Copy of an old eel and elver licence courtesy of Tony Mobley

Sorry it a bit faded but you get the idea..  How to licence a fishery to death.

Encounters of the bird kind.   We all see more of nature than most and sometimes it's memorable.
Saw a fish eagle off the Isle of Mull last year and in previous visits to Scotland saw Golden Eagles and a when fishing a Peregrine take a fish from the surface of a Loch

Back at home I was fishing the Teme one day in the middle of a good Mayfly hatch (does it still have one ?)   The air was full of flies and also a host of birds feasting on them including swallows and house martins.  Was concentrating on the fishing but suddenly on a back cast there was a clunk and a house martin fell in the river in front of me. At the same time the top six inches of my nice cane rod slid down the line.  Wasn't able to recover the bird or repair the cane rod.

On Pitsford reservoir one day in a boat trout competition with an unknown angler.  We were doing reasonable well  in a big hatch of buzzers with again swift and swallows quartering the surface taking the emerging fly.  I was into a fish playing it off the stern of the boat.  A decent fish too but with a high rod tip as I bought it close to the surface there was another clunk and a swallow or house martin took the top dropper.  At this point of confusion the fish dived down and took the  house martin under with it much to the consternation of my boat partner.  Anyway the fish was bundled into the net and the house martin was unhooked.   I was a bit bedraggled to say the least so I kept it inside my jacket to dry out.
After a while we looked at it again and decided to try and relaunch it.  Mistake.  It just plunged in again and thrashed about.  We netted it but my boat partner was not happy, obviously a bird lover, and insisted we took it back to the lodge where we gave it to one of the rangers.  No idea if it ever recovered.


Story 2   Andrew Williams
Fishing the River Loughor early one morning .....the day after a mates 18th birthday celebration. The water was good so I made the Special effort to get up , walk the two miles to the river and get out fishing... very slightly still the worse for wear.!
Arriving at the river I waded across the shallow run below the pool and started working my way upstream soon banking a lovely little 4lb Sewin. Just after I caught the fish I cast into the branches opposite, got snagged , and snapped the line trying to free it. The size3 long Mepps was still there temptingly dangling from the branch.
Still under the weather from the previous evenings celebrations I had the brainwave of going downstream, crossing the way I’d come and getting my spinner back .
So there I was shimmying up this swaying tree branch over the swirling brown waters trying to retrieve my ‘killer‘ Spinner.  Stretching out full arms length In the bending branches I tried to hook my spinner using my spinning rod. Well I must have caught the branch end but what ever I caught I pulled the top of my rod off and it now lay tantalisingly across the lower branches. Slowly and carefully I tried to reach it but unfortunately it fell and with a refined plop it slid into the brown swirling water Never to be seen again.
Pointless carrying on I climbed up onto the railway track ( could always use them and do it 40yrs ago) and headed for home . Walking through the Pantyffynon  railway station a Sewin in one hand and half a rod in the other some of the staff were admiring my fish and questioned my only half a rod.
It had been my first fishing rod which my grandfather had given my so I was quite sad. Being quite sentimental I still have the bottom half of that Rod now.

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