I don’t know if it was three week’s of eating nothing but green curry, overtraining, late nights watching the rugby (not soccer, which would definitely have caused it all by itself), some old jungle juice, maybe the Chinese meal or the beer that accompanied it, but at one point in the late evening of last Monday, I came down with a blinding headache, of the like that I’ve never experienced before or want to again. I spent two days in bed and it took some more days afterwards to recover.

The other, possibly more interesting explanation, which my wife subscribes to, is that when partaking in the aforementioned Chinese meal, she told me a story of a friend of hers, who was “possessed” for some hours and I asked if she grew red horns out of her head, apparently I shouldn’t have done this, and the evil spirit entered my body in order to give me a blinding fucking headache and teach me a lesson.

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Paul mentioned in his column this week that most of his six kilo plus snakehead have come in late July and August. Think about that sentence for a second. He can only say it because he knows. Years of fish, dates attached. That sentence is a fishing log doing its job.

I've just found out what my memory is worth. This month I built a proper log, a spreadsheet, one row per day fished, and backfilled the trips I could reconstruct.

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The BFCC casting day at Ashford-in-the-Water in Derbyshire was very well attended and the team were kept very busy either instructing and/or coaching on the competition outfits. The weather was lovely, though the wind was swirly making it challenging for the competition distances and several people, including myself, had moments when the fly leg whipped the back of our legs. Thankfully I'd remembered to wear trousers and a hoody so other than a slight reduction in the line speed, I didn't get 'marked' though I'm sure a few of the others in shorts and t-shirts ended up with a mark or two. Over the years I have seen some amazing 'welts' on the back of casters legs and some on the back of their necks – painful! Regardless we had a great day and had lots of new recruits. We go back to the same area in October for a joint event with GAIA so hopefully lots of these fishers will come along.

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I'm organising my boxes for heading to Scotland next week. I'm expecting most of the fishing to be for bass, mullet and coarse fish given the temperatures, but I have put a coastal seatrout box together just in case it cools down -I hope it does because in Japan it's 39 and incredibly humid here today with more of the same forecast.

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Weather is pretty much perfect here now. Yes it could be few degrees warmer yet otherwise it is great. Late afternoon with sun it is +20 celsius, nights are around +9 celsius. We have had some rain but not too much. All of these makes rivers perfect, enough water, temperature around +13 celsius, easily under +15 celsius. I would say this has been as perfect as it can be for waters.
 
Wednesday I had guiding day. I had one lady as fishing guest 9 years ago, week from now it would exactly 9 years. (Had to check from photos). She was travelling to north with her dad, cousins and with her daughters. Younger one was still in manger size and older one could just walk. Older one was playing in river while I taught fly fishing to mom.

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I spent the week assaulting the local beaches. I saw corbina every day but only on Wednesday did they present themselves cheerfully, tailing, surfing, and cruising. I caught two and missed one eat. A good day. I also walked the beach with two congenial new beach buds. Richard is new to the beach, a new owner of an HT6 and was introduced to me by Paul. We walked Dockweiller without seeing much. He told me of a flat to the south there that had some finicky fish piled up. I’ll check it out during the next round of extreme tides. A second day on the same stretch was similarly unproductive. Fish showed, but only for a few minutes.

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