Personally, I tend to view the trout season as starting for real on the 1st of April. I’m busy getting flies tied, sorting out all the bits and bobs and making plans for the first day. It’s got to be the most exciting time of the year, with everything ahead and to be discovered again.

So, as a welcome to the new season, how about a bit of quality Norman MacCaig poetry to stir the blood?

Loch Sionascaig

Hard to remember how the water went
Shaking the light,
Until it shook like peas in a riddling plate.

Or how the islands snored into the wind,
Or seemed to, round
Stiff, plunging headlands that they never cleared.

Or how a trout hung high its drizzling bow
For a count of three –
Heraldic figure on a shield of spray.

Yet clear the footprint in the puddled sand
That slowly filled
And rounded out and smoothed and disappeared

I wish it was mine, but the author is a relative. Merry Christmas.

Together they stand
Cheap cork in their hands
Smiles on their faces
In the river, gracious

A tumbling riffle
Flows into calm glass
Speeds up and encircles
Dry legs in the water

Wafting weed pulses
And breaks up the flow
Green hair on the rocks
Washed daily, pure water

To come and to stand
On the grassy hill bank
Is perfection removed
From a world gone mad

Summer on Clyde
Brothers, side by side
The fading light
And the anglers plight