Credit where its due

During my winter period of illness, apathy and excuses, one fellow angler has been pestering me to join him on the banks. I've not fished the Wye for ages and still struggle to summon any enthusiasm to sit and work my socks off for a few meagre chub but Paul - the current Mayor of Brecon - has persisted and each week has fished at least once catching chub and the odd pike.

Well, yesterday it all came good for him. He had a 12lb pike and an 8lb barbel from one swim then moved to targetthe chub but took along his pike rod on the long walk as a bit of an after thought. His reward was a magnificent pb pike of 29.7 which, he reckons, fought like a 30lb barbel. Unfortunately I was 120 miles from home when he rang and couldn't do the honours with the camera, I'd love to have had a close up view of that particular monster.

So, congratulations to Paul, a fish well deserved by an angler with true dedication and an unbeatable knowledge of our section of the river, I doff my hat to you good sir. I just hope that it doesn't go to his head or his official Mayoral chains won't fit :-)

I've promised myself to shed the apathy when I return from a week or so in Devon and I'll have something fishy to write about. In the mean time I have booked some accommodation on the banks of the River Lot in May for our continued search for a river monster, but more of that later.