to be a challenge to maintain. One post in a year is especially lame. I'd call that less maintenance and more dereliction.

I've got some new ideas for posts that I'll write up when I can. The big trip to Montana in 2011 is still on the cards...maybe. My priorities are all messed up at the moment.

I am going on a 'Montana-lite' trip in July (4 rivers 9 days). I'll commit myself now to blogging something about it. That trip is conveniently organised around my sister's wedding. I was able to play the old: "well, since I'm gonna be flying over, might as well get some fishing in while I'm out there" card. I also considered the more direct (and truthful): "I'm coming out for a fishing trip, but I'll try to take some time out and stop by the wedding" approach, but I didn't think it would score me any brownie points with the fam who already feel abandoned for my love of the salmo sisters.

Anyway, on to the good stuff. From about September last year, I started keeping a fishing log in MS Excel. I used to keep a written fishing journal in a lovely, leather-bound book with gold gilt edges that ranks as one of the most thoughtful Christmas gifts I have ever received. However, I found it pretty hard to keep up with, and even tougher to read what I'd written, and so it eventually went the way of all my previous attempts at keeping a journal (about anything).

The new Excel formulation doesn't have quite the old world charm or personalisation of the written journal, but I do update it more regularly and accurately, which is sort of the point I guess. Plus, it appeals to my geeky nature. I can now correlate my number of fish/ hours spent fishing ratio with things like fly pattern, hatches, and weather and stream conditions. Maybe I'll come up with the cosmic anti-skunk equation.

According to the log, I've fished 60 days since 1 September (not bad considering there's a lot of 'off-season' in there) and during that time, I've averaged 1.7 fish per hour. The outliers are days when I blanked (of which there were 14), and 10 days where I averaged over 3 fish per hour. (Of course there is an element of error here, since I don't count fish fastidiously and just tend to estimate if the number was greater than about 5). Most of that time was spent on the Rhymney, Taff, and Ewenny, but 10 days were in America (Colorado and Utah to be specific). A high proportion of my best fish/ time ratio days come from there.

I'm also pleased that I can now claim, with some authority, that I am not a fair weather fisherman. I spent 24 days fishing in mostly cloudy, rainy, or even snowy conditions. On the flip side, I did spend 25 days fishing in conditions labled as 'sunny' or 'mostly sunny,' which goes to show that you can find sunny fishing weather even in deepest darkest Wales, provided that you are sufficiently opportunist and of good enough character to tell a few white lies around the office/ at home.

I won't bore you with any more stats or numbers, but there are some highlights worth mentioning from the 'comments' column:

In September I had my first brook trout on the Snake river, in Colorado. Tiny fish nailed a size 6 olive woolly bugger. I was more pleased with that little trout than the 19 inch rainbow I'd just released a few moments before.

In January, I fell face-first, Superman-style, into the Taff in front of a guy who'd also been present the last time I went in. He laughed as hard as the first time he watched me come up spouting like a dolphin. I did manage to see the humour in it - once I'd dried off a bit and checked the rod wasn't broken.

In mid-February, I caught a good rough olive hatch on the Ewenny that was framed by a pinkish winter sky, snowy fields and lazily drifting flurries. It was truly magical, and it came at a time when I really needed a pick me up as there was some bad shit going on work-wise. I survived the 'restructure,' but I came away even more convinced of the value of fishing as a confessional for a multitude of sins.

Finally, on a less philosophical level, I managed to catch over 20 browns and rainbows last month on a single size 20 biot body olive thorax that I tied up specially for a trip to the Green River (Utah). The Green's trout did not disappoint, nor did the olive hatch. However, on the second day, (due to slight whiskey induced inebriation) I managed to spill my entire box of olives except for that single little fly. The hatch lasted about 4 hours and that little fly held up through some pretty toothy browns. I have since retired it, until I decide whether to frame it, or just fish it again next year.