After the rain came the snow! thankfully most, if not all, has gone from the west country, and no flooding has been reported, yet! which moves us on to getting ready for the coming season.
Rods - need to be checked for worn or damaged rings, spigots for wear, and cork handles may need a light rub down with fine sandpaper.
Reels - should have been cleaned at the end of last season, if not, now's the time to take it apart and clean out dirt/sand and give it a light oiling. And change/renew your leader.
Flies - check your fly boxes for those trusted flies you kept putting back in, to see if any of the hooks are damaged or rusted, even the ones you did'nt use!
Net/s - check that there are no rips/tears in the net itself. If its of the folding type, make sure the net folds smoothly, if not clean or free up where it folds, there's nothing worse than trying to open a net that won't whilst playing a fish.
Finally, how long have you had the nylon/fluorocarbon/copolymer you make your leaders from? 2 or 3 maybe 4 or 5 years? change it! you'll be gutted if the fish of a lifetime gets away because the leader broke.

A useful site to monitor the river conditions is :- www.farsondigital.co.uk/  this gives a view of a section of most rivers in England & Scotland.
It also gives a picture of different times throughout the day, shows the height, so you can see whether it's worth getting ready to go fishing, and best of all its free!
With the rain putting in an appearance once more this is a great help to avoid disappointment at the river after possibly a long-ish drive

What you will need.
Approx. 7" of 1/4" knicker elastic
Outer cover of electric twin cable
Nylon to pull elastic through outer cable
Bobbin to pull spool nylon through sleeve


Put elastic into nylon loop, feed nylon through cable outer, and then pull elastic through outer to within about 1/4" of ends.
Push eye of bobbin through outer ends, feed your nylon from spool through eye and pull through, slip tidy over spool, and tighten any slack. If you have made a spool holder fit onto this. No more unravelled spools in your pocket. 

finished item.

Easy to make spool holders.
All you need are some beads, nylon ( thick-ish ) and tubing ( spray bottle- ie kitchen floor cleaner )
The three pictured used coloured sea fishing beads, with a clear tubing collar, and 175lb nylon!
 The one on the left had 60lb nylon.
I would'nt go below 60lb for strength reasons, catching it on a branch etc could pull and snap the nylon.
The centre holder has a small bead on the end of the nylon, is then heated, and flattened ( with a wet finger! ) and pulled inside the "blue" tube, two beads are then super glued on the ends. blue tube is a biro outer case.
To form the upper loop just cut a piece of tubing, fold nylon back into tube and apply super glue into tube, allow to dry, when dry test loop for strength.
The holders pictured will hold approx. 6-7 spools, however, you probably only need about four

From what i can gather on the club web site, the Tone is "Fishable" but still very coloured, the angler who went to the Tone had his first "blank" since joining the club, which given the circumstances does'nt seem  inappropriate.
The Axe is no better, and i shall know more probably next week when a friend is going to walk the river to see how much work ie "Bank clearing etc" will need to be carried out this year. Theres bound to be a tree or two down, and causing a log jam!
What a disasterous latter part of the year its been. I should think that most of the "stocked " fish have been swept far down stream, never to be seen again, whilst the "wild" fish may return as and when! hopefully.
I have spent a few days tying up some more dry flies, to replace the ones that the odd branch/bank managed to jump out and grab.