Warwickshire Trout - River Alne Pt.13

Well that urge to go fishing isn't really improving I must admit, not unusual during the close season admittedly but with the weather rather nice, I really needed a kick up the backside. Now the work situation came to a head on Monday where the current car I'm working on will reach JOB1 in August and the global business put up their hands and said, there will be no more new car projects for us in the UK.

Thanks for your efforts all, good work, now you can do one 👀

Not unexpected however and the writing has been on the wall for a while due to global influences (and not selling the cars in the number they would like) so it's not that it has come as a bit of a shock. It has been certainly a challenging project from start to finish, from a clean sheet of paper, design themes, 3D surfaces, concept design and layout and then detailed engineering of the components of the centre console, where much of that bashing from one’s CAD machine from my home office in COVID. 

I usually stop at post studio feasibility working with the Clay Modelers and the 3D geometry creators however this project has been the full automotive process from start to finish. 

A few challenging forks in the road too, where with parts off tool, there was a carve up of many of the components I've designed and also many throughout the car when a new architectural box of bits had to be repackaged. 

3mths of pain then came to try and keep the project on track, which considering its obvious challenges I can sit back and give me, and my immediate team a pat on the back.  I'm old and experiences enough having been in the trade for well over 30 years to not really be phased by it, but there are youngsters in the business that are visibly down not knowing what come next. I've tried to express the positives that will come of it, and networking is one of those. It's a small group of people that move around in the main and work comes off the back who you know really.

Up until this point there has been 2 previous culls of staff and this round will be the third where the UK team will be decimated and dribs and drabs remaining for those that want to stay. I see it as a natural stop in my career and it's time to move off on to something else. So with the VR process now underway at least I'll have a bit of breathing space to find the next project. It's a small team and like a big family really and I feel some pride in that I had a contribution to what will be the only 'proper' Polestar not a badge engineered jobby.  

Maybe if those forks in the road were taken differently by the management the outcome might have been entirely different. Oh well, we will never know, not like you can turn back time now is it. 

Well ok, I stand corrected 😁

Anyway I said I wasn't going to the Alne again after blanking recently but I fancied trying another stretch that sees more foot traffic and you would hope less predation because of that. So the gear was loaded in the car the night before and after work I went for a quick session. Mainly because the weather was nice and I fancied a walk in the nice afternoon sun.

What I didn't expect was an elderly gentleman who was geared up with his fly outfit and his homemade flies, which were that small I needed to put my reading glasses on to see them. 👀 

He'd blanked on the upper part of the river and was going to join me on the lower section. He was visibly shocked when I showed him what I have been using to catch the trout on the Alne, mainly because to be honest a Salmo Hornet in the large sizes are pretty chunky I suppose.

 

They have worked really well over the years and after showing him a few pictures of the fish I've caught, he actually said....

"I'm amazed, wow, I've never seen trout the size of that on the Alne and I've fished it for years, it's made me rethink my approach"

From a fluff chucker to a lure thrower, well I doubt that is going to happen but maybe he will up the size of his flies.

Anyway the river was low and clear and if I had one or two bites I'd have been happy but after a few nice looking swims without a nibble, I knew I'd be scratching around for bites. The wind had picked up and to be honest it wasn't exactly pleasant lure fishing conditions with it hacking through the open farmland like Rachel from Accounts Tax Rises. 

I only fished a couple of hours where I lost two lures and had the worlds biggest birds nest of braid when it all went horribly wrong on the cast, which concluded the session. I must have fished 6 or 7 swims and not only were there were no signs of fish whatsoever, but the fry too, non-existent.

Still it was nice to get out and hopefully I'll get out later today as I'm typing this as some jungle drums from Buffalo Si who has been winkling out the Zander from an area that was productive last season which in his words "It's fishing better than the Hallowed !!".