Thank You

As a rule I don't write unless I have something useful to say.  The exception is my ranting about the weather and lack of rain.  Even then I try to include some substance.  Although we had some rain in July, it only put the Ure up for a couple of days.  This wasn't enough to pull fresh fish into the system, so I've got nothing new to tell.  What's worse, barring a miraculous coincidence of rain and family holiday timing presenting me with the right conditions on the Ure, I won't have anything to write about until I return from spending the first week of September on the Deveron.  So please don't expect anything from me for the next 5-6 weeks, but rest assured that despite my age I'm still alive.

This interlude has, however, given me some sympathy for the professional fishing journalists who have to turn out copy to demanding editors month after month.  It must be hard to be original and certainly not much fun.  At least I have the liberty of writing what I want, when I want, subject of course to your approval.  On this occasion, although I haven't anything useful to say about fishing, there's something I wish to say to you.

Thank You

When I started this blog almost 3 years ago it was as much about self-reflection as conveying information.  I wished to record my thoughts: the notion of writing 50 articles never entered my head. I'm not an expert and I'm certainly not a good caster, but if a few people who fished for just one week each year found my thoughts useful, so much the better. However, last Thursday, just before meeting my daughter for dinner in London (she was treating me as a birthday present), the counter passed the milestone of 50,000 page reads. Thank you for your amazing interest, support and encouragement.

It's not just the numbers of readers that amaze me, it's also your world-wide spread.  The combination of cheap communications and the internet has trumped geography and distance.  Google's Analytics tell me that at one time or another J1W has been read in over half the countries in the world.  I now have mental pictures of expatriates around the Gulf and other oil rich places pining for the cool waters of Scotland (including a singleton reader in Venezuela); tourists in South East Asia taking a quick read before the sundown cocktail; active fishing enthusiasts in Scandinavia, Russia, Patagonia, New Zealand, Canada, Alaska, Ireland and the whole of Europe; and like minded people in places I would never have connected with salmon fishing like Ukraine, Namibia, Taiwan, Georgia and Brazil. Thank you everyone.

The scale and spread of interest in Just One Week is not about me or what I write, but the sublime pleasure of our sport; the wonder of the magnificent fish we try to catch; the beauty of the surroundings in which fulfill our enthusiasm; and the people with whom we share that pleasure and who thereby lift is to an even higher plane.  It's a wonderful world: thank you for the miracle.