There comes a point where you've just got to get out, come hell or high water!

You can see from the weed festooned bottom strand of the barbed wire fence that the water is dropping back, thankfully!

Two of the weird and wonderful that can now be found in the valley.

Meadow and Kings-Vincents have thawed out, allowing the brave to try their luck. The river remains out in the flood plain only for the adventerous. I'm sure that the odd fish will oblige. Personally I think a few days of milder weather, to lift the water temperature, is required before I brave the elements.

Bugger!

A fish on a net, which I don't usually put up, however on this occasion I am prepared to make an exception for such a fin perfect roach. Not the largest roach in the world at 1.10 but surely one of the prettiest of our fish species. Thanks to Darrel Hughes for cheering me up by sending it through. Caught over the weekend, with ice in the margins, a real winter jewel to warm the old cockles and give us all hope for the future. Thanks for sending it over Darrel, fish of the year as far as I'm concerned, well fished.

I have news from the EA re the spinning derogation in that it is in place and early season spinning is permitted at flows greater than 1.18 on the East Mills flume. A link to the flume page can be found in the headers above.

A day away yesterday saw me bobbing about out in Poole Bay. After the last seven of our consecutive boat trips have been cancelled, due to adverse weather, it was good to get out to chase the whiting about.

With the valley remaining underwater it has been only the stillwaters that have provided fishing of any sense. Unfortunately the weather has conspired to put an end to that last option. The first pic is Kings-Vincents, middle is Meadow Lake and finally Mockbeggar all iced over and looking decidedly unwelcoming.

One impact of the flooding out in the valley is that the animals usually to be found out there have had to up-sticks and head for higher ground. Several roe families that live out there have moved up to the lakes and surrounding gravel plateau. Birds, small mammals and invertebrates have also arrived around the lakes to seek sanctuary. The Lapwing seem particularly badly effected with the valley unavailable for feeding the higher ground is now frozen solid. Small groups of Lapwing can be seen hunched up, sitting about on exposed banks and bars. The drop in water levels and a return to milder conditions can't come soon enough for them.

Ellingham car park remains unusable.

Ellingham Pool.

A short video showing the high water flowing out of the channel onto the flood plain. It shows the natural meandering course of the river, with the turbulent water on the outside of the bend, where erosion is at its greatest. It clearly illustrates the forces that rid the channel of accumulated detritus and silt.

The process of ridding the channel of silt also brings a welcome layer of nutrients to the surrounding hay meadows. The prolonged flood is now supported by the groundwater from the chalk aquifer that ensures the water is now running clear with the river bed visible down to six or seven feet without the aid of polarized glasses. This may well be the saving grace of the early salmon season if we face continued deep water and are forced to wade to the pools. With such water clarity at least the salmon will be able to see the passing fly without any problem. I have yet to hear if we have a high water derogation in place to allow spinning above an agreed height this season. I'll contact the EA and see if is to be sorted in time for the off.

A very cold night has given the flooded valley a second frosty start this week. It all looks very picturesque although just adding to the problems of the valley residents. With the majority of the flood plain with two feet of water covering it the few shallower areas dotted about the edges are proving attractive to the few waders that remain with us. One or two Snipe remain as do a handful of Lapwing, the latter will soon be looking to establish their nesting territories. High water has given the Lapwing problems in previous years where they are forced to use sites that would not normally be considered.

There is a further problem looming on the horizon in that the salmon season is set for the off on the 1st February. Whilst the high water will ensure a good freshwater signal is reaching far out into Poole Bay, there is also plenty of water to allow the fish to enter the sytem without any passaage problems. The snag is for the rods to safely reach the pools if the ground water flow prolongs the duration of the flood.

It just goes to prove you've got to be in it to win it. Despite ice in the margins Karl enjoyed a short session that produced half a dozen carp to fifteen pounds. I have to say that when I drove around at lunchtime I thought Karl was on a hiding to nothing. Well fished Karl and thanks for the photos.

The water briefly flowed over Ellingham Drive yesterday, thankfully it has dropped back an inch or two overnight. That white square is a peg number that sits on top of a four feet tall hazel stake. Hopefully the guns remember their wellies!

Avon Valley flood.

Showing the current extent of the flooding as the river continues to rise. The video, taken by Lord N, up over the House starts by looking south toward Lifelands and Blashford. Moving north Meadow Lake can be clearly picked out as can the inundated water meadows at Ellingham. Over the drive at Ellingham, with Phil's fat ewes in the Park, with Blashford Lakes in the background, Mockbeggar is just visible beyond Ibsley Water. On up the valley with Harbridge and Ibsley Meadows before finishing away to the north at Hucklesbrook. I would estimate the average width of the flooding across the valley is four to five hundred meters. With an average depth, over the meadows out of the channels, of just over welly height. With such a depth the waders are unable to feed and many of the ducks unable to reach their grazing. As the water drops hopefully the bird life will reappear to feed on the emerging grass and soft mud.

At least all the rain last week gave us the opportunity to give the ancient Warwick trailer a little TLC. Clamped together and welded up, dried out and given a coat of anti-rust paint and fitted with a new deck, it'll be good for another decade.

Ringwood gates.

I'm delighted to say they're not my problem! Its good to see some one else has their hatches full of junk that will have to wait a drop in water levels before they can be cleared.

The view of the valley from the House, taken as today's torrential rain adds to the flow. I'm afraid it will be several weeks before we get to the banks again without waders. Thanks to Lord N or sending through the shots.

Mark with another Jack, in one of his great selfies. Karl with a lovely looking mid-twenty from King's-Vincent's, one of three he managed today. Thanks to Mark and Karl for the reports, I very much appreciate them to keep me in touch with goings-on.

The overnight rain has seen the water rise over the road between Ibsley Bridge and Harbridge, with the height gauge on the bridge now reading 21.80m. For a little colour in these grey times, the first of the hazel catkins are now showing bravely in the uncut hedges surrounding the lakes.

We are teaching the Grey Herons to act as sentinels so anglers can spot from the bridges when out in the floods. Lots of geese and ducks are also still out there making the most of the water meadows. This afternoon one of Steve's eagles came through sending panic amongst the geese that made off in the opposite direction as quickly as they could. The middle shot shows some of our resident Starling flock on the bird table. I think here are about 38 in the photo, which is about a third of our flock. Today they were joined by forty Goldfinch, forty or fifty House Sparrows, ten Green finch, twelve collared doves plus assorted Chaffinch, Wood Pigeons, Jackdaws, Blackbirds, tits and Dunnock. The final photo shows a large willow that has uprooted with the soft ground and high winds. This will require winching across the river as there's no vehicular access on that bank. First the root plate will have to be cut off and dropped back into the water-logged ground. We will have to cut the top off, as close to the river as possible. Once cut we will winch it back over the channel. Hopefully that little job will wait until the waterlevel drops, making access easier.

A photo that illustrates the change of heart Anne's Robin has had towards her mate of last year. She's the larger bird on the right.

Blashford Meadows showing no sign of draining, which suits the wildfowl perfectly. Shallow enough to feed safely, without fear of disturbance or predators. There are two Great White Egret and the Pink-footed Goose that has been with us for several weeks. The second photo shows one of the Egrets just landing, the other flying towards the dead tree with the Grey Heron and Cormorant already in residence.

Karl with a lovely fifteen pound, scattered scaled, next generation common. Thanks for the photo Karl well fished.

It may have been beaten to the first of the year in the garden by the dafs but the Winter Hellebore is now putting on a brave show.

Below Blashford Island.

I had to wade out to secure a bridge that was threatening to break its fixings. I should add that I do not recommend wading about in the flooded meadows as they are flowing deceptively quickly. There are also numerous channels and ditches that are now submerged and hidden that have the potential to catch you out if you are unaware of their position.

The scaffold poles securing the bridge were covered in beetles of all shades and colours escaping the flood and the attention of the flocks of gulls. There were at least twenty species on the one pole, how many species were clinging to the emergent dead vegetation is any ones guess. What impact this has on the invertebrate populations of the meadows is an unknown. Just how long the various species take to re-establish their numbers is possibly a link to the success of failure of next years wader chicks that depend on the invertebrates for their survival.

The flood waters have over-spilled the channel and now occupy the entire flood plain, relieving the pressure on the perched channels, gates and hatches. The increase in water height will slow now the flood plain is behaving as nature intended. The shot of the knee deep flood illustrates the clarity of the flood water is improving as the volume of water flushes the silt and detritus from the channel. This natural nutrient supply to the meadows flushes the undesirable nutrients and silt from the channel, settling on the flooded meadows, hopefully ensuring improved water quality for the salmon ova that will be developing in the recently cut redds. Always assuming Wessex Water doesn't fill the channel with untreated sewage as soon as the diluting waters subside. Sewage, road drains, town and industrial site storm drains that will coat the eggs with organic silt and suffocate them. Also assuming the chemical cocktail discharged along with the sewage and leaching in from the surrounding agricultural land doesn't poison them first.

I could put up a shot of another flooded field but I'm sure you'll see plenty of them over the next few days. This is the water height gauge at Ibsley Bridge showing 21.75, a small rise on yesterday and its still rising. It still has a long way to go if we are to see levels of previous years when the Harbridge road, which is currently dry, was impassible for six weeks. To reach those record levels we need a further 300ml rise. I hope we don't see a repeat of these super high levels this year as it will certainly make the start of the salmon season difficult and for a poor end to the river coarse.

A pot of honey I have just microwaved and given a good stir, in order to get rid of the crystallisation. Simply because I don't like crystallised honey. I extracted this pound in the region of thirty years ago and whilst it may look a little bubbly with suspended bits and bobs of wax and legs but in those early years filtering usually involve muslin more akin to my old socks. I am now getting down to my last half dozen jars from that particular vintage. I'm not sure I can swear it was a vintage year, I can however confirm it was mainly from the bramble flow with oddly enough some honey dew from the hundreds of limes that line the A338 close to where I had my apiary. Had, being the operative word as last year I gave my remaining colonies away as after thirty years I came to the conclusion beekeeping probably wasn't for me! Not that I didn't enjoy their company when I kept them. I had avoided the disease and pestilence that is associated with keeping them, neither of the foul broods and pleasingly I had managed to keep the dreaded varroa at bay. Other problems did crop up of course, such as the local woodpeckers and wretched wood mice, despite keeping them in WBC hives. Whilst I had a maximum of five hives going through them every nine days throughout the Summer was often very difficult. Fortunately during the early years I had managed to stash several hundred pound jars at the back of the garage. Hence the jar in the photo. I had the strategy of leaving the honey on the colonies each winter, unless I required some for our personal use, I never sold any, it avoided the need to put syrup on them as winter approached, or candy in the Spring so things did tick along nicely. It also did away with the necessity of extracting heather honey, which I find rank and unpleasant, often leaving four or five lifts on a colony.

The problem started to arise when the hives became old and fragile. I had been replacing odd lifts and chambers over the years, that had been battered by the woodpeckers etc but time began to tell on the bulk of my frames. Lifting them out to go through them became a dice with death as lugs cracked off and the extremely fed up residents became airborne looking for the invading culprit. It usually happened when I had forgotten my veil and gauntlets and thought as the weather was fair they wouldn't mind me having a quick look through them, wrong!

I did have one or two other tales that were down to them. One that sticks in in my mind came about when a group of travellers set up across the road in a nearby field. The children of the group, being adventurous little darlings, decided they would raid my hives for some honey. As it happened the colony nearest the apiary gate were English Blacks and about as miserable and vicious as any bees can be. Their advantage being they make beautiful white wax for frame honey, so they were tolerated. As events developed our young adventurers decided the first hive was probably the best to raid and lifted off the lifts containing the honey, putting them to one side. They then grabbed half a dozen of the large brood frames and did a runner heading for the camp across the road. I must have arrived on the scene within half and hour and immediately spotted the agitated bees flying randomly around the apiary. I did a quick inspection of the damage and realised they had taken the brood frame that must have contained the queen. At this point the red mist descended and stamped off across the road to remonstrate with the travellers. The first lady I spoke to pointed me in the direction of the head honcho and I knocked on the door and explained my annoyance not at the loss of honey but the loss of my brood and queen. I have to admit I was now beginning to regret my hasty action as by now most of the caravans were now doors open listening to my ranting. What happened next came as quite a surprise as far from telling me to B....r Off our man called all the kids out and lined them up in front of him. He then demanded of them who had been over the road damaging this gentleman's beehives. The culprits looked pretty po-faced in the line up before one lad stood forward to admit his involvement. I was amazed. I thought good move son, honesty is always the best path. Unfortunately for his troubles this lad received a pretty serious clout behind the ear and a demand to names of the others involved. The obviously shaken youngster didn't need to name names as the other desperadoes all stood forward to receive a tongue lashing, that made me quake and an order to go with this gentleman and show him where they has stashed the frames. The oldest brave lad spoke up and said they didn't stash them but had thrown them away when the bees had set about them and beside that my honey was no good as it was full of maggots! I didn't bother explaining about brood at that point but accompanied the lads to where they had abandoned them in the nearby brambles. Whilst we headed back to the spot I asked what would have they done if the entire hive had set about them to which they quickly said they would have jumped in the nearby lake, which horrifyingly was a silt lagoon. The thought of the potential disaster doesn't bear thinking about. We reached the bramble patch and there, scattered about on the top of it, were my missing frames. Getting them was going to be tricky as the bees were still clustered around the queen and in a far from friendly mood. I thanked the lads and suggested they get off home, not before I had lectured them on the dangers of silt lagoons and offered the eldest lad a couple of quid for owning up and to ease my guilt for the clout he had received. To add further to my amazement he refused, saying quite simply that if his dad ever found out from one of the other boys he had taken the money he would kill him!

The lads departed and armed with a brood chamber and a pair of secateurs I set about retrieving my frames. Happily the queen was there and unharmed and the damage to the brood was minimal. Within half an hour I had rebuilt the hive and everything was peace and tranquillity once more. Never let it be said bee keeping can't be exciting!

The height gauge on the bridge reading 21.70 at which point the bund over tops. This flooding is a result of upstream changes that occurred at the end of the previous century and will require further reinforcing of the bund to prevent a breach, when the ground eventually dries out.

The hatches fully open.

That's about sixty percent of the flow as there are four further gates drawing downstream. Any further rise in water level and the bund between the bridge and the hatches will overspill releaving further pressure on the gates. Make sure you put the audio on as it will give an idea of the forces involved with high water.

The valley path from Fools Corner.

The Hampshire County Council, Avon Valley Path and still people are turning up to walk it before abandoning the attempt and climbing out over our security gates!

Blashford from the footbridge.

Well under water at Blashford.

Whilst the river is extremely difficult at present there is always the chance of a fish or two from the lakes. Jason saw out the year with this fine thirty plus common. There were a couple of tench and a bream landed, just to rub salt in my wounds. With any luck the weed will die down and the tench will respond to maggot, as they have done in previous years, if I make time to look for them.

Clint and Roger were also catching over on Kings-Vincents, they had managed three carp when I walked around the lake at lunchtime. As did Simon last week, on the maggot feeder, finding the roach and perch still feeding.

Ending the year as we came in with a shot of our dafs out in the front garden. Despite the recent cold snap our daffodils have seen in the New Year once again. Sorry about the photo it was taken whilst it was tipping it down. The last fourty eight hours have seen the river once more topped up and remaining well out into the meadows. I'll put up a few photographs tomorrow to give an idea of what awaits anyone thinking of braving it.

The water is well out in the valley with more to come, making conditions extremely difficult. The Mistle Thrush is in the Himalayan crab apple in my front garden. It's become extremely aggressive towards other thrushes, guarding its larder of mistletoe and the small apples. It won't let any blackbirds or thrushes come anywhere near, even after filling its crop it remains on guard chasing all new arrivals. I can take shots of the birds in the front garden without leaving my desk so if we continue to suffer rubbish weather you may be getting quite a few of these!

I knew I should have fished for a couple of hours off Sibley's Point, there was obviously denizen hiding at the end of that rainbow.

Seasons Greetings to all readers in the form of a Christmas Robin. In actual fact its Anne's familiar, I can safely get away with that as she doesn't read my ramblings. There is also a further tale related to this bird in that since the end of the nesting season she has protected our garden from all comers. Including her mate with whom she rearer two or three broods last Summer. Since last Wednesday, the Winter Solstice on the 21st December, she has allowed the male bird to once more feed with her in the back garden. Is this a simple softening of her attitude towards her mate, who attentively fed her throughout the three broods they reared together. Or is it the first step in the reaffirmation of their partnership in readiness for the next breeding season. I believe it to be the second as not only the Robins but the Blackbirds seem more tolerant of each other and the Canada Geese have paired off over the lakes and establishing their territories out on the islands.

The finches in the front garden seem more intent on filling their bellies than worrying about the Spring ahead.

Roger playing his sixth of the day closely watched by Betsy, my charge for a day or two whilst Richard, Jade and the girls are away visiting Santa. Roger ended up with ten in his four and a half hour session including one of the next generation mirrors in a double hook-up. These young fish look in tip top condition, hopefully the coming season will see them kick on, becoming the specimens of the future. Well fished Roger, that's quite a catch from a lake that was frozen just a day or two ago.