WEDNESDAY 31ST MAY

Today, Is the last day of May. The river is flowing sweetly, good flow and an ever so slight tinge of colour. Perfecto! The company promises to be great too, Rob who has just turned up with the pies for lunch, and a young man named Steffan Jones, aka the Teifi Terrorist, whose arrival we await with interest! I consider myself fortunate indeed to have riverside companions who are so accomplished - just a great learning experience for me.

To try and put the morning into context, on the litmus test of phishing, Rob is at one end of the scale, stealthily searching and picking off the surface feeders, casting with laser beam accuracy and feather light delicacy and at the other, Steffan is nymphing like I’ve never seen it done before - this guy is a joy to fish with, big grins and peals of laughter accompany every fish - missed, hooked, lost or bought to hand and to be honest most are bought to hand. Then there’s me on neutral, around about PH zero Not quite sure which way to go - up or down - and not really in amongst the fish yet.

Lunch is indeed a social affair as Rob suggests and we discover that we have much in common - including a deep rooted and healthy appreciation of the Eastern European female immigrant fruit picking workforce in Herefordshire, what a great job they do with the strawberries and cream.

After lunch I’m feeling more decisive and it’s time to get serious with the Mayfly hatch which is by now pretty much in full swing. Rob has “popped to have a look” upstream leaving Steffan and myself to play in a 70yd stretch of bubbling glide. Sighting for each other we clear the run of rising fish, averaging around the 10-12″ mark but Steffan manages to winkle out a lovely brownie around 15″ from below an overhanging hazel, the litmus test of Phishing shows he is equally adept at either end of the scale.

Rob then emerges bank side with a faraway look in his eye that betrays the kind of afternoon he has described already in this thread. It is now home time for Rob and he gestures ruefully at the swarms of Mayfly dancing in the trees with the promise of a superb evening to follow.

Steffan and I then wander upstream of the bridge onto the Home Beat and sure enough fish are rising everywhere, the next two hours are just superb fishing almost shoulder to shoulder along the first two hundred yes. The water is almost canal slow, lined with mature overhanging trees and carved into a deep and steeply sided groove - but once in - you’re in, in every sense of the word. A couple of weeks ago Sewinman and I fished this stretch and we had to tread with utmost care to avoid spooking fish twenty yds away but today, well the annual Masai Mara Wildebeest migration could have driven through the river and the trout would still be rising. Steffan and I have a great couple of hours - the trout are confident, free rising, aggressive and feisty - neither of us is counting - good job too. Sport is curtailed abruptly by a call from my dearly beloved who accuses me of taking the piss - “it’s 7:00pm, don’t you think you should come home now?” It isn’t really a question is it? Steffan and I look up at the trees, the spinners haven’t started to drop yet, the best is still to come, but there’s always tomorrow night……