At Chew we have a new lodge to look forward to

At Chew we have a new lodge to look forward to – Rutland, Hanningfield and Grafham have all had new buildings erected in the last few years, and now we should have one to be proud of. I am looking forward to the opening, although I have had a few sneak previews from outside. Apparently, all is going well and it should be ready on time.The first stocking of trout has gone into the lakes. The levels are as high as can be due to the amount of water on the land and the amount that keeps falling as rain! Only a couple of years ago I read with great alarm an article in The Sunday Observer about the lowering of our water tables throughout the country. The general tone of the piece was to suggest that our water tables were so low that they were damaged beyond the stage that recovery was possible. Fortunately we have seen heavy rainfall over the last two years especially and I cannot see that there is still a problem.It is amazing how the scaremongers can get us all going! I remember being told one day by a fellow trout angler how a cormorant will eat about 9 pounds of fish each day. Now as that fellow was a well-respected fisherman, it was easy to get sucked into the fear of that statement. Lots of fellow anglers believed that statement and still do. Let’s think about it for a moment! 63 pounds of fish per week is over 3000 pounds per year – from each and every cormorant on the lake. It is really frightening! How do I know that it is not true? To start with, birds like cormorants fly. A pretty daft statement – but it needs to be made as obvious as it may sound. A bird can only fly because it has very special bones that are all hollow. A bird is a creature adapted to getting everything about itself light enough to enable it to be able to fly. There is no way that a cormorant could consume 9 pounds of weight – which is about its own body weight – and then take off and fly. Undoubtedly cormorants are causing us problems on our reservoirs and rivers – mainly I believe due to the crass over-fishing on the high seas, but we are tending to overstate the problem. The stocks of supposedly common fish like cod are incredibly low. Scientists have expressed concern for a few years now about the way that cod have become sexually mature at a younger and younger age each year. This is apparently a sure sign that the species is in serious danger of becoming extinct. Impossible! We all like a piece of battered cod and chips on a Friday night. We cannot cause any harm to the stocks of this fish in the North Sea. Wrong. We certainly can. It was thought that there was no way that the herring stocks could be affected. The sand eels off the Shetlands too were so huge in number that humans couldn’t possibly cause them a problem. Tell the razorbill and guillemot colonies that! Anyway, with the levels so high, the cormorants find it a lot more difficult to find our trout, so there should be a good few there for us to try and catch at the start of the season.Where was I? Oh yes, the new season! Another subject that we got onto was the old one about who had kept their casting up to scratch by having the odd trip in winter. This lead to a discussion about casting as an art. Not one of the group that I was with had ever had any casting instruction. Sure we can all catch a few trout. Sure we all think that we can cast a fair distance. Are we deluding ourselves? What golfer trying to improve wouldn’t go and have the odd half hour session with a coach? To be honest, I had to admit that I don’t consider that I am a long caster. I do, however, think that I am accurate. I wonder if I am really? I am going to check this all out, as I actually went out and bought a book about casting. I am going to read it and teach or reteach myself to cast. I am going to check my accuracy and distance. I will let you know how I get on.

I used to get a couple of practice sessions in on grass leading up to a new season. I don’t now. I certainly will be this year though. Give it a go. You will really benefit.