Well, having got the first round in it’s time to sit down and listen to “wicked Uncle Patrick” aka Patrick Lloyd of The Wild Trout Trust. Patrick has been instrumental in raising the profile of the Monnow over the past few years and is one of its most ardent admirers. Hope you enjoy…

Opening Day

March 3rd 2006

It was snowing.

I saw three large dark olives: two on the water, sitting unmolested in a quiet back-eddy, the other one in the air, fluttering away from the stream, also with every prospect of remaining unmolested. Whether or not the vision was shared by the river residents is unsure. If it was, they certainly didn’t advertise their awareness.

In fact their residential status was not merely questionable but the subject of the sort of faith exhibited only by monks, madmen and fishermen just awakening from 5 months of enforced abstinence. Until the first trout of the season comes to hand we have to make do with “I know they’re here – they always are” and for this day it’s enough; our memories sufficient to reassure us that our imagination is not always misplaced and that sometimes our judgment is true. Although there are some doubts as to whether we have retained the ability to catch fish, we kid ourselves that if we’re not catching them then, for now at least, they’re not here. Have we forgotten so quickly the fussy end-of-season fish that refused everything that we threw at them in preference for microscopic and unimitatable no-see-ums? At least then we could see them – the fish I mean – by definition their chosen fare is several years beyond ageing anglers’ eyes. Today I just had to believe: “I think therefore they are”. It won’t do for the whole season but today it was more than enough: The pleasure of being by running water with a rod and intent; of casting, if not quite as well as you’d like, then at least as well as you normally do and better than you expected to; of fishing perfectly (without the cruel and unforgiving judgment of unnecessary fish!). To think – I hadn’t put a fish down all day; not knowingly spooked a single one; I had exactly matched the hatch all day; my fly was presented irresistibly on every cast; I was never too quick on the strike, I lost no flies and never missed a single fish. By mid afternoon it had grown really cold and I convinced myself that the fish had gone down. They had gone back to their fast and their faith that maybe tomorrow things would change and that something that looked a bit like food would present itself once more in their window. Ah well – another blank.