Spring is nearly here!

[pollygog]

Grim rider of the Pale Horse
His balefull eyes fixate
On a hundred thousand soldiers souls
Sent courtesy of the State
PL

Autumn is upon us now as the nights creep in ever longer and its now going dark at 7.30pm but the weather continues fine and I have just filled up my water-butts again today with a hose for the third time this month
Soddes law still works fine this neck of the woods for the day I arrange to go fly fishing, i.e tomorrow its forecast rain!
Ah well; you win some
Still dragonflies zooming about the ponds today and the Buddlia bushes are still attracting lots of butterflies and hover flies.
Waterlillies looking 'end of season' in my main pond with yellowing leaves dying back so had a big pull out and clearance this morning topping up my compost bins in the process.It won't be long before they are all pulled out at this rate then that will be the end of season!
Some good news is there are far less wasps about this last week as the ever chillier nights and the birds take their toll; they still continue to bite holes in my pears though, particularly the Comice.

[pollygog]

AUTUMN

Yellowed spent raiment that branches can't keep
Rainsoaked, trembling; the Autumn leaves weep
Wild blustering West winds of October blow
Then searing cold East wind; herald of snow

PL

Despite the damp forecast, I spent most of yesterday fly fishing in dry conditions, it only came on to rain and then just a light shower as Nigel and I were leaving at 5.00pm. The heavens opened to some really serious thistledown when I got home though.
Wal Goch where we were fishing is a really pretty lake with a wooded island situated in a region designated as Area Of Outstanding Natural Beauty, its always a pleasure fishing there whether we catch or not ( but we all did; including a blue trout)
There is always plenty of wildlife about the lake and Greylag geese nest there every year, as also do the noisy messy Canada geese.
I was first angler there in the morning and I spotted a pair of Teal lift up out of trees on island as I arrived, Teal can do an incredibly fast vertical takeoff, like a jump jet straight up through trees, then gone like the clappers across lake, there was a small family group of eight Tufted Ducks on the lake but they shifted to the smaller unfished lake soon after I arrived.
One waterfowl that is there permanently and in abundance are Coots! they are constantly squabbling and noisily chasing each other about the lake snapping their beaks loudly
There were still plenty of dragonflies hawking about the lake but strangely I didn't see any damselflies about.
I spotted at least three types of dragonfly including one of those large Emperor dragonflies that came to rest on bullrushes close to me, green, gold, brown and yellow and about a three inch body, beautiful creature in the morning sunlight, yes sunny!
It stayed bright til lunch time; about 1.00pm then gradually clouded over.
This was good for dry fly fishing for the trout started to rise as the sun disappeared so I switched from buzzers on intermediate to dry fly (Klinkhammer) on floater.
Really nice relaxed days fly fishing in the good company of my friends in really nice surroundings on a pleasant day, what more could you want of life!

[pollygog]

Never argue with an idiot
he will wear you down to his level
then beat you with experience!

Well I did it again today as I did last Tuesday and beat the rain.
Had a last fishing trip to the river Ceiriog at Chirk this morning as tomorrow is the end of season for river fishing, the Ceiriog is a tributary of and runs into the river Dee at Chirk.
Seven beautifuly conditioned fighting fit trout in 3 hrs; best fish about a pound and a quarter, the smallest brownie about three ounces!
No Grayling or Perch showed up though, it's the first time I've fished there and not caught a perch or two
Having finished fishing at 1.00pm I was having a 'going home' coffee with my fishing companion Frank when the first tiny drops of light rain started to spot the car roof. Same pattern as last week and it chucked it down when I got home an hour later.
The Ceiriog valley; once voted one of the most beautiful valley's in Wales, runs up to Glyn Ceiriog from Chirk and is a haven for wildlife. It's a very good place to see Kingfishers, spotted flycatchers, grey wagtails,and dippers as well as Herons and the odd fox trotting past. Because you are quietly standing, under trees mainly; fishing; you get to see quite a bit of wildlife drifting past you.

Club meeting this Wednesday the first of October and Colin has managed to get (with much arm twisting) a Guest Speaker no less.
We have Duncan Griffiths to speak on Koi health,should be interesting to us all; so do please make the effort and attend 7.30pm Wed, night

[pollygog]

My absence from posting on this website recently has been down to a long overdue shoulder operation and a lot longer than expected stay in Glanclwyd Hospital as I developed a chest infection through hospital/operation and I am now on very strong antibiotics.
It's ironic but my operation had been postponed from 10th Sept due to me having a heavy cold and they didn't want me infecting anyone!

Difficult typing at present so will be brief til my shoulder repairs
Phil

[roselanekoi]

Hi Phil,

happy to see you are on the mend even if progress is a little slower than expected. It looks like you missed out on a very educational talk on parasites from Duncan Griffiths at the last club meeting to avoid catching something you ended up catching in hospital. I guess this is the end of the fly fishing for this year,

Colin

[pollygog]

Hi Colin, I know I missed a good night
I met Ken W in Asda in Kinmel Bay just before I went into hospital and he told me I'd missed a really good talk, thats life!
What was supposed to be a routine one night stay in hospital turned out to be six nights due to a chest infection. Following my operation on Wednesday morning I was discharged from Abergele Hospital on Thursday morning but felt so ill through that night I went to my GP the next morning and he immediately had me admitted to the Glanclwyd with a chest infection!
Nigel phoned me yesterday about my mono dextral fly fishing handicap and offered to come and pick me up and take me to Nannerch in a couple of weeks and also to cast my line out for me just to get me out fishing. He also offered to play and net any fish I catch which as I explained somehow takes the edge of things. Better he goes fishing with our angling companion Frank and then phones me from lake and gives me a running commentary
He wasn't so keen on that idea somehow

Phil

[pollygog]

The scaffolding has finally been removed after many long months from under the road bridge at St Asaph that spans the Elwy.
Just in time it would seem as yesterday the river is at its highest since early in January this year
Last Wednesday while walking our dogs I noticed the river had risen significantly for the first time all summer and was flowing around both sides of central pier since early spring; coincidentally just as the scaffolding was removed.
Yesterday due to the heavy rain of late the river had risen rapidly and was flowing khaki coloured and fast just over the front edge of concrete base to central pillar of bridge. This base is a narrow diamond shape to allow smooth flow of river around bridge pillar. The base is tapered to approximately three feet high so river has risen about two feet this past week and is worryingly close to overflowing its banks. Its just two years ago this month to the floods that devastated lower St Asaph making hundreds of people homeless and ruining their homes and posessions
It couldn't happen again could it?
Working one armed I finally got around to cleaning my pond of autumn leaves and flushing my filter out this weekend. Amazing lot of stuff came out of pond when I pulled most of the dead or dying waterlilly leaves out; this included two very plump frogs hiding in there and two large and very manky comice pears! I can only assume either squirrels dropped pears in or ferocious wind in October blew them in
Dosed pond with PP as a precaution against frogs carrying any unwelcome guests and also because of high organic content due to decaying vegetation; I have had my airstone running continuously throughout and is still running until I dose pond with Hydrogen Peroxide
Worrying concern to all you newt lovers out there is the news last week that due to increasing popularity of Salamanders and Newts as pets with the British public; pet shops and dealers could be importing newts from Asia with a highly contageous fungal disease that is fatal to our indiginous European population

Here we go again!

Scientists have warned that the deadly skin eating fungus Batrachochytrium Salamandrivorans that is found in amphibians in Asia has been confirmed in two cases in Europe already; most at risk apparently is the Great Crested Newt
One time it was Ninja Turtles that led to hundreds of freshwater turtles being flushed down toilets or released into ponds, canals and rivers when the novelty wore off.
(I actually found one wandering down a street on Merseyside and took it home where it lived for years in my greenhouse til it was gnawed and killed by a rat while hibernating in winter
Same thing happened with the film 'Finding Nemo'when hundreds of clown fish died needlessly with the waning cult or just simply dying in goldfish bowls through ignorance of their needs

What next?

[pollygog]

The Elwy is a good 18" lower today and running much clearer under the road bridge at St Asaph thank goodness
First time for days our terrier Hamish has been able to get down to the river for a wade or swim in the shallows under bridge and have a drink. The air this morning was full of the buzzing sound of chainsaws as contractors for Denbigh Council cut down more trees along the Elwy between the Pont Begard footbridge and the A55 road bridge.
Judging by the massive heaps of chippings along the banks they're using a much bigger chipper than last year.
I still think its an awful waste just leaving the tons of chippings to rot; or as happened last year they were all washed out to sea along with a load of cut down tree trunks during floods!
The massive and very rare Black Poplar trees growing by the bridge on The Common opposite The Roe have now lost the last of their leaves and stand gaunt and bare next to the equally big and bare Horse Chestnut trees.The council have erected floodlights around these huge trees and they look very impressive when they are lit up of a night particularly now with all the leaves off.
My koi still looking for food today and the pond is much clearer thanks to the big clean out last week.
I found two toads under a log in garden by my wildlife pond but don't know if they are hibernating yet as they appeared to be still pretty lively and there are newts still active in wildlife pond, I think once the first really cold snap comes they'll disappear; we've only had one frosty night up to now and that was last week, but it rained from 5am next day so not really a cold and frosty night!

[pollygog]

Not a convincing performance from Wales again in front of 61,000 rugby fans, beating Fiji just!
Looking on the positive side we didn't have a selectively myopic Southern Hemisphere referee as we did the week before
To be honest though the performance the weekend before was just as unconvincing against Australia
The All blacks and the Springbocks will hammer them without a doubt on their present form.
Oddly enough we saw a far better rugby game the night before at Cardiff Arms Park while we were down in Cardiff when we watched the Blues play the Scarlets in front of just 6,000.
Big bonus for my other half is she went with her sister to collect our tickets on Friday afternoon and met her hero Gareth Edwards walking out of Arms Park and he stopped to chat with them for ten minutes, lovely gentleman.
Cardiff had the Christmas lights on this weekend and another bonus was seeing the police horses beautifully turned out walking along Castle St to the match. We had lunch in the Angel Hotel on Castle St before the match and nice surprise there, we were royally entertained in the lobby of hotel by the Arms Park Male Voice Choir singing all the traditional rugby songs; so we got to sing 'Delilah' twice!

Stonemasons from Chester back working this morning near the roadbridge at St Asaph, they were building a plinth from sandstone that was left over from bridge repairs.
It is to hold a plaque commemorating the devastating floods of 27th November 2012
There is a notice board on other side of bridge expaining how the large five arch stone roadbridge came to be built;this was after a devastating flood in 1733 which carried the old wooden bridge away.
When you look at the bridge critically from upstream you can see why it flooded last year!
the bridge was built with five arches but the raised land upstream the Co.op and B.T are built on has effectively blocked off two arches.
The water is now restricted to flow through centre one and a half arches the last arch on City side is now filled in for a footpath under bridge
River has dropped slightly and cleared from yesterday tempting a male Merganser to feed on stretch by The Roe but flew upstream at our dogs approach

[pollygog]

Walking dogs by Elwy this morning I came under roadbridge and discovered that mindless vandals have wrecked the new stone base built for flood plaque alongside bridge on The Common.
It really beggars belief at such anti social behaviour by the moronic yobs who carried out this foul deed on the monuments base, the stone blocks have been ripped or kicked apart before the mortar has set properly.
It was a determined attack as the blocks were held together with steel re-bar then mortared in so it discounts children doing it.
The plan was to get it finished in time for the anniversary date of the 27th November; not now it seems!
Well I forecast a win for the all conquering Allblacks, still; we won the first half!
Rubbing salt into the wound today as Liverpool were taken apart by bottom of the League Crystal Palace, final score 3.1 to Palace
We flounder in the bottom half of table at 12 in the Premier League and could slide even lower
The joke going round now is the LFC shop is selling table cloths to the fans labelled as 'Suitable for all occasions but inclined to suddenly slip down the table !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
must dig out my sack cloth and ashes