August 2014 - One Extreme to Another

Another surprisingly busy month on the SENPAC fishing front which again serves to confound my predictions in the June blog. However August turned out to be a different sort of month to July to the extent that our Newsletter editor felt the need to focus on those contrasts in his latest missive.

 The first of those contrasts was of course the weather which undoubtedly impacted on our member's fishing plans. July was probably too good to last and whilst some of our number were understandably complaining about the heat, bright sun and certainly the lack of water in the local rivers, in the main they were all getting out and doing a bit.

August arrives and all of a sudden it seemed we were presented with what was probably a more typical British summer mix of conditions, three nice days and a thunderstorm with an ex-hurricane thrown in just to liven things up. The rivers could probably still do with some more water but the more "active" weather that we enjoyed during August undoubtedly threw a spanner in the works for some at SENPAC when it came to getting out on the bank-side.

But that's not to say that all was lost because we have a fairly hardy bunch amongst our membership who aren't easily deflected from their fishing and it was the fishing that presented us with another of the month's extreme contrasts. (sounding a bit like Robson Green here which is a bit of a worry!)

Faye's New PB - 10lb-4oz

Highlight of our July report was a new pb for SENPAC's oldest member, Kay Needham. Highlight of the August fishing was another new pb, this time for SENPAC's youngest member, Faye Greally.

Fishing with her Dad on a four day camping excursion to a favourite swim up in Scotland her fish of 10lb-4oz easily beats her previous best and was caught early in the trip, immediately putting some pressure on Dave who was making do catching bream,roach and perch. All came right for him in the end though with a nice fish of 16lb-13oz. Not sure who was happiest about the new pb, certainly Faye was over the moon but I suspect Dad was quietly celebrating almost as much.

Our August club trip was to a local commercial fishery on a very windy and very bright day which didn't auger too well for successful fishing and to be honest there were a few who struggled as a result of the conditions. However we did learn one thing from the experience which will no doubt result in a few more trips to this venue later in the year.

A Proper Perch For Dave Greally

Whilst we had heard rumours of decent perch being present in this water we were treated to first hand evidence of the fact by Dave Greally who towards the end of our day and despite the conditions produced a proper one for the rest of us to admire. A good month for the Greally family all round!

The August club meeting managed to confirm our club trip calendar for the coming Piking season, the first of those trips is to be north of the border on the 12th October 2014 and I know that a good few of our number are starting to get excited about getting stuck-in to some proper Piking at last and that will certainly be the main topic of conversation at the September club meeting which takes place on Tuesday 30th September 2014 at the Northumbrian Piper as usual.