Snow, cold winds and frosts with Snowdrops out in full bloom almost three months late!
2014 and what a difference!
Bright sunshine, Lesser Celandines instead of Snowdrops, warm gentle breezes, almost flat calm really, fly life busy, there were even butterflies around...
This Peacock only posed enough for a long focus grab shot but at least it was out and active along with Brimstones and others.
The trout were plentiful too and happy to eat my Double Badger with alacrity.
The only sad aspect to the day was seeing, once again, the permanent damage done by hydro-power to any river or stream where the greedy, thoughtless developers get to put it. There is nothing green about hydro-power. It does more damage than any other method of making electricity and what makes the blood boil is knowing that, in the UK, it is paid for with our taxes.
This is part of a depleted reach where once the water flowed generously between abundant beds of Ranunculus fluitans populated by hundreds of trout. Now it is, as you can see, a brown desert, devoid of plant life and so almost empty of fish.
Here's the problem. The main body of water is stolen from the river and diverted through a fish mincing turbine. That main body of water is then discharged into a side channel (seen on the left of this picture) and it flows back into the river, where once the biggest (and best) trout in Derbyshire used to live. They have all gone now along with the water plants. The photograph at the head of this blog can never be repeated all thanks to the hydro thieves and carpet baggers.
It was good to be out fishing with the dry fly again but it could all be so much better if folk were not so greedy and careless.
Regular Rod
