Monthly Archives: October 2010

OXFORDSHIRE

25 Monday Oct 2010

Posted by in Oxfordshire

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Oxfordshire streams are predominantly coarse and such game fishing as is available is tightly controlled  and day ticket access is very limited. So I was intrigued to note that the Orvis catalogue shows that their store in Burford has water. A telephone call to Keith Passant and a ticket was secured for the modest sum of £25, on a river where, when fishing with Steve Webster the day before on the Chess, I learned that brown trout were plentiful, and that he, a member of a small syndicate upstream of Burford, had learned that the mayfly were up and he was to fish his beat the same day as I was to fish –

May 2010 – the WINDRUSH

 

Burford is the most picturesque market town full of Cotswold stone shops and houses, and a mecca for tourists offering local fare from a number of small restaurants and bars, and boutique-y stores. And the Orvis store offers visitors its classic range of country wear as the main attraction, with the fishing store upstairs at the back of the building, which is where I found Keith in mid stock take.

The shop has three tickets on the Burford AC water which flows upstream and downstream of the town bridge offering about a mile of fishing. Keith is a real enthusiast and stressed that their hope was only that visiting anglers had fun, and by “whatever method” they choose….which made me suspicious ! He offered me a beat map and helpfully indicated the fish holding areas, alerted me to where tourists might be a problem, then sold me some mayflies (with ease!)

A stroll upstream from the bottom of the beat revealed a channel below muddy sided elevations of ten feet or so and sandy muddy bottom and little weed or other cover except for the odd fallen tree. Then shallows and gravel runs which was repeated a couple of times, interspersed by a wide bend with the inevitable deep pool scoured out by winter flood rush.

These pools hold trout I have no doubt, but it’s May and I am seeking fly life and rising fish, and a purist, my preference is to fish the dry fly, and few are moving, except for small fish, and I manage to take two on CdC olive in the hot afternoon sun from a riffle.

Walking in full chest wader Gortex, and quite conspicuously through the town to the upstream beat, I went to its head, but apart from a small weir pool where I tempted a small grayling, the rest of this water resembles a coarse river and is canal-like….

HEREFORDSHIRE

25 Monday Oct 2010

Posted by in Hereford

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Midlands Fly Fishers is a private club of sixty anglers, who for the reasonable sum of £400 every year have some 12 miles of beats on rivers in the Severn and Wye catchment areas, including the smaller, more intimate Lugg and Onny, and also on the Welsh Dee, and so a plethora of opportunities to target our four major salmonids. Only the Onny beat is stocked so it is wild brown heaven ! In addition, this area between the West Midlands and the Welsh Marches is teeming with small brooks and larger streams, such as the Teme the Arrow.

David Thompson is a workaholic, a serial Director, a colleague on the Court of the Worshipful Company of Brewers….and an outdoorsman and angler, whose preferred headwear is the beret (there is a row of them, hooked along a picture rail in the hallway of Albrighton Hall !!) who dresses to fish in a blue boiler suit, was quick to grasp the point of my mission, and immediately bought into it and offered to take me onto a river where it forms the boundary of Shropshire and Herefordshire so that I could score in “two counties with one fish!”

Good man !!

June 2010 – the LUGG

By reputation the Lugg is difficult to get onto because its waters are protected for club and syndicate. But David invited me stay, and after an evening on the Worfe which runs through one of his farms it was partridge for dinner cooked by Marika, and washed down with Palmer 81…’great life, init?’  Then off under grey skys and through Ludlow and into Herefordshire, chatting easily and unbroken for an hour until we reached Mortimer Cross.

We split up, and David’s advice was to work upstream crisscrossing…he spotted midges and recommended black gnat as a starter fly. I saw a rise…and crisscrossed…battling through wet bankside mud, and Himalayan Balsam, to a bend in the river. I, lazily, still had tied on the Tups from the previous evening, and two casts later I had my Herefordshire brown. Now…why did he take it? I read an article recently that such is the decline in fly life that trout are becoming less fussy…this may be true.

Moving on upstream, I encountered runs and riffles and  bends below which were many and seemingly deep pools. There were few fish moving and clearly they were lurking in the deeps, but true to my Halfordian principles and practices, and in spite of the obvious temptations, not a nymph was tied even though I knew they were there, and for the taking.

The river here was wooded and was accessed by treading carefully, hands and rod upstretched through fields of nettles as high as a man. It took too long to realise that the occasional white posts were there for a reason !This lovely stretch opens up some one mile upstream. Here the river meanders gently through open meadows, and with a cloudy sky, the fish were feeding, although rises were infrequent. Here, David and I caught up, and both took a brace.

Thank you, Hereford….thank you, the Lugg….thank you,  David.

We ventured to the Onny, to try to capture the second county of the day, but were thwarted by the colouration of heavy overnight rains coming off the Cambrian mountains. So I must  wait to add Shropshire until next season!

GREATER LONDON

24 Sunday Oct 2010

Posted by in Greater London

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I met William Tall during the mayfly season, when we were both invited by Paul Jennings to fish his beat on the Chess.

William is an expert fly fisher, a knowledgeable naturalist with a keen interest in fly life, and stalwart of the Wandle Piscators,  www.wandlepiscators.net

I was fascinated to hear of the work that he and his team have undertaken along with members of the Wandle Trust www.wandletrust.org , on a river which was renowned in the 18th century, as one of the most prolific trout streams in England. Its demise, through the years of the Industrial Revolution is well chronicled, with up to 100 mills in its meagre 9 miles from rising in Carshalton, to entering the Thames at Wandsworth. Its ill treatment by modern man is less well acknowledged, but attempts to improve the water quality and its aquatic wildlife this Millennium, by these two organisations, have been recognised, even if there have been setbacks, plus major chemical pollution in 2007, which killed hundreds (thousands) of fish. Recently, trout have been introduced to the river in an imaginative scheme for school age children – “Trout in the Classroom”, and trout fry have been found upstream near the old  Shipley Mill earlier this year, motivating all involved with thoughts of recovery.

Explaining my ‘mission’ and admitting that in spite of walking his river in winter months searching out likely water, I was finding his river a mystery, William kindly offered to guide me to where he thought I might find success. He, like me, is semi-retired, and was able to dedicate a whole day to wandering and casting.

September 2010 – the Wandle

Kitting up in waders in a superstore car park adjacent to a busy London street was always going to amuse some, and it did! But fortified by William’s reassuring smile, and armed with my new Loomis, off we strode across said street and into Wandle Bank, past the John Brown Partnership factory site and round the old Merton Mill (a flour mill, once owned by Scot, James Perry, owner of the Morning Chronicle, a then 18th century Private Eye, but daily!). William said that brown trout and a sea trout, had recently been taken from the mill run.

A Halfordian, I persisted with a dry for a while, but William knows of few trout caught on the surface, so I switched to a weighted pheasant tail nymph, but to no avail. So we waded on upstream toward Merton High Street, stopping and chatting to interested locals who wanted to talk about pollution, wild life, and who I sensed were relieved to think that fishing suggested their river was more healthy than they thought. We bent double to creep under the road bridge (“hope you don’t mind spiders!” asked William) to cast into the waters where   Charles Rangeley- Wilson was filmed for the ‘Accidental Angler’

The river is alive. Walking to a Merton Abbey pub, we encountered a young angler who had just caught a whopping big gudgeon of five inches ( the British record is five ounces from the Wiltshire’ Nadder), and whose blog, which William had read, recorded his catch of a 5 lb. carp the previous week.

Later we drove to Poulter Park – where we bumped into some coarse anglers, some of whom had, that day, caught trout in this stretch, where some fish in the ‘Trout in the Classroom’ project had been released. We both fished below the inlet from the Water Purification plant to above the weir some one yards downstream, but for no fish.

Odd that the coarse anglers were not trying for trout and caught them, and I was trying for trout, and……!!!?  Maybe I should try trotting some maggots down that stretch?

There followed a short walk and wade toward Goat Mill (where I caught a bleak and a small barbel on the dry earlier this summer), but no fish there today, either!

Days later, William sent me a note, with an attachment. A picture of The Piscator’s Senior Vice President, Theo Pike, with his first trout from Poulter Park….what a tease (?)….I will be back, soonest, and I told William that he would be the first to know.

Later –

Almost two weeks after my day with William, and on a dull grey day, with drizzle in the air, temperatures in the mid teens, Autumn calling, and when I really felt like staying home, but with only three days before the end of the season, I dashed down to Mitcham Common for one last try, and on the Poulter Park stretch. There was a little colour in the water after overnight rains but I took that to be ‘a good thing’. I strode, purposefully, to the weir for a few casts, but I had a plan. It was there first, but for nothing, and then back to the inlet area.

It was 1030am on Tuesday 28th.

I was fishing a weighted pheasant tail nymph, and using my Moreno bamboo rod.

Three casts into the fast water and a take…but it was off!

Was it a trout…who knows, but I was encouraged.

More casts…and still more casts…a longer line and casts further into the quicker stream.

A snag on the back cast…damn!  Release it, quickly, for I am motivated !!

Another, but longer cast still…and …BANG!!…another take.

But this fish is well hooked, and after a strong fight….I have a Greater London brownie in my net.

Two photographs and he is returned to breed and help to rebuild the brood stock on this recovering water.

Some would have fished on. My feelings of accomplishment [‘job done’], or pure joy/relief, but probably gratitude, to this lovely urban stream, and with such a noble history,…said to me – “No, go home”   And I did.

But my first act when back at Tonka Too, was to ‘Blackberry’ William, with – “I told you, you would be the first to know…”

His generous reply was – “Congratulations Tony, That’s a lovely Wandle trout and you are now a member of a pretty select band of fly fishers.  Some of the Wandle Piscators members have been trying for years to catch a Wandle trout on a fly.”

The season is ended. Perhaps this lovely fish is the most memorable of my year.

There are few opportunities to catch a London trout, and with help, I have caught one.

I am truly ‘chuffed’.

And I can’t wait for April next year….I am now off to do some serious plotting.

Post script – there is a lovely article posted on Jack Gartside’s website.www.jackgartside.com/art_christmas_queen.htm . (Whilst sadly gone, his site is being maintained by friends) I went to search out what he had found, just in case. The said moat is now gravelled in, and an enquiry to an English Heritage representative in the Jewel Tower, revealed that the moat disgorged itself into the underground car park, used by Parliamentarians, in Abingdon Street, in the early nineties. Jack would have smiled at that…but the trout were gone!


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LINCOLNSHIRE

23 Saturday Oct 2010

Posted by in Lincolnshire

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The FishPal website identified the River Bain, a chalkstream, but not how to access it.

The Fly Fishing Forums website led me to Robert Gibson-Bevan, who listened enthusiastically to my plans and invited me to fish his syndicate’s beat near South Thoresby. It’s a long drive to north Lincolnshire from London and after leaving the A1 near Spalding the trip was slowed by agricultural vehicles and more, but to a Southerner the Fens were a revelation. I discovered and decided that there is true beauty in mile after mile of flatness, and no chalk stream in prospect until after hitting higher ground north of West Keal.

I met Robert north of Spilsby and off we drove to the beat on –

May 2010 – the Great Eau

An entrepreneur, ex-City type and outdoorsman and organiser of shooting and fishing, professionally, he refused any payment, such is the interest that fishers have in my quest. He carefully walked the top end of the beat, explaining that he had put me on to the “prettier” parts.

My letter of thanks to Robert (he does not ‘do’ email!), hopefully said it all –

Dear Robert

My grateful thanks to you for generously indulging me in my pursuit and enabling me to add Lincolnshire to my ‘List’ which I duly have !

The weather was kind to me. After you left (and thank you for the short tutorial which on a new river, like a golf course, is always welcome), I walked to the bottom of the beat. It was frustrating to see fish rising below the bridge, and therefore ‘off limits’ but encouraging too. So I jettisoned the nymph set up in favour of the dry fly, or more specifically an olive emerger, size 18 with CdC hackle, a favourite of mine. I had two fish quite quickly, and spent the next three hours slowly casting my way upstream, enjoying the remarkably different pools, bends, and riffles, and really enjoying fishing the very intimate stream that the Great Eau is. There were no members about so I had the whole river to myself, and I connected and netted seven fish. I missed loads….they are quick, and must all have been wild. They are canny and shoot out from under bank or weed, growth of which even from a late Spring, is enough for plenty of cover already.

I enjoyed the stretch where you and the WTT did some narrowing work some years ago. I arrived there during a hatch and had three, and all were fin perfect. They were no net breakers, just beautiful fish up to ten inches or so.I did drive through Claythorpe to check out the river below the Mill, and I thank you for putting me onto beat one, because a perfunctory view of that water suggested a beat of more mixed fishery than higher up (although I am probably wrong about that), and I feel I had the very best that the Great Eau can offer.

And so with renewed thanks and best regards


 

LEICESTERSHIRE

23 Saturday Oct 2010

Posted by in Leicestershire

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There are few trout streams in Leicestershire, and when an opportunity to fish the Gopsall Flyfishing Club’s water was posted for bids on their 2010 Fishing Auction by the Wild Trout Trust, I spent part of the last evening for online bids, placing and upping mine, but ultimately was unsuccessful by a meager £5!  Thanks to my internet guru, Peter Little, I now know how success is achieved through this system, but am too mean to reveal this until after next year’s event.

Not to be outdone, I connected with the Gopsall Club via their website www.gopsallfishingclub.org.uk suggesting that if they could accommodate me, I would make a donation to the WTT, in the same sum as my bid. And Secretary, Mark Owen responded – “Am sure something can be arranged”

Our first attempt to meet in August was foiled by heavy overnight rains two day before, and new arrangements were agreed by phone and two Mondays later, it was up early and onto the M40/42 to meet Mark.

September 2010 – the Sence

Like in so much of Britain, when you leave the motorways on which we depend, there are interesting places to see. From the road to our assigned meeting place, I could have diverted to Appleby Magna, or to Sheepy Parva, or even to Norton-Juxta-Twycross, and I felt like a Medieaval traveller. This was warring territory for I was not that far from Bosworth, and the site of civil horrors in Cromwellian times. Now all is peaceful except for the trundling of monster tractors and 12-wheelers taking bales of dried grasses to winter storage.

There was a blustery easterly wind about making casting impossible on the first stretch that Mark took me to. But this early part of our encounter enabled me to learn a lot about him. A commodity trader (oil) and committed country man, he is already a major contributor to the Club’s improvement programme, which had begun with assistance from the EA, and grant monies from amongst others’ the WTT. His love for this project led to his taking a course in Environment Management (of waters) at the University of Derby, and then opportunistically, having left the trading world, he was offered a key role in the newly formed, Anglers Trust, as their Environmental Campaigns Manager, with his important role sponsored by the WWF. For his work on the Sence, he has been honoured with the award for Best  Amateur Conservation Project by Orvis/WTT in 2007. Working the riverbank with him is like listening to a walking encyclopaedia, and is completely fascinating. His love for what he is doing is inspiring.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

His river has a head of wild trout and is stocked with 800 triploid browns each year.

It has a small coarse fish population, too.

We drove to a part of the Club’s 5kms of water where he knew we would be sheltered from the wretched wind. We saw fish for the first time, but they were probably dace or grayling, an introduced species, and another part of the improvement programme. There was no fly life and I was nymphing with a gold headed PTN, but apart from one distinct pull, I was attracting nought, and when it was well past noon, the pub called!

In the afternoon, and whilst the temperature stayed around 17c. the wind was up again and we fished a tight stretch where we were bombarded by leaves and sizeable twigs. Below a small weir, I could attract no interest from the pool and I lost a cast in an overhanging branch. Jerking it free, I found that I had lost my braided leader and had no choice but to tie a new leader around a knot made at the end of the flyline. I reasoned that the folk in Africa had no need for sophisticated Loomis kit, nor perfectly tied polycarbon this and that, and are better fishermen than me without it, so I pressed on. And only minutes later, and casting into a run below a line of rocks angled across the river, below an alder, I felt a tug from only inches of water, and in seconds I netted a little beauty of eight inches or so. I felt humbled….but lucky to have been guided and with success by the expert who is Mark.


We spent the remainder of our time together, just wandering along his river, whilst he gave me a tutorial on bank management technique. The work that has been done by this 35 strong Club is impressive. Nettle beds have been cut back and willow saplings have been planted. Quality fencing has been built to widen the bankside margin and contain cattle invasion, new bridges placed, structures have been installed to narrow channels and speed flows, exposing gravel beds and improving weed growth, and importantly, creating spawning areas.

Mark is also very busy with the Anglers Trust. This new enterprise harnesses the separate influences of eight smaller bodies into a better, bigger body representative of our pastime.

From his explanations, I know from my own experience in the world of Public Affairs, that this is a good move, and it clearly has the ear of DEFRA officials. I hope that Government cutbacks which will be revealed next month, will not be detrimental to their endeavours.

When we parted, and with respect for what the Anglers Trust is doing I gave Mark a cheque for them, and I have sent the WTT a cheque, too…..next year, with my new knowledge, I hope to secure some other interesting rivers to fish in the WTT Auction catalogue !

LANCASHIRE

23 Saturday Oct 2010

Posted by in Lancashire

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Excluding visits, normally business related, to the Counties of Merseyside and Greater Manchester, until 1974, a part of Lancashire, my ‘experience’ of this county, probably like that of so many, has been limited to the M6 motorway!     So you can imagine my surprise when I discovered the glorious country which is the Duchy of Lancaster…owned by Her Majesty.

Here are high rolling grass covered hills which cover vast tracts and the scenery and vistas reveal a completely inspiring panorama, but with the Pennine grey cloud swirling, there was an autumnal feel to my August arrival and a damp atmosphere which suggested rain was not far away.

I was headed for Whitewell, or more specifically, ‘The Inn at Whitewell’.

This is a traditional and very comfortable and popular hotel in the middle of ‘nowhere’ and serving delicious food, and has a well stocked cellar.

Peter Ward is a drinks industry veteran of great renown, but more recently, having bought Burtonwood Brewery, a major independent contract brewer, and probably the best producer/bottler of beers and products in typically beer containers. He is also a colleague on the Court of The Worshipful Company of Brewers, and supplier to one of my ‘client’ companies.

So, it was not too difficult to arrange a strategic review, and business opportunity seeking session…but only after the rise was over! And, Peter has thirty years experience of these waters, and there could be no better guide, as he proved to be.

Through crab salad lunch, Peter was enthusing about the prospect of rain. For he is as passionate a salmon and sea trout man, as I am about browns, and he knew that freshwater would encourage them to move.

August 2010 – the Ribble

The Edisford Hall Fishing Syndicate has water at Great Mitton which is owned by a Bury businessman and has 40 members. The river here is 15 miles from the sea, it is 120ft wide, rock and pebble bottomed, wade-able, and the water is peaty brown. The fishing book advised that this week (and it was Tuesday!) a salmon, as well as a sea trout, browns and grayling had been caught by the three members who preceded us.

Peter was seeking sea trout fishing light with a Butcher and netted two browns. Fishing down the pool in blustery winds which made casting difficult, I had pulls, but was fishing more delicately (my 5    piece Greys Missionary 8’ 3” 5wt) with a spider on the dropper and  bead head PTN on the point.

But the real excitement was to see seatrout leaping and splashing noisily in the margins….in daylight!

Peter, trying very hard to help me net a Lancastrian trout, suggested we moved upstream to fish the Bridge Pool. The ‘bridge’ is an extraordinary construction over which is laid four pipes of 36” width, within which is pumped enough water to furnish the needs of the whole of West Lancashire. The bridge is a major concrete build, and goodness knows what it cost….it is the size of a cross motorway bridge…and as Peter alluded, “why is there no walkway across it for we anglers?”, for it is surrounded in fencing and wiring.

But, above it, and armed now with one of his Butchers, and a convincing “there is one in front of that rock”, I cast a couple of tiles, and wallop!! “I told you” Peter shouted, excited, that my mission, which he bought into with such enthusiasm, was about to be accomplished. And after a good struggle, a brown of about1 1/2lb was netted, by him.

And we discovered that whilst the Butcher may have been the attractor, he took the yellow spider on the dropper! Hard work, but good fun.

 

 

 

And so back to the Inn for some serious business!

Until the next morning….

–      the Hodder

The hotel offers day tickets to residents, for a reasonable £30, on its eight miles of river.

The river is reservoir fed and holds it height with good water management, and in spite of rains, was clear, and peaty in colour.

Having ‘broken my duck’ yesterday, I was happy to follow Peter’s lead this morning and do something different (for me) and try for a sea trout.

Suitably Buthcher-ed and protected from the early day drizzle, we walked the beat and Peter generously put me onto a stretch where has had success, and where there was a report of a salmon, just yesterday. The wading was complicated by the colour, and some rocks had to be negotiated with care, with algae adding to their slippery challenge. A pull with my third cast was probably a trout, and casting lazily to the far bank for an hour, I did as Peter advised but to no avail. A solitary kingfisher was my early morning highlight.

I was always interested in the run just below the hotel. There was fast water streaming through a narrow run, below and to the far side of which, time had etched out a back eddy where Peter was sure a sea trout or salmon would lie/rest. A rise in the foam was enough to encourage me to detune and with a PTN on the point, and an Usk Nailer (Jimmy would be proud!) on the dropper, I was after, and soon into, browns….five in all. And all were taken from that spot, casting right into the foam, and also just below it, whilst surrounded by the extracted breakfast frying odours of the Inn’s kitchen. Hmmm!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And it rained, again and stopped….and it rained again,(lucky, Peter!) and didn’t, so at noon, and after three hours of fun, it was off to Staffordshire.

Peter has fished these waters for thirty years….it shows. I hope we will fish again.

WEST SUSSEX

23 Saturday Oct 2010

Posted by in West Sussex

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You would think that with several Sussex rivers famed for their run of sea trout (the June 2010 edition of ‘Trout & Salmon’ carries a reminiscence of 50 years of fishing the River Ouse by Gordon Vindell) that these also must have a head of browns. Most have but they seem scarce. The Barcombe beats on the Ouse have some, but the AC allows fishing only for sea trout after April 30th. Andrew Woolley (Ouse APS) was more than helpful and directed me to the Sussex Ouse Conservation Society website, which in turn led me to Paul Sharman, and then to Dave Champness, who is Hon. Sec. of the Balcombe Fly Fishers, who wrote, and with an invitation to be his guest for an afternoon –

“The river is narrow and cutting through clay, has high banks. The fishing therefore is by wading only, and using 7ft rods. You would be lucky to cast 20ft, so you will need to be stealthy, cautious and accurate with your casting, as there are numerous trees, bushes and bankside veg to get hung up on. The river is a few miles north of Cuckfield, and just south of Balcombe. We are a little upstream of the famous Ouse viaduct.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

June 2010 – the Ouse

 

Wow! Was he right? At his beat the river is 10–15 ft wide and flows through a channel of steeply sided, clay sticky banks covered in nettle and is accessed by sliding precariously downward, at the odd location via ladder, or by abseiling holding onto knotted ropes ! Exiting is by one of the latter two, or by scrambling.

The fishing club stocks the river with 100 or so fish of up to 1lb., a couple of times a year and there are wild fish in the headwaters of the club’s one mile long beat, where only some of the bankside vegetation has been cleared and where access is limited. Stocked or not, the fish are very easily spooked!

On our arrival there were fish rising either side of the bridge, but to what? There was little fly life, just the very odd mayfly and a couple of dark olives, and we concluded they were taking emergers and just sub-surface. Dave and I walked upstream, stopping and slithering down into fishable runs but to avail. Until returning to the bridge pool where after many changes of fly, a good trout was lost at the net but another netted soon after fishing a paradun emerger. We walked to the end of the beat, and in spite of seeing several fish rising to Mays, none were tempted ! So, only one fish for four hours of trying…but…

mission accomplished, and in most trying circumstances !

Dave Champness is a nice man. He is recovering from a nasty bout of cancer to the throat, and has had many months in hospital whilst being treated, and ours was only his second visit to ‘his’ river in four years. A finance man who sadly, and I would say, unfairly, lost his job whilst unwell, he was once with Oddbins and retains a keen interest in drink products (he is passionate about wines and malt whisky, or Scottish tea as he calls it) and I am trying to connect him to the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) for whom I am sure he would be a very capable ambassador.

BUCKINGHAMSHIRE

23 Saturday Oct 2010

Posted by in Buckinghamshire

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My business life took me to Initial Services’ owned Latimer Mews Conference Centre, several times in the nineties, and a busy bee, I could only look and lust at the tiny chalk stream within a couple of well struck four-irons at the bottom of the hill. I could never resist stopping next to the road bridge on its approach to look over its walls and wonder.

The web reveals so much but not without endeavour. The fishery nearby offered no access; a Google Map search (satellite page) showed Chenies Manor House whose gardens are open to the public, but were not when I emailed them asking whether they knew how I might access the river which was at least adjacent to their property if not a part of it.

Joy on joy…Susan Brock put me in touch with a certain Paul Jennings who “would help me”, and how !?

May 2010 – the CHESS

Paul, clearly most generous by nature, quickly grasped where I was going, and our first conversation by phone (me in the car park of the famous pub, the Talbot in Ripley) suggested kindred spirits, and he also seeks to fish as much of the UK as I wish to, and is actively seeking new but chosen clubs to join. There was no hesitation, rather, “come quickly…the hawthorns drive our trout mad!”

I was in Lincoln (where I had just added the Great Eau to my list) when a text message came through asking whether “tomorrow could work?” Well, it was to be on my way home, so the dye was cast, and at 3pm the next day I arrived and parked next to a Volvo where our companion fisher was waiting, too – William Tall, a founder of the Wandle Piscators ! (strike two, maybe….an expert on a greater London legendary stream which has known better times, but who better to advise me where chances are best!)

When Paul arrived, he did so at the same time as his chum, Steve Webster, who I now know is one of the three “owners” of one mile of this pristine chalk stream. Steve “guided” me before grandchild-sitting responsibility took him away. In that interim, I must have failed to impress Steve with my casting ability, losing several of his flies…they were, he claimed “infallibles”, but when I did land them on the water they were ignored by every fish I was casting to, and I had to remind myself that fishing is a pastime and not a competitive sport, but this was hard for a competitive animal when I saw William upstream and already into good fish !

But it must have been Steve’s (negative) influence, for when he had to leave for his ‘baby sitting’ duties, and Paul came back downstream for a chat, that things changed. A rise, a cast, and a missed fish, albeit to the ‘infallible’, and then my first fish, and a second…and just above a groin we both saw a fish move. Casting to him was obviously going to be difficult, because the rush of water through the middle of the construction left little chance for a reasonable presentation. But…the ‘fella’ was feeding, and in the short moment before the drag would kill any prospect of a take…he did. WW3 broke out…he went angrily upstream, then turned and rushed downstream through the middle of the angled groin and into flowing water which made the tussle more interesting. But net him we did, and he turned out to be a super fish of 2lb+ and whilst there were several more that evening, to catch a wild fish of that beauty was so memorable, and in such a special river *.

But in fact, I think some seven came to the net that day, and William, a marvellous angler probably had more…but who’s counting? But this is one…

Our session finished, as all should, with a canter to the Red Lion in Chenies, and a couple of pints of good ale….and a promise that we would meet again, and probably on the banks of the Wandle. I will make sure that happens.

* it is claimed that rainbows breed in only two rivers in Britain….the Derbyshire’ Wye, and the Chess.   Some  say, it is more. We saw none in the Chess that day!

I have corresponded with Paul since, because I established, that he had planned to visit Slovenia, just a week or so before me, and with Kevin Smith, too, so I asked for his thoughts, and tips, to help our attempts to find some marble trout. He is an  Oil Man, and in the post BP’ Gulf disaster period, rumours abound about consolidation opportunities on BP’s collapsed share price. Added to that, his own company has a serious stake in a North Sea investment with Premier Oil, another holder, and a new find has propelled their business into territory where his presence as Commercial Director, required that he ‘do some work’.

I will let him know how to catch marble trout, in due course!!

Post script [1]

Paul is, and I repeat, “most generous”. He invited me to fish again before the end of the season. I met an industry pal of his, Philip Fleming, and was able to describe to him what to expect with all the knowledge of one visit!

His river in September is a different place, though. In-river weed growth had narrowed the fishable stream to less than 2/3rds what it was in May, and less than half in some runs. Where were the fish? The weather on that day was changeable, and the clouds built and drizzle descended for a short time, and afterwards temperatures fell, and winds increased.

The only rising fish were grayling, and we both caught some. The more self respecting browns were keeping to themselves under the expansive trailing fronds, and thinking procreation, probably.

Post script [2]

Conservationists, Paul and Steve are striving to improve what they respect.

This site is important.