Peter Anderson is back this month telling us about a piece of water he'd been hoping to fish for a while. He at last got around to it.
A few years ago, Trout & salmon had an article about grayling fishing on the Kanara beat of the River Itchen. It’s taken a while, but I recently got round to fishing it. The article suggests that it’s far from tranquil, the valley tightens with a road and main railway line either side of the river and Southampton Airport just down the road. There’s also a public footpath along one bank, it was half term week when I fished and I feared the worst. Actually, it was fine. The footpath runs along the far bank behind a barbed wire fence and an intermittent hedge. The river is about 30-40 feet wide and the walkers are not intrusive. Ok, there’s an occasional train and the odd passing aero plane but the road is a minor road and not that busy. It may not be silent, but it’s far from noisy!
The beat is a wading beat, about half a mile long and has two distinct parts. The downstream end is the deeper and slower bit. The upstream half is shallower and faster. These terms are relative. After what feels like 6 months of pretty solid rain, the bottom bit looked pretty pacey to me! I climbed down the steps at the end of the beat into the river and started to work up. Single fly only is the rule. There is certainly no need for a short rod here, I used a 10 foot 3 weight and soon had my first fish, a tiny grayling on a size 16 PTN. But I wasn’t comfortable. Somebody with more bulk than my 5’6” and 11 stones might have been happy wading here... I was getting very nervous. The current was strong and the water was pretty deep. I retreated. Chatting to a friend who knows this part of the river well, he said he was surprised that I had actually gone in, the river was higher than he’d ever seen it at this time of the year. In March at the end of the drought he could walk across in wellies, now he wouldn’t want to go in without a snorkel! That cheered me up a lot and I felt less of a wimp!
There is a fishing hut halfway up the beat and I got into the water here where it was knee deep and flowing fast....the Itchen always seems to be flowing fast. I picked up a small grayling and quite a few baby trout so I moved on.
Just upstream, there is a pool where an inlet from the Itchen Navigation comes into the river. I could see shapes moving around in the depths. From here on, the fishing was very similar to that on a freestone river, a heavy nymph was the way to go. A couple of decent grayling came from the pool and 20 yards further up there was another pool where the water dropped from 2 feet to 5 feet deep but without any appreciable drop in pace. A heavy nymph was the only way to fish it and a couple more grayling came to the net. And they were good fish, not the 2lb+ fish which the Itchin certainly holds but around the pound mark and very welcome too.
The upstream section has a series of small weir pools and the short nymphing technique was productive again but trout now became a real pest. Not small ones either, 2lb stockies which give a heck of a fight in a weir pool, but not what I was after. It took me about 5 hours to fish through the top half of the beat so when the river is a bit lower and the bottom bit is fishable, there is a good day’s fishing here. After 5 hours wading against a powerful current I have to say that I was pretty well worn out!
So, is it worth a go? I think so, I will certainly have another look when the river is carrying less water and I can give some proper attention to the bottom half of the beat. There is an alternative venue at the Lower Itchen Fishery further downstream. This beat is bank fishing only and they flexible on method. I have to say that a team of nymphs would have been more effective on Kanara than the single fly I was limited to. There is more water on the Lower Itchen fishery but it can get quite crowded.
On balance I would opt for Kanara but there’s not much in it. Tickets are limited to 2 a day from mid October until the end of December and are available from the Rod Box in Winchester.