Itchen for some Fishin!

My last blog entry was back in March, and told of a rather special day fishing for grayling before the previous season's end. Shortly after, I was quizzed by my in-laws about why I had written a blog about my fishing trips. They seemed to feel it was presumptious of me to believe that anyone would want to read it. I explained that I was prompted to write about my grayling fishing because it had taken me a couple of years of hard work and perseverance to get to a point where I could fish for Thymallus thymallus in a slightly less shabby way than previously. Remembering the effort and time spent on the "journey" to get to that place, I tried to pepper my blog entries with links about the flies and tactics I was using, different types of leaders, and indicators, and related websites/ articles written by and about those considerably more skilled than me. Truth be told, I'm still pretty average but that's good enough to gain reasonable amounts of satisfaction and pleasure from time spent by running water, rod in hand and hip flask in pocket. It was good to share, and my hope was that it might point others in the direction of useful resources to help put some of the puzzle pieces in place. I won't lie to you - I enjoy writing too! Where's the harm in that?

Well, 2013 has certainly seen much better conditions in this part of England than 2012, which was pretty ropey. I've longed to find some affordable river fishing for trout and have been fortunate enough to obtain a place in a small syndicate fishing a stretch of the Dorset Piddle. More about that another time! I also bid for and won a day's fishing on the upper Allen - also in Dorset, courtesy of the Wild Trout Trust Auction. I became a WTT member and urge others to do likewise. More about that another time, also! The upshot of all this is that I've done a reasonable number of days' fishing after a somewhat late start; it felt like spring forgot to set her alarm clock and overslept a little, but then awoke and burst into life.

Much of May was spent in the garden, and the benefit of the time and effort invested has been most rewarding - a breathtaking display of colours and unbelievably healthy-looking borders and beds with a not-too-shabby lawn. It has proved reasonably straightforward to keep this state of affairs going throughout the summer, thanks to much good advice from my mother-in-law! As autumn approaches we still have a spectacular display of all sorts of beautiful flora, and the number of bees and butterflies this has attracted into our garden has been a source of joy.

Very satisfactory!

For most of this season, I've been looking forward to a day on the Itchen, and that day finally arrived on Friday. The weather forecast had been for heavy and persistent rain, with an end to the prolonged period of predominately dry weather finally presenting itself. I'd arranged for a recent acquaintance to join me for the day - having discovered that he was a keen flyfisher, besides being my stepson's boss at The Pig. For my recent birthday, we'd been for an evening of drinks, dinner, drinks and more drinks at The Pig.

Tariq (my stepson) enjoying a special garnish on his cocktail (thanks, Duncan!

The staff looked after us magnificently. Thoroughly recommended! During the evening, Duncan had told me about his exploits as he fished his way around the world from South Africa, so the Itchen invitation was extended and duly accepted.

A river runs through it - honest!

This beat is a little atypical of what most people perceive a Hampshire chalkstream to be; as you can see from the above shot of Duncan in action, it is most definitely left a little more to its own devices than many others! Duncan and I agreed we both liked the slightly more unkempt look to our chalkstreams. The lush, verdant vegetation was matched only by the clarity of the water - despite the overcast and wet weather as we began, seeing and casting to individual fish was going to be the order of the day.

Slightly downstream presentation...but nobody minded!

Pausing only to gather up his enormous rucksack, Duncan fell into exactly the same pattern of behaviour as I did on my first few visits here. After a while, I left him to his own devices and wandered off further upstream to enjoy my Friday well and truly "out of the office".

A study in concentration

Duncan succeeded in tempting a number of trout and grayling to take his offerings, whilst I had enjoyed my visit  upstream to some spots I'd only fished in the autumn/ winter before. This beat is stocked, but still has a good head of wild brownies as well as a healthy population of grayling. Weather-wise the day also exceeded expectations as the rain held off and the sun made brief appearances at intervals. We'd agreed a point in time to meet for lunch - which promised to be a treat in itself.

Duncan laying out the lunch

As I'd arranged the fishing, Duncan insisted on laying on lunch, hip flask and beers. I very much enjoyed the Piddle Lot 71 IPA; Tony's Top Tip for Today - get yourself some of this unusual and very flavoursome ale - but be warned, it's 7.1% ABV!

Very civilised!

Talk over lunch was mainly fishing-related. Duncan's a keen flyfisher for pike, carp, bass and just about any other species you can think of. I confessed to being nervous about pike as if I caught one I wouldn't be confident of safely handling and quickly releasing/ returning it, but was certainly up for carp and bass.

Time was getting on, so we concluded lunch and resumed fishing. Fish were rising sporadically and it was difficult to determine what - if anything - was hatching. On a wild impulse, I decided to tie on a JT Olive, albeit a slight variant, tied by Gary Hyde for me. I know this is possibly more of an early season fly, but I liked the look of it so on went a slightly longer tippet and this fly.

I was casting at rises without generating much interest when I spotted a decent-sized shimmer of grayling on a clear patch of gravel. Out went the fly, nicely cast to land gently at exactly the spot intended - then I held my breath as the biggest of the shimmer came up for a look - but shied away at the last moment. A few more speculative casts met with no interest, so I decided to have a crack with the nymph. On went one of these, in pink. In no mood to muck about and with no evening rise to speak of, I felt that I'd like to catch a few more fish in order to go home content with my day.

For me, there followed the most intriguing part of the day. Sighting fish and casting the nymph at them, I would watch their reactions and react accordingly. Where this wasn't possible I'd watch the length of sighter material tied into my leader. With the clarity of the water, though, even as the light faded I could see the brightly coloured fly and grayling reacting to it. Inducing the take proved to be highly effective, and as the light faded still further I realised I'd reached both a point of contentment and the hour Duncan and I had previously agreed would close our day.

For the record, I had one wild brown trout of about a half pound, Duncan was delighted to catch the trout in the picture below, and several others, with numerous grayling to boot for both of us. We didn't weigh the trout pictured below, but the rod is my Streamflex Plus and the reel an X-Flite 3/4 wt. Duncan got on better with this Greys outfit than with my Scott - the Scott's action was a little on the slow side for such a High Octane Guy!

Lovely!

I was fortunate to share a few days last season in the company of Nicholas Steadman, and today's sharing of the experience with Duncan made for a thoroughly enjoyable day. Duncan's promised/ threatened to take me flyfishing for pike - which might make for an interesting blog entry if I manage to keep my fingers intact!

Oh, and just to finish, here's a recent picture of a very well-groomed and scrupulously clean pair of Border Terrierists; in deference to this blog's title it's only fair!

Hamish on the left, 2, and Ellie, right, 5 and a half!