2^nd Dec 01

Christmas was looming and I needed something to distract me from the dreaded shopping chore I must face at some time.

Andy Wren, manager of the Sharpes tackle shop in York St, Marylebone, was organising a grayling-fishing trip to the River Dever by Sutton Scotney, close to Winchester, Hampshire and I jumped at the chance.

I’d never fished for grayling before, which must have been apparent to the others in our group, but you are never too old to learn. When I do, I’ll let you know.

The location was Bullington Manor, a 2 1/2 mile stretch of chalkstream in very pretty countryside, with the obligatory mill-house and mill race.

I followed Andy to beat 1 by the mill-house. Frost covered the vegetation and mist hung over the water, reminiscent of a scene from a Victorian Christmas card. There was even a cock pheasant on the opposite bank to complete the picture as he watched me fish.

Beat 1, Bullington Manor         Andy stalking by the Millhouse

The river is approximately 5 metres wide and is between 30cm to 60cm deep. Water clarity was perfect, but glare and the overcast nature of the sky made fish spotting difficult from certain angles.

I spotted a small shoal right by the mill and cast to them with a size 18 Killerbug given to me by Andy. I just spooked them, so I changed to another bug pattern with a red tag and moved up the bank, casting to individual fish.

Suddenly, a great big oak tree sneaked up on me and took my fly and leader. It was high up and in the outermost branches, too slender to climb along, so I was forced to leave it there.

Switching to a goldhead hares ear, I immediately got a follow, but the fish could tell a fake close up and turned away. Further up the beat, the river narrows and a small bridge over a fast section of water showed a few good fish. I tried to cast to them, but low hanging branches over the water and behind made it a tricky task, even when side casting.

As I crossed the earth-covered bridge some nice-sized trout and grayling shot out from its cover and swam a little way upstream. They were too spooked to stay still when the fly was cast anywhere near them, so I carried on upstream.

Here I saw a large shoal of mainly small grayling around 15cm in length, but there were a few between 20cm to 30cm. None of these fish would stay still and it looked like they had seen a lot of artificial flies recently.

At this point I noticed a pair of waders sticking out from the bushes further up.

Introducing ourselves, John (drunken dun) and I worked our way back to the mill, where we tried once again for the grayling.

Presently, I heard an unhurried voice calling "Excuse me, could you give me a hand?" I looked back downstream and saw John was up to his thighs in deep silt in the river. It looked like hard gravel, but there are some deceptively soft areas. I had a landing net with me and managed to land him with it.

Just as we left to meet the others for lunch, I spotted a couple of rises, the first I’d seen all morning. Perhaps I should have stayed a little longer.

There was a BBQ at lunchtime with proper butchers sausages in rolls, washed down with Mick’s mulled wine (actually a mix of wine, port, brandy, rum, spices and some orange juice), several bottles of St.Emilion, poteen, malt whisky and armagnac.

After lunch, I was directed to beat 2 over a bridge and a couple of stiles.

Immediately on the beat I spotted a few decent grayling and cast the gold head fly to one. In a couple of seconds, it took the fly, but spat it out before my brain told me to strike. I tried a couple more casts there, but the fish became nervy and I moved on.

There were a lot more fish on this beat, but they all showed signs of nervousness whenever my fly drifted over them. Andy came along and suggested changing to one of Peter’s klinkhamer variants. It has a bright pink wing post, which I could see very easily. It floats beautifully too.

Andy and Mick passed by and caught a fish in a deeper pool some 40 metres on by a bend in the river.

A little later John B joined me and we targeted several good-sized grayling, but could not raise them. As it got darker, John left and Mick stopped for a while on his way back. He had a couple of grayling earlier. We could see a couple of very nice fish in the pool, but they were not interested.

It was almost dark by the time we got back to the fishing hut around 4pm, so we had another go at the unfinished lubrication. Sitting by the river with a heavy dew falling gently on us, we yarned and joked until the liquid fire was consumed and we could no longer see each other in the black night.