I was lucky enough to meet up with ESF amigos Keith, Ian, Warren and Jim to fish the Bull Hotel's stretch of the river Coln. We talked, laughed and caught some fish too. After you have read the article make sure you take a look at Ian's video which captures perfectly what fishing with friends is all about.
“Is it chalkstream?” I ask. “No,” was Jim's reply “ it’s limestone”.
I couldn’t help it but Glen Campbell's song popped into my head.
“I’m a limestone cowboy” I sang trying my best to make the tune sound vaguely recognisable.
The Coln is exactly as Jim described, a limestone river that runs through Gloucestershire before joining the Thames.
It is a river I have been meaning, no, wanting to fish for a while. It is Jim's Home Water. The place he likes to fish and the place where he is the resident guide. He knows the place like the back of his hand. Every little undulation in the river bed, pot, or depression: he knows it well.
I’d headed up from Devon the night before to meet Jim and ESF contributor and friend Keith Passant at the Bull Hotel.
The Bull cuts a handsome presence over the pretty little Gloucestershire market town of Fairford and, importantly, owns the stretch of water we were going to be fishing.
We’d arranged to catch an early evening in the hotel bar and after a couple of drinks decided what to have for dinner. It didn’t take long for Keith and Jim. It might have been local knowledge but they both opted for the pie, me for the fish and chips.
Recently I’d been to some eateries where you have to memorise the food order along with the table number, walk up to the bar (by then I have usually forgotten everything) and do my best to try and get the order right. I’m not good at this.
Despite this, I’d had a foolish rush of blood to the head and offered to organise the order knowing that I was in shouting distance of our table if confirmation was needed due to my lack of memory.
“Can I order some food?” I asked Claire behind the bar. “Sure, I’ll be over to your table in a few seconds” came the reply. I allowed myself a celebratory exhale of air.
There was still a slight worry, I hadn’t followed the pie order. There was no need. My fish and chips was exactly what I had hoped for and we all ate our second course of sticky toffee pudding and custard in contented silence.
Just off the dining area there are some comfortable sofas where we spent three hours putting the fishing world to rights.
It was getting late and we were meeting at 8am the next morning and Keith had work. It was a shame he couldn’t join us for the fishing.
I made the short walk to my room and drifted off to sleep in the comfortable bed in no time.
Jim and Warren met me for breakfast just after 8 the next morning. Warren, along with Keith, has been responsible for many of the fly patterns you have seen in ESF. He is also a regular visitor to the Bull, often fishing with Jim.
We quickly settled into conversation and politely waited for Ian to arrive. We watched as plates of fried breakfast passed in front of us towards some of the other tables which prompted Jim to call Ian and see where he was. Thankfully, he was eight minutes away so we put our order in. Ian’s timing was perfect and as our plates were put in front of us he walked into the room.
It was good. A full English, in my opinion is the perfect way to start a fishing day. It is worth noting that if you are fishing the Bull’s water but are not a resident you can still book yourself in for one.
I caught my first glimpse of the river as we got into our waders. So this is a limestone river, crystal clear with lush weed growth. A grayling caught sight of me as I edged closer to the water for a better view and scurried away across the stream in search of cover.
As we walked downstream Jim told me a little about the fishing. There is 1 ½ miles of water that is available to five rods, either residents of the hotel or day tickets. The river isn’t divided into beats it is just left to the anglers to act in a gentlemanly manner and give each other enough breathing space when fishing. Jim told me that he’d never encountered any problems with this in the many years he’s been guiding there.
When you are proudly showing off your home water, the place you love to fish, you go to great lengths to show your fishing pal all of your haunts, the pools that have been kind to you and the fish you have picked up from a particular spot in the past. Jim and Warren did just this as we walked to the bottom of the beat.
Ian, burdened down by film and camera gear watched with interest and what looked to me just the slightest flicker of jealously as we tackled up but he was soon setting his tripod and cameras and the moment, if it had ever been there quickly passed.
We were after grayling and had all set up with long rods and nymphs. Jim and Warren have finely tuned a nymph set up, thought out over long periods of time on the river. Warren stepped into the river and was briefly attached to his first fish of the day after just a handful of casts.
We’d done the “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” with the fly boxes earlier and I’d noticed the smaller, black beaded, quill bodied nymphs the guys tied on. I’d shown them a fly I’d tied the day before in a mild panic attack you get before fishing a new river and feeling you haven’t enough flies. It was basically a variation of a bead head caddis pupa pattern with a partridge feather hackle tied pointing forward over the bead rather than swept back down the hook. It was a nod to the Kebari style that you see on Tenkara flies.
As Warren settled into his fishing rhythm Jim and I walked upstream a little. He showed me some slightly deeper water that screamed grayling. Being the perfect host he offered me first go. The pool was opposite where we were standing so rather than stepping in to the pool and sending the fish scattering I knelt down and made a cast from the bank.
We watched the flies sink and track down the pool, nothing on the first cast but the second saw just the subtlest halt in my braid indicator that was enough for me to strike.
It was a fish but not the grayling we were after. It was a trout. A really pretty wild brown trout. It had taken the fly I’d tied the day before.
I gallantly offered Jim the spot. Jim struck into a fish that didn’t stick and I decided to walk up a very short distance and fish a run against the true left bank. I was pleased we could wade the river as it allowed me to get into position between some low hanging branches to make the cast. The trees made the cast a far from easy one and so I decided to let the flies drift downstream of me, lift the rod to break some of the surface tension and then flip them into the spot I hoped would hold a grayling.
Ian had timed his arrival perfectly as I played my first grayling. I had to guide my 10ft rod through the low tree canopy so that I could net it, let Ian take a couple of photos and then send it on its way.
The river has little by way of obstructions and I reckoned I must have been in the one spot that made a cast a little challenging but how often is it that we catch fish in those hard to reach places?
I made my way back to where I’d been fishing and just a few casts later I hooked a better fish. The fly had been well and truly christened and I still had no idea why I had decided to tie it.
Fishing with friends is about as good as it gets for me and the company was excellent. I had really fallen for the river too. Ian had said to me that he’d seen my face after the first few fish and could tell I was like a kid with a new toy. I really liked this new river.
We all felt the temperature rise a little and it was all that was needed to trigger a modest hatch of Blue Winged Olives. Jim had seen some small fish rise to them and I kicked myself for not bringing my dry fly rod. It would have been the icing on the cake to catch a grayling on a dry fly at the end of November.
The breakfast had meant we didn’t need lunch and we kept fishing, leapfrogging each other up the river.
I caught up with Warren and we spoke a little about the river. He told me that despite the fact he lives in Hampshire he travels over to the Bull water as he feels it offers better value for money than the rivers nearer to where he lives. That was a pretty strong endorsement from a skilled angler who chooses where he fishes carefully.
One of the things I’d noticed was how close you could get to the fish without spooking them. I’d hooked fish from almost under my rod tip and although not always unusual when fishing for grayling I’d expect this more on a rain fed river than the clear, shallow water we’d been fishing.
Warren thinks it has something to do with a footpath running close to the river in some parts and the fish become accustomed to the movement on the bankside.
If I spooked a fish I found that it would just move off station a little and return a short time after when it sensed the coast was clear. Jim and Warren told me that by easing yourself into a spot and waiting just a few minutes it would pay dividends and the fish would soon return.
Before the alarm bells start ringing and you think a footpath to be a downside don’t let it be. It wasn’t like some of the streams I have fished where you can be fishing quite happily and your concentration is broken when a dog takes to the air and lands in the pool you are casting into. The walkers here were not numerous, kept back from the water and were interested in how we were getting on. I didn’t see a dog in the water all day.
We watched Jim fish under a tree. He worked his fly into a deep pot near the tree roots. He put in a number of casts to a fish he could just about make out in the low light and we heard a “yes!” as he caught it.
Jim and Warren wanted me to fish a pool that was one of their favourites. As we walked upstream we saw an angler already fishing there. I would have thought it would have been a waste of time to follow him up it but we sat chatting for a while and once he was out of range we made our way to it.
I was fishing a pool that had just been worked over a short time before and I wasn’t really thinking this would be the banker I’d been told it was. It was only a handful of casts though and I hooked a fish that came off. A few more and I landed a grayling and offered the spot to Jim. He worked his magic and a few casts more and he too was playing a grayling. My go.
Dead drifting my flies had been the winning tactic for me throughout the day but I jigged my fly in an erratic manner on this drift to try and make it look a little different. On the second run through a grayling took. Jim hooked two more fish that came off that looked like brown trout.
This was from a spot that had only just been fished by another angler and had Warren fishing just a short distance upstream. It was pretty impressive and a testament to the numbers of fish in the river. It also made it clear that there is no need to split the fishing into beats; something I was a little unsure of when I was first told about it.
The light was starting to fade and Ian wanted a shot of the front of the hotel and so we headed back, got out of our waders, took some pictures and settled in the bar for some good coffee.
The Bull offers some great packages for anglers wanting to stay and fish including the Damsel Fly Package offering two nights B&B and one day of fishing from £120 and the Dragonfly Package that includes two nights Dinner, Bed and Breakfast and a day's fishing from £150 you can also purchase a second day of fishing at a reduced rate.
There is enough fishing that you could easily spend two days exploring the water.
Being only just over an hour from London it is easily reached and is a really nice alternative to the chalkstreams of Hampshire and at a great price.
Streams like this are a real find and somewhere I’d normally keep quiet about. That having been said, the sensible policy of limited rod numbers will mean that you will never be following in the footsteps of a huge amount of anglers. Good news for fishermen but also, more importantly, the fish too.
If you are a river angler wanting to try something different you really should consider fishing The Bull's water. It has plenty of variety that would suit all abilities of river angler from the newcomer to experienced. I really liked it. There is a damn fine guide there too!
So this Limestone Cowboy saddled up, tipped his hat and headed West knowing he’d be back again real soon. In the meantime I'll just have to watch (again...) Ian Mays superb video snap shot of our time on the river.
Please visit the Bull Hotel's website for more details HERE