The Tiny River Alne - Bitcoins and Biobibliography

The phone that I accidently dropped in the River Stour last Sunday was never to be seen again, however the insurance sorted it quickly and a new case and SIM card from EE all came on the same day. 

So 48 hours after the 'incident' and thanks to the iCloud I was back up and running again. I was a bit peeved that I lost £40 in notes in the process but it could be worse my name could be James Howells. 

You see James lost a computer hard drive he says has a fortune on it at the dump has threatened the council with legal action over its refusal to let him dig up the site. 

His hard drive containing 8,000 Bitcoins was accidentally thrown out back in 2013 and since he has been battling for a decade for permission to dig up the Newport City Council landfill site on Docks Way to find the hard drive and access his coins, which he says are now worth a staggering amount.👀

But despite a tireless campaign, the council have argued that the chances of finding the drive, which James believes is now worth around £225m, are unrealistic.The computer engineer has previously hired environmentalists and data recovery experts from around the world to aid in his desperate search.

Now In 2021, James even hired NASA data experts Ontrack the data-recovery firm which recovered the battered drive from the Columbia space shuttle after it exploded in 2003. James has even offered the council a 25 per cent share in the funds, currently estimated at around £50 million, and has pledged to invest in his community, but that has fallen on deaf ears sadly.

Although I've fished the upper reaches of this stretch of the River Alne I've been fishing over the years I've not been up here for a good while. Well it was back in June I believe when I managed to catch a stoneloach by rod and line and by design. I per usual I didn't have much time but I had some maggots that needed a dunking and I fancied trotting to see what I could pick up.

Now the river finally has had some stability of late because it really has been unfishable over the last couple of months, where just when the water is back in the banks again all of a sudden the heavens open and it is back to being in flood again and spills out into the floodplains.

Just to get a few bites would be nice because the Alne isn't fishing particularly well of late I must admit,  and not fishing this area for a while I was hoping a change of scenery would be of benefit too, oh and when I drove over the bridge recently it looked a great colour. 

I didn't really have a swim in mind, so I'd get there first have a roam around and pick a likely looking swim. There are often minnows here in numbers and that was the concern I'd have even when trotting the fast water, but up at this bit there are gravelly runs that I was hoping would hold some dace up for a feed. 

I also wanted to try out my trotting set-up which was to dust of the 14ft Acolyte and pair it with Korum glide line and a newly purchased shallow spooled Drennan reel. The river has dropped considerably of late and probably a little too much really because well I just couldn't get in to a rhythm in the first swim so within half an hour without a bite I moved to the next swim where I disturbed the resident otter, and after popping its head out it went on its way.

The float was going down much nicer in the next swim however trot after trot after trot and feeding the swim with maggots nothing was showing whatsoever. Not even a minnow bite which is quite incredible for the river Alne. The sun was right in my face as well which didn't help, just one of those wasted sessions really, then again I was limited on time (as per usual) so the Alne was the only choice really.

So yes, the river was dead, proper dead  much like this sheep I assume !! It does explain the wall of ammonia I walked in to a couple of months ago. Anyway with the gear in the car still I might pop back out in the morning. This time at another stretch, maybe even Brazzers Breach, I'll decide in the morning.