Will the seasonal winter rainfall arrive? The Whitewater has risen just the once to its bankside level and has yet to flood into the fields this year. Just three years ago we had floods in the South East of England that even had folk contemplating building their own Noah?s Ark to survive the human race. My own recollection is that the weather patterns seem to go in pairs of years typically over a seven year cyclic phase. Remember the dry summer in seventy five and the long warm summer of seventy six, with corresponding low rainfalls in the winter. The question is, are the weather patterns triggered by mans abuse of the atmosphere or are they natural events, together with why is it so many scientists worldwide are just so eager to discover if there is water on Mars. Maybe they know something that we don?t !
Our November working party effort was spent copising trees just two hundred yards up from the Hatchgate bridge, in particular taking out a mid river willow which fell just days after our spring working parties in 2003. This work was continued along the same stretch for our December working party. We have arranged for the river to be electro fished together with our hands on help, starting from the River Whitewater and Blackwater conference working our way upstream. The electro fishing is dependant on river conditions and we hope to carry this out on our February working party day, with a second choice day being the March working party.
Any pike that are removed will be carefully retained in aerated tanks and then introduced into River Valley Lakes at Yateley.
Here is a reminder of the next phase of working parties, and hope you can attend to help out with our work.
Starting at 9.00am, or turn up when you can on the day. We usually go onto late pm early evening. Meeting location may vary dependant on weather and river conditions, but first choice is to meet at the Hatchgate bridge car park. For the electro fishing day, again please meet at the Hatchgate bridge car park and we will direct everyone from there to the required locations.
It is recommended to bring plenty of food and drink to keep you going, with either strong boots, wellington boots or waders. Each working party will be hosted by any combination of Mick, Bill, Graham and myself . You can choose between light, intermediate and heavy duties on the day. We look forward to seeing you there.
For several years we have wanted to set up a club website. It is now actually happening ! The aim is to keep it simple, with the purpose as a form of advertising for new members, and reporting information essentially from our Newsletters. In this perceived brave new world more have access to computers and tending to expect and often prefer this form of communication.
We are indebted to one of our members, Ken Self for offering to set up a website for us. Ken is doing this with great eagerness. I even got drawn into Ken?s computer and website enthusiasm over a very pleasant Saturday evening at my house when he explained all that can be carried out in cyberspace, with naturally plenty of fly fishing discussion interludes. The intention is to have a F&DAS home page, with link to each club fishing category, such as Fly Fishing, Carp Fishing and General Coarse Fishing. Soon the website will have a new www host and domain address. For now the draft website can be found upstream, on the far bank, under the overhanging tree via http://fdas.mysite.freeserve.com
It must be now some five or six years that our membership has remained at ?80. For the last two years we have had requests from the club committee to increase the membership fees, which we have resisted this for benefit of our members. For 2004 we are now increasing our membership fees to ?90. We believe this still represents good value small river fly fishing. Membership is on the same basis as previous seasons, i.e., a fixed block of three days. The 2004 season application form is attached to this newsletter.
Could we ask 2003 members to submit their application to our F&DAS Membership Secretary before the end of February 2004, that way members from 2003 will have first refusal to rejoin, prior to considering applications from any new members. Should membership application exceed thirty members, a waiting list then applies.