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Mid August: Eden at its best! Staggeringly exciting and exacting fishing; frankly unbeatable, in my view. Well, nothing in this fantastic sport beats this for me. Scatter hatches of small ephemerids in the early afternoon - after very quiet mornings - followed by spinner falls. Now that we have at last had some decent rain the river is in perfect condition and the trout are feeding well. The best thing is that both trout and grayling are currently rising so subtly that you barely notice them, unless you are very close. You put a CdC single plume out there and it simply disapppears. You tighten on the (inevitable) essential long, fine leader, and a magnificent trout, or perhaps one of Eden's huge grayling, hammers away across the current.

Mid July: The drought appears over; Eden breathes again and the fishing is opening up with fish moving back to old lies, away from their drought refuges. Out with Lawrence yesterday up at Sandford, for three grayling on downstream (downwind) presented dry fly on long leader, and a single trout. Exacting. Fishing improves by the day on San River. Just before I Ieft San last week I had a session on the No Kill sector island water. A small window in the conditions opened, with some small upwings coming off the flat calm water. Again, a single plume tip (19) on a long leader (19') resulted in this magnificent trout, which took 7 minutes to bring to hand.

On the San River there has been no such shortage of water; quite the opposite. The fishing has been generally challenging, and sometimes disappointing, related to the high water flow and poor hatches, but there has still been some good and even exceptional fishing. I shall be reporting in some detail about the recent World Championships, on San, which were very exciting. Right now I'm guiding here and the fishing is actually improving each day. Yesterday, Charles Greasley caught a magnificent brown trout (see left), during a real red letter day, while he was prospecting with a dry caddis in the shallows along the bank.

28th May: Black gnats and deep drought! It is now way over two months since the Eden Valley has had any significant rain. None of us have ever seen the river so low in May. It is very worrying. In spite of this we had superb fishing sessions during the Fishing Festival week, mostly to midges (dry) in the mornings, and black gnats in the afternoons. Occasional olives and sedges are showing by day, with strong spinner activity: we are simply praying for rain.

Winderwath on the PAA waters; Lawrence and Andy wandered off downstream while I explored up from Culgaith. Grannom are starting to show, along with continued LDO hatches and an almost constant stream of tiny midges. Fish on everything (though the grayling have disappeared now, post spawning). You have to hunt, but it will surely not be long before you see trout rising. Mysteriously, and worryingly, there are very few little trout around. I rose seven fish in an hour and a half, catching four of them like this - every one to the single-plume-tip. Fascinating fishing; the trout are on midges until the LDOs are hatching, and they are only occasionally interested in the Grannom. Get in close, and use the wind so that you can put the CdC a metre or two upstream of the showing fish, and ensure that it dead drifts.

Mid- April: I was out on Sandford water. Fought my way through agricultural waste dumped in the river. Very low now. No ephemerid hatch. Midges on the water. Very few risers, but managed three small (which were nice to see) grayling and one wonderful wild trout, on Oppo, PTN and size 24 midge. Guiding again on 13th. Peter Bland caught his first ever Eden trout which was this spectacular fish - nymphing in the fastest water in the section. It is a miracle that such fish still survive in modern agricultural England.

With Pat Stevens on Appleby Water - Pat has now joined what is becoming something of a connoisseur's club, the Appleby Angling Association! This water is just perfect. In drought, with worryingly low water, still cold from the winter, the wild trout are now feeding at every opportunity. With just 30 minutes fishing time, Pat and I both caught two lovely trout in the 40 cm bracket, all on single-plume-tip CdC skinnies (olive imitations). Pat told me that he will be floating home!

Upper Eden, March 20th. Arrived at river at 2 pm, fish showing with tiny little rises. Water coloured. LDOs on the surface. Worked upstream picking off individual target fish on the single plume tip CdC, size 17 (see Fly Fishing & Fly tying May Issue). Four fish brought to hand, including this beautiful two pounder, plus three or four other pricked fish. They are spectacular in the cold water tumbling off the fells. This trout jumped six times before I could bring it under control. This is early spring fishing at its best. There are few rivers in England now where we can catch wild fish like this on dry fly in March. The agricultural damage to this river system is now extreme, and yet it survives. I saw pockets of fish today, on the tail of two glides. In each were upwards of six rising trout. Frankly I cannot perceive anything better than this; not in March, although I would love to see the March Browns hatching again.

Back out on upper Eden on 22nd, this time with Lawrence Greasley. Very few LDOs hatching and consequently hardly any fish rising. We both fished duo rigs and I managed three fair sized grayling to the orange-collared PTN, rising a nice trout to the Oppo, which I missed. Lawrence caught a small trout and almost immediately afterwards took the fish of the season (on his first outing of 2010) in the shape of an enormous grayling, clear of 3lbs see left. It was a very thick, deep fish. We were back on the water the follwing day, with; L catching his first trout on dry fly this season at Black Syke bridge. Curiously, we explored the water for about a mile and a half downstream of the bridge, without seeing a single rise or having even the suspicion of a take to duo. After lunch, however, we moved upstream of the bridge; I persisted with duo for two trout (one of which is below) and two grayling, before finishing with two more grayling on the CdC during a sparse hatch of LDOs. These fish are typically, perfect Eden Valley fish. It is a real joy to be among them again after the deep winter we experienced. Note the markings on this trout here. This really is typical Eden system: lots of speckles, like a rainbow trout, but with the buttermilk colouration; lean in the sping, with blade-like fins. The tragedy is, that though there are still a lot of fish like this in the system, they are threatened. Lawrence and I were horrified to see about a 100 acres of what up until this year was grazing pasture, now gone under the plough at Sandford, right up to the river's edge. The catastrophe that will happen with mud and fertiliser run-off, now the soil structure has been destroyed over such a large area, and siltation and nitrate pollution downstream, is really so depressing, particularly when we consider that what actually is downstream - the bulk of the Appleby Water - is some of the best mixed wild trout and grayling fishing surviving in England.

Snow melt and some heavy rain coloured the river quite badly for a couple of days, and it was only on Sunday afternoon (28th) that I managed to get back out on Eden, this time near Jubilee Weir. Simply staggering fishing, again on duo (with nothing rising whatsoever). Still the grayling are feeding and show no sign of spawning condition (and still there is a worrying lack of small fish). Three one and a half pound grayling (two on the PTN, and one on the Oppo), were punctuated by two wonderful brownies on the PTN.

Away for the Easter break with family in Marlow by the Thames; back today on Eden to find the river about a foot up on last week, though clear enough. Very few fish showing and none caught on duo, but two opportunistic feeders on the scatter hatch of LDOs were spotted and taken (right) on the single-plume-tip CdC 17, which is just unbeatable, in my view, when LDOs or BWOs are on the water. The grayling seem to be much more scarce now, so I am hoping that they are now at last getting ready for spawning and will refill the river with their progeny, because there seem to be so few grayling below about 30 cm. These fish have fallen foul to the horrific, uncontrolled goosander population, and several cormorants that now seem to be settling in certain areas of the upper river.

The Cumbria Fishing Festival is coming up in May (from Saturday 15th). Do take a look at what's on offer at the following link: http://www.lakedistrictfishing.net.