Fishing and St. Valentine

I have everything organised for tommorrow, flowers,card, dinner reservation.......it is Valentines Day.....
I am treating Christine as she deserves to be treated, she looks after me well..........



.........and I am dissapearing at 5 am the following morning, off to the West and fishing on Lough Corrib. She's not a bad wife at all.... Sometimes one has to make sacrifices, it would be a bit much to head down the day before!. I can only go for the one day also as I have to be in Dublin for an important meeting on Saturday.
Apart from that I still have to organise my fishing gear, most of the trout gear is still put away for the winter, and our trip to Amsterdam has meant that time has caught up on me. I will be busy tommorrow afternoon getting the Van loaded and ready for my trip. I need to get all my gear ready and checked in daylight.

3 days to go....counting down to the new season

Three days away from the first trip of the trout season. We will be off to Lough Corrib for the 15th. I am hoping the mild spell continues, if it does we may get some fly life on the lough. The trip to Corrib on the 15th is always speculative though. It is more about getting out than getting fish. I still have to organise myself for the trip. I have been busy painting and travelling, details on my art-blog here .
I will fill you in on the trip on Sunday or Monday as I will not get a chance earlier. The next week or two are busy with Angling Club AGMs, it's that time of year with all getting ready for the main start of the season for eastern waters on March the first, followed by some on the 17th. It can be confusing, Here in Dublin the reservoir at the head of the Dodder river opens on the 1st of March, the river itself opens on the 17th. This may have something to do with the lakes at the top being fly only. I must get busy tying some flies now though.

We have had poor weather for the last week, wet windy and cold. The forecast is for much of the same for this week too. I had to drive over to the midlands yesterday for a meeting and conditions on the road were poor, gusting gale force winds, sleet, rain & snow, air temperature at midday of 1 degree celcius. I was not looking forward to the trip home, but luckily I was able to leave early and I managed to get most of the way home before dark, and more importantly any frost or ice forming. Although I have not done a great deal of work since my last post, I have delivered two paintings, but I still need to get stuck in to another project that is fairly urgent at the moment. I need to get into town for a few art supplies too. I am going to need the break when I get to Amsterdam, but I am going to spend a full day in the Van Gogh museum..... mind you when I see his work up close and in the flesh it is excellent, clean clear wet on wet oil paint with no muddiness, a light brush touch casually placing paint down.......but it is quite depressing when you compare your own work to it. I'm sure I'll get to see some other art as well though, unless I need a couple of days in the VG.

I am still working away at the commission pieces. I did find time to do a couple of small works also though, but I have two more works to do. I will try to finish them in the next week though.I am trying to get everything organised before I go away, but I have finished the main work that was needed for the end of the month. I will be busy next month with my trips because I have my fishing trip over in Galway for the opening of the trout season on the 15th, and my trip to the Van Gogh exhibition also. I know, it's a hard life... ....but someones go to do it.

I had an afternoons flyfishing for Pike yesterday, but had no luck. I am trying to get myself organised for our trip to Corrib too, I have my new fly lines loaded onto the reels. I have new spools of flourocarbon and monofilament too, I have hooks bought for tying flies, the only item I need to get now is new chest waders, as my old ones are taking in water, but they will do for the boat as wet gear, it is just a little damp fishing in rivers when wading, I think it is pin-prick holes or leaking seams. I am looking forward to starting the trout fishing again.

Happy New Year.

Happy New Year, and tight Lines for 2008.
I haven't been posting since New Years Day, I have been a little busy painting. I am also in negotiations for a commission to design a number of concepts for promotion and packaging. It might be profitable. I have to start work on another commissioned work over the weekend too as the client wants it by the end of the month. I will have my work cut out for the next couple of weeks, but it is a good complaint. I still don't have anything to replace sold works on my website as what I had has all gone, and I have no other older works available than are already on it. I must try to create a few quicker works just to fill the site up again. Obviously I'm not going fishing for a while either.

I am just back from our Christmas Pike competition. I failed to catch again...LOL!
Another years fishing over. We do have another comp on the 27th, but as it is DH's birthday, I tend not to fish that one.....
Merry Xmas all!

He's Back!

Hello everyone again......I got my blog back...
Nothing to do with Blogger though, I accidently deleted the whole blog while trying to delete a spam comment..and thankyou blogger for sorting it out for me.
I have started a new Art-Painting blog here so I will probably just post my fishing exploits on this blog now....mind you it seems that it's mainly fishing on this blog anyway!

Well, I am back from my marathon fishing sessions.... 5 days solid, not quite dawn...but into dusk, and I'm shattered. I did manage a few fish though. I am on my way to the studio now though. Time to get back to work.....hopefully it will go well. I have 3 weeks to get 'in the groove' before I head off to Tunisia again.

I have been a bad boy.....no posts for weeks. I have a good excuse, I've been very busy. Between renovating our bathroom and planning a talk. I have a friend coming over tomorrow for a weeks fishing. Noel and I were out last week. We had a good day on lough Owel. 9 fish between us and I lost another six, 3 threw the hook, 3 broke a 6lb leader. The weather is starting to improve at last, we have had a couple of days sunshine but the grey skies are back today. I am hoping the warmth will arrive so the sedges start hatching for the weekend. I am looking forward to the next few days fishing. I have to get stuck in and tile the bathroom walls after that though....no it's not finished yet!

I have been organised to give a talk on local government and the Arts from an Artist's viewpoint, to a group of local Government representitives later in the month. I have my talk outline composed and emailed off. All I need to do now is flesh the main points out, organise my powerpoint presentation and practise my lecture. Sadly it's not a case of turning up and talking, the preparation has to be done first. It is surprising how much preparation a lecture/talk can take....even more than a practicle class. The expected audience will be quite critical of a poor presentation so my homework is important.

I will scribble again next week...I promise, and let you know how the fishing went.

I am back from the wedding, Yorkshire is a lovely area. We toured around north yorkshire (where the wedding was) and up into the lake district in Cumbria. I have a few jobs to catch up on now, including my blog, but I can't spend long on it today. The weather in Yorkshire was just like at home wet&windy.......and it's quite cool. What happened to global warming? we are freezing two weeks past midsummer. I want to be able to go out and paint, but for the last month I can't even get a break in the weather to mow the lawn...never mind work.