To be lucky enough to have a rod on this beautiful chalk stream, which along with the Cheriton Brook and the Candover Brook, is the third and biggest of these feeder streams which form the Itchen near Ovington. This picture was taken at 2040 hrs yesterday as the sun dropped and those lovely pastel shades produced new relief to a pretty scene. There was no late hatch of any scale, but a couple of nifty scrappers liked my offering of a blue-winged olive and came to net. What a lovely way to enjoy an English summer evening!

I love fishing auctions and regularly bid in those of the S&TCA, the WTT (to which I also submit offers for fishing in the streams in the southern Alps near to where my wife and I have a home), the Monnow Rivers Association…and the Wye & Usk Foundation, and the latter, for reasons that readers of my blog, will be well aware.

Last year the W&UF offered a lot which intrigued, and I bid for it and won.

It was for an engraved stone which would be lovingly released into the river Usk, which is where my fly fishing adventure began. And it will be post lockdown and I hope to witness it but may not be able to.

Eventually someone may pick up this (my) stone from the bed of the river where I learned to fish and wonder…well what?

Will that happen next year, in five or fifteen years, or fifty or five hundred years?

When they do, will spates have smoothed the stone and erased, what was carefully engraved?

If I cannot be there, I have asked that it be placed, or maybe dropped, into the river on the downstream side of Llanfaes Bridge.

This is my stone.

….and my first fish, wild rainbows all, came from the Holsloot River in South Africa’s Western Cape.The best, a lovely specimen of 15″

For another view of the fishing on the Holsloot, enjoy this linkhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWf3hBiai8U

…caught trout from a river in every County in Wales, that is…!!!

https://afishermansjourneythroughwales.wordpress.com/

….to read about my adventures in Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire

in a country filled with wild brown trout and terrific fishing, whether in rivers, mountain streams or llyns.

This evening, my site https://afishermansjourneythroughwales.wordpress.com/ had its 10,000th visitor…its intention is to encourage more to visit the ‘Land of My Fathers’ because the trout fishing in Wales is just wonderful. Schooled in Wales, and visiting it every year since I was (far too many to admit to) I know more than many, what a wonderful country it is…and now have very nearly found some wild brown trout from all its Counties.

And this is the man, who taught me how to fish the Usk, and who probably is to blame for how, and why I became a Wales’ fishing junkie…Jimmy Devoy.

What a man!

Just one of about thirty five stripers and crappies, caught in a morning by him, his Bro and his Cousin Simon, and his Dad…in between watching the world’s top golfing talent at the Masters at Augusta, and playing a bit of golf, too…some trip, eh!

Happy Birthday, Boz…and thanks!

The very informative ‘Welsh County’ included this piece in their latest on line edition -https://www.welshcountry.co.uk/tony-mair-fishes-around-wrexham-2018/

Please take a look.

It highlights the best of accommodations in Wales, the best foods, drinks, bars and restaurants !

…an opportunity via the Wild Trout Trust Auction of 2018

http://eat-sleep-fish.co.uk/content/2018/02/fishing-sky

His elder Brother already has, and his 40th was celebrated in great style, nearly two years ago.

Ross will turn 40 in April, and he will fulfil a lifelong dream to watch the Masters in Augusta, and with his Dad and his Bro. We will watch golf, play golf….and fish, too, during a week long trip ‘a trois’ – the MairMen.

Tony Shepherd at Clarks Hill Bass Fishing will be our guide, on Clarks Hill Lake, on the N Carolina and Georgia border.

OK…so its not for ‘salmo truta’, but when in the late 80’s/early 90’s, Daddy worked in the States, and we all lived in Connecticut, we used to go out onto the ponds (pronounced paands) in our Maine canoe and fish for black bass for hours, using poppers; plastic, jigged worms, and rapalas, and we caught large mouth and small mouth bass galore to four pounds or so….and had fun together. And my Littler clearly remembers and relishes those days.

To be continued….!