Tackling up in front of the trout lake30 October 2005
You could view this day as good or bad, depending on your natural disposition.
This being the last Sunday in October, I should have put my clock back one hour the previous evening, but I didn’t.
I got up at 6am and headed off to Hampshire to fish the Test for grayling again.
It was only when I passed the Welcome break service station on the M3 that I remembered. I would have loved an extra hour in bed, but then I thought, it also gives me an extra hour fishing.
I stopped for a quick coffee on the A303 and then kitted up for an hour’s fishing before Hughie rustled up some breakfast.
My old chest waders were now guaranteed to leak, so I left them at home and took my rubber thigh waders instead.
The weather was warm and very pleasant. Even better, it was quite overcast.
I fished the lower carrier and within a few minutes got into a glide with a good pool in front of it. Casting upstream with a Czech nymph I suddenly felt wet in the left leg. I’d not bothered to tie in the loop to my belt and the wader had sagged down a foot and was underwater. It filled up before I could do anything, so continued covering the pool until I’d taken 3 grayling and a brown trout.
Emptying out the boot on the bank, I carried on fishing until breakfast, catching another 2 grayling, one over 14” and a good 2lb brownie.
Back at the hut, I joined the other club anglers, a pretty international bunch and many I’d not met before.
Some were fishing the river and others were here to fish the trout lake.
Tackling up in front of the trout lake
Hughie asked if I would take John an American living in London and show him the river. I warned John he would have to do some walking and he was game for it.
By now, the water had been covered by anglers for at least half an hour and the fish were noticeably spooky.
I found us some good stretches to fish and lots of good grayling in them. There were also lots of big brownies still evident and I saw one clear the water in front of me, estimated at around 6lb in weight.
Despite being surrounded by grayling I had real difficulty getting them to take. The water was much lower than usual and very clear. Casting upstream, I watched as several grayling followed a selection of artificial nymphs down past me and reject them. Eventually I took a 12” grayling on a pink shrimp pattern and John had a nice brownie.
We then hiked off to the lower carrier for a short spell before lunch. It was raining by now and the wind rose too. By the time we reached the carrier, the rain was horizontal and quite torrential. I left John to fish the section below a weir and made my way to a bridge with a large school of big and very difficult fish.
I crept up to the bank and hid behind a clump of reed. Peeking through the reeds I saw the school tight into the bank. Casting just 5 feet upstream I drifted the pink shrimp past them. On the 4th attempt I took a hard fighting fish which I landed downstream. It was only 12”, but was in excellent condition. After that, the others scattered up and downstream so I packed up and headed back to the hut for lunch. John had picked up yet another brownie above the weir.
Lunch was slabs of roast beef with mashed potato, marrowfat peas and gravy.
We wandered over to the village in the afternoon, stopping at a pool below a weir and dropped nymphs into the turbulence. After a few minutes of this, John had another brownie which fought well. From the village, we worked our way back upstream. I surveyed the first stretch while John was stationed at the confluence of two carriers.
John fishing the lower carrier
There were a lot of fish in the stretch, mainly brownie though and very jittery.
John was casting to a lot of fish in the pool at the confluence, but although they were following, they were rejecting his fly. I moved up to the weir, but someone else was already there. I fished it for a few minutes after he left until I was joined by John. He had a jubilant look about him; he had caught his first grayling, a good 14” too.
I took a good brownie in a tiny scour below a bridge and another grayling around 12” in deeper water.
Passing a long stretch of deep water, I spotted a large shape on the bottom. It was a pike around 3 feet long. We did try to tempt it with nymphs, but it was not interested. I’m certain it was asleep, so John gave it a poke with his rod and it shot off at a terrific speed, but not far.
Dusk was falling by the time we made the fishing hut after a lovely sunset.
