Country mouse goes fishing in a heatwave

Unexpected hot conditions leave the salmon feeling lazy, as Mark goes fishing in Scotland

Country mouse, Country Life magazine
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Just about the only thing you didn't want to be doing in last week's heat-wave was fishing. Fortunately, everyone in our party caught a salmon on the River Findhorn at Glenferness before the high pressure brought in record temperatures and impossible fishing conditions.

In the second half of the week, we visited the beautiful South Esk at Finavon, but the salmon were feeling droll and not interested in our efforts, despite using the daintiest of flies. Salmon fishing is hope over experience, but, for some reason, we keep going back to try our luck. One day the conditions will be perfect I just hope I live long enough.

In Scotland, the grain harvest is still in full flow, but the green shoots of the winter cereals are already turning the plough green in southern Britain. Gone are the great stubble fires that once dominated the countryside at this time of year. Everything is harvested, ploughed and sown in a blink of an eye. The golden fields that once shone in the early autumn sun are a memory of childhood. The autumn is less beautiful without them. It is a period of the countryside's calendar that has been lost forever.

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Country Life

Country Life is unlike any other magazine: the only glossy weekly on the newsstand and the only magazine that has been guest-edited by HRH The King not once, but twice. It is a celebration of modern rural life and all its diverse joys and pleasures — that was first published in Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee year. Our eclectic mixture of witty and informative content — from the most up-to-date property news and commentary and a coveted glimpse inside some of the UK's best houses and gardens, to gardening, the arts and interior design, written by experts in their field — still cannot be found in print or online, anywhere else.