Thames Water imposed a hosepipe ban yesterday.
This morning at 03.18 there was lightning, thunder and then rain. It is still raining more than five hours later with no let up expected until this evening. Why is the expression thunder and lightning when lightning always is either simultaneous with thunder or precedes it? Some of the most spectacular examples of this meteorological phenomenon I have seen were in mountains in Europe, specifically France and Italy. Usually I was on the inside looking out, watching a spectacular son et lumière, drink in hand. You will recall just such an electrical storm in mountains in the Auvergne caused the death in 1948 of “Kick” Kennedy, Lord Fitzwilliam and the pilot and navigator of the ‘plane in which they were travelling. Similarly an Air France passenger jet crashed into the Atlantic in 2009 on a flight from Rio de Janerio to Paris with the loss of all 228 people on board.
Lightning should be treated with respect. A carbon fibre fly rod is an excellent conductor of electricity as are golf clubs. Once I took a risk in Spain using a golf umbrella with a metal shaft during an electrical storm. When caught in a storm out walking be aware that oak trees are more susceptible to being hit by lightning than other species.
I have caught about fifty salmon in Ireland and Scotland. The 9th June 1991 fell on a Sunday. Fishing is forbidden on the Sabbath in Scotland but not in Ireland. I did not possess a fishing licence because, as the ghillie (Fred) explained, I could always buy one if I caught a fish and if I didn’t it would be a waste of money. I had never caught a salmon but was not without hope. I was still flogging the water of the Owenduff in Mayo when the other rods had gone back to the lodge for refreshment. It was drizzling, as it is so often in Co Mayo, and made a last cast at 9.10 pm. It wasn’t a good cast – the line landed at the tail of the Boat Pool in a heap of knitting. It irritated the fish it landed on. It reacted by snapping at the fly. Half an hour later I was wondering how to land my first salmon. I was standing on a small cliff above the river and in any case didn’t have a landing net. I “walked” the fish upstream until I reached a point where I could beach it. No catch and release those days. I bore it back to the lodge in triumph, bought a licence and had more than one drink.
The fish weighed 11 1/2 pounds and it transpired was the biggest I was to catch. I was fishing with a thunder and lightning double hooked fly. The next day I want back to the Boat Pool with the same fly and caught a nine pounder. Conditions must have been favourable because I also lost two fish that day. In five days we caught twelve salmon and two sea trout.