Having worked flat out
for my up and coming A level exams I couldn't help but give myself
last saturday off when my fishing friend Nick offered a trip down to
a nice exclusive stretch of a local chalkstream. I did deserve a
break I thought, all those hours of work, besides, biology is a
subject that has as much relevance on the bank as it does in the
class room.
The weather was lovely,
albeit a little windy. The stream was up a little and flowing well
owing to the recent heavy rainfall in the south. Perhaps the river
held this much water prior to the days of abstraction, I'd bet it
held even more! The fishing was superb, both Nick and I fished the
duo with devastating effect. We entered the river by a bridge,
fishing our way upstream, and very quickly losing count of the number
of small trout and grayling we'd caught. The EA undertook significant
habitat work here around three years ago and the fish seem to be
thriving, spawning successfully on the newly put in gravels. The bulk
of the trout we caught were only a year or two old, reassuring proof
of successful spawning in the winters following the work.
In one pool I managed
to capture my largest ever grayling on a dry fly, a fish that would
probably have made 1-1.5 pounds in it's autumn condition. Being out
of season and clearly recovering from spawning it was swiftly
unhooked in the water and released without weighing. The fish fell to
a klinkhammer expertly tied by Nick, a pattern I shall almost
certainly steal for future use.
Many fish were caught
and much fun was had. With my last exams on tuesday and the coarse
fishing season beginning tomorrow I shall be spending my summer
trying to temp all manner of species with bait and flies and shall
hopefully have much more time to update this blog.
