There is nothing nicer than showing a friend a piece of water that you love and you know your fishing buddy will too. Mark King shares a trip he had when he heading up the A303 to fish the Avon during Mayfly.
DAY 1:
I got an invite to fish the Wiltshire Avon, in late May.
It tied in nicely with work, so at short notice (often good with fishing) I headed off to the land of chalk.
I arrived at the river about 4.30 pm on day one with plenty of mayfly and some trout moving.
Looked like they were taking duns but a nasty downstream wind made things tough, but I managed to cover the fish despite it.
To cut a long story short, I fished well into the evening and didnt get a take! I changed leader, put slack into my cast, tried emergers, duns, spinners but I couldn't get a fish to take my flies.
In the end, I left tired and hungry!
DAY 2:
Nice and relaxed (no long drive today) I started fishing about 12pm, I fished a different area to the previous evening, although I popped in there, every now and again, to check if the big wild browns were moving!
I was in the wading area, trying out my 8ft #4 G.loomis GL3, Geez, this is a sweet stick! only really small graying (which are out of season) so I headed upstream.
Eventually, 2.30 pm-ish some trout were onto the mayfly. I caught one about 1.5lb and felt a lot better!
I moved upstream and got chatting to another angler where we saw two nice trout were rising under a tree, but he was struggling to get a fly in. It was a very long awkward cast.
He let me try but I didnt do much better so I left him to it and went for some tea. I then had a think. I will try again later and use my longer, more powerful rod, my Loomis Streamdance. I walked back to the spot and there was no one there, great! It was still difficult but I got the fly in after a few attempts the trout rose and I struck, Bingo!
The longer, more powerful rod, really helped steer him away from the heavy weed a quick pic (1.5lb ish), then released.
I had noticed the mayfly spinners dancing, so a spent gnat session looked good, this often brings the better fish up! I saw a nice fish rising constantly, this turned out to be a grayling about 1.75lb, not what I'm after, but a nice fish.
There was a photographer, doing something for the BBC, we got chatting, then I noticed trout rising. I caught one about a pound, then where I failed yesterday, I saw one rise, that 'spent' mayfly kind of rise I tied on a CDC spent pattern, I cast and up he came. This was a better fish that fought really hard.
I got him in, the photographer had packed up his gear, it being late! but he took a pic with his phone A lovely wild brown of 2.5lb.