I can’t ever remember a winter like the one we’ve just endured, so the start of the season
might be a case of some careful thinking about where we can actually fish! I saw the
River Bourne recently in Salisbury and I’ve never seen it like that before.

However, once we get further into the season, the extra water actually bodes well for the
rest of the year. It will clean off a lot of gravel and should increase numbers of some of
 the insects, especially those that like a river with plenty of volume- species like the Blue
Winged Olive (BWO) could have an excellent year. Mayflies, I’m not so sure because as
silt burrowers their beds may have been blown out in a lot of places. Again, conditions
are unprecedented in many places so we just don’t know what will happen.

Given the extreme conditions then, my first spring session will probably be on one of the
reservoirs. Blagdon has been full since November and will fish excellently. Wimbleball
will also be well worth a cast because it has been back to its excellent best. This is great
to see and 2020 could be another fantastic year. On the rivers, I do often like the Frome
early in the season, especially if the grannom are hatching, but it might take a while for the
 levels to drop so Blagdon will be my fallback option.