Kris Kent not only gives us a grayling story but also throws in a fish recipe too.
For those of you expecting an exciting recipe for fish soup, prepare to be disappointed.
We fancied a day out fishing for the ‘lady of the stream’. The trout season had closed and the grayling were calling. Charles tried Lower Itchen, fully booked. I tried Wherwell, fully booked. Rochiene thought she had someone booked in so couldn’t commit to us coming. Things weren’t looking promising and to make matters worse the weather forecast was for heavy rain all week and high winds for Friday. Wednesday I was heading up to town for the Wild Trout Trust Conservation Awards and on route I made a few calls to see if anyone had any day tickets available or any ideas on where to go. I drew a blank. I was starting to think we would have to cancel what little of a plan we had. At the awards I was chatting to Andy and mentioned my problem. “Why don’t you try the free fishing on the …..” came the reply. I didn’t even know there was any free fishing on the …. Andy had never fished the water and was a bit fuzzy on where it started and finished but it was start.
Urban fly fishing and free fly fishing are becoming more popular thanks to the likes of Theo Pike and his wonderful book ‘Trout in Dirty Places’. But this river isn’t in his book. Was it a completely undiscovered treasure or a fish desert?
Trout in dirty places
Theo Pike's "Trout in Dirty Places"
is available from his website:
http://www.theopike.com/
I called Charles to run Andy’s idea up the flagpole. He was up for the challenge. Arrangements were made for Friday's rendezvous. I found a car park just off the high street close to the river and paid for my ticket. I’d arrived an hour before I said I’d meet Charles to give me chance to do some reconnaissance. There was a broad section near the car park where the duck feeders were busy feeding the assorted wild fowl. I wandered over to take a look. It didn’t look promising so I made my way upstream. Where the main road crossed the river I peered over the railing. Despite the heavy rains the water was low and clear, the river bed bright clean gravel, weed swayed in the current. It looked wonderful. And then they appeared from below the bridge. A large shoal, yes I said shoal, of brown trout. The biggest was the best part of two pounds. One rose and plucked something from the surface before they slipped back under the bridge. After a moment or two I started breathing again. I crossed the bridge and looked upstream. It looked wild and unkempt, perfect trout and grayling territory. Casting might be a challenge in amongst the trees and bushes. Then I saw a small olive hatch off and another fish rise well upstream. Even more promising. I wandered back into town and followed the river downstream. No signs prohibiting fishing anywhere. Access wasn’t always easy but everywhere I looked there were fish. Lots of small trout and grayling and every now and then something a bit chunkier. It was nearly time to meet Charles so I made my way back to the car park. As I passed the previously unpromising duck pool I started to see the trout and grayling sitting under the ducks, obviously picking up the odds and sods of bread the ducks missed.
"You know you've disturbed trout, they just run away"
As Charles climbed out of his car I announced the river was ‘fish soup’. He looked excited. We strung up a six foot two weight rod and started with a dry fly above the road bridge. Nothing much was rising but there were olives hatching off sporadically. As we worked upstream carefully threading casts between the overhanging boughs we started to see the fish sitting on the gravels. They were everywhere. The only problem was that in the low clear waters they also saw us. Before we could cover them effectively most had dived for cover in the abundant weed or in under the banks.
Charles switched to a small unweighted pheasant tail nymph and caught a small out of season brown trout. We were starting to run out of river. The trees were closing in and the reeds where crowding us out. In under the trees Charles suddenly stopped in his tracks. It was an impossible cast but right under the tree a very large grayling was sitting motionless. With trout you know you’ve disturbed them because they run away. Grayling, and particularly big grayling, will just sit there if spooked. This one just sat there.
We retreated to the cars and moved to another car park a few hundred yards downstream. The river flows past a large retail park with ample parking and it seemed easier than walking through town in waders etc. We followed the path downstream looking for an access point. A young man stopped us and showed us where to go. Turns out Andy wasn’t the only one who knew about the fishing. This young man was a keen fly fisherman and knew the stretch well. We extracted as much information as we could from him before he had to head home. The olive hatch was a little heavier by now and a few more fish were starting to show. We alternated between an olive emerger and the pheasant tail nymph and started to pick up the grayling we were looking for. As we stood and scanned upstream for rising fish Charles remarked that it was as lovely a stretch of chalkstream as any of those we could have paid £40 to fish that day and with far more fish. He wasn’t wrong.
Despite the houses to one side and the retail park to the other once we were focused on our fly the hubbub of the town evaporated away just leaving us with a perfect stretch of chalkstream.
We weren’t catching lots of fish but all the ones we did catch were fin perfect and absolutely beautiful, especially the grayling.
Towards the top of this section there was a shallow weir, the remnant of an ages old structure its purpose long forgotten. Below the weir the gravel was scoured away. In the shallow scrape, no bigger than a child’s paddling pool, we could see a shoal of grayling milling around. The wind was picking up, the light was fading and our parking tickets were almost up so this would be our final few casts of the day. Charles and I both tried pitching nymphs up into the pool but to no avail. We had probably herded some smaller fish up into the pool and spooked them before we could cast to them. As we backed off one of the shoal turned and ambled downstream past us. It was a good two pounds, broad shouldered and pewter grey. As we made our way back to the cars we pushed a brown trout, of at least the same size, out from under the bank.
We had spent five hours on the river and it had cost us £7 for car parking. We had a fabulous time on a beautiful stretch of chalkstream with one of the highest densities of fish we have ever experienced. To paraphrase Arnie, ‘We’ll be back’.
For more information on Urban Fly Fishing visit Theo Pike’s website:
http://www.theopike.com/
For those of you disappointed by the lack of Fish Soup recipe, go to:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/fish_soup
Biography:
Kris Kent has been fly fishing and trotting for brown trout and grayling for over 20 years in the UK, Europe and Scandinavia. He is PR Officer for the Grayling Society and helps out The Wild Trout Trust with their online communications and events.