Signs that the season gets nearer

I was down by the beck again yesterday , The signs of spring are there for all to see.  Hazel catkins are flowering and here and there in the sheltered sunny spots the trees and bushes show sign of buds starting to swell.  I love to see the hazel catkins.  It is the first of natures signs that things are changing and the fact that my early morning commute from 7am till 8am across the vale of York now starts in the dark but now ends in the light. I count the days to it starting in the light.

   
The other sign that things are moving ahead is the arrival in the post of the request for subscriptions and the notifications of the annual general meetings of the various fishing clubs and syndicates I am in.  The first one is in a weeks time for my local beck. It is for me the most enjoyable of all the meetings I attend, whoever it was in the club who decided to combine the AGM with a fundraising raffle and a three course duck dinner was a person of rare vision.  It is always a belting night full of fishermans tales, food and the odd drink....

My fly tying is getting going now, My tying isnt great , My brain knows how to tie beautiful flies but the image in my brain never seems to match the fly in the vice, I think when God was dishing out hands he got me mixed up. I got the hands of a navvy, somewhere there is a navvy with the hands of a fly tyer . I hope one day he finds out. Last season I started to use CDC regularly. The F fly was truly designed for a man with navvies hands. Now I can even manage tying down to a 22 even a 24 however tying them on the tippet is altogether an other matter.   As the season gets nearer I feel more motivated to refill the fly boxes. After all there are now only fifty one and a half days to go.