Tony ends his pain and sorrow !
Farnley welcomed Tony R’s gang again to the Tyne Valley and as the son of an Essex man I needed to be sure the top services of Barry Mitchell were on hand and the place was ship shape for these fastidious folks! (yes Tony I’m onto the guttering and cess tank, do please let us know if anything seems out of place here)
Roger, Norman and Tony were chomping at the bit and Sunday they settled into their cosy lodgings in Corbridge and tucked into good food in the Angel. You can guess what happened next in what was a reoccurring theme annoyingly this autumn, the ruddy heavens opened and the river turned the colour of Bourneville.
Fortunately the Estate has some cracking trout lakes so the boys settled into a day of easy going long breakfast lunches and some exciting trout fishing with some really lovely brown trout caught, by now the river was dropping and come Tuesday it was just about doable. The guys got after them in what were tricky conditions, fish were running deep and showing no interest whatsoever. The last day things improved but the river held steady as has been the case given the sheer quantity of water in the hills. The river took on a different complexion and now fish were spotted and hopes high. The hours passed but nothing took their offerings and as it was the last hour Barry suggested given the height and so forth that a spin would be allowed…
Tony R sure enough hit into a strong hen salmon over twenty that fought very hard for 15 minutes measured and carefully handled in she went to join the hopefully massed ranks of spawning fish in the upper river. Well done boys and sorry the conditions were bloody unbelievable.
They are coming again next year and surely the clouds will be light river in perfect nick…salmon showing in their hundreds (wake up John !) meanwhile we will save ourselves from all of the pain and wait till next spring …..save ourselves from all the pain and sorrow of 2019 (with apologies to Christopher Cross and his brilliant ‘Poor Shirley’). the fight will continue ……meanwhile I’ll run like the wind.