Monthly Archives: April 2011

SOUTH YORKSHIRE

21 Thursday Apr 2011

Posted by in South Yorkshire

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The romantic in me quite liked the idea of trying catch a South Yorkshire trout from the Rother, because my Darling Wife hails from Rotherham! And only weeks ago, we drove down memory lane in said town, and I noted the possibility, but a web search failed to find likely connections.

Meanwhile, I have netted a brown (two actually, and a grayling) from a Rother, anyway….the one which rises in Hampshire and flows through West Sussex, and is a tributary of the Arun. (Strange that East Sussex has its own Rother, too, but I digress)

I discovered that the Rother offered some free fishing in Petersfield, on a short beat owned by East Hampshire District Council, and this was written up in a good article in last September’s edition of Trout & Salmon, by Jon Beer. A note to EHDC produced a very helpful response from Land & Property Manager, Chris Fairhead and a spare day meant a short run down the A3 for a lovely morning’s fishing in yet more early Spring sunshine, with only the cries of small kids out with Mum, bird life, and the odd yell from me from yet another catch up in the overhanging overgrowth, for distraction.

Where is this going, you may ask?

I have only written a couple of pieces on fishing forums. A casual read demonstrates that there is too much banality and banter, some rudeness, some overt selling, and too rarely are they used, creatively and constructively as the site owners would wish. I came across one recently, (which I will not name) whose owner posted an apology for closing his, for just the reasons I have listed. Shame!

However, such was the response to my original post about my ‘mission’ on ‘Fly Fishing Forum’ that I persisted, and I am grateful for all those who have responded on my blog, on the thread itself, or by private email, to me for their interest, enthusiasm, encouragement and in addition, for several invitations, some sound advice.

One such was from “Tommy Ruffe” (?!) who directed me to no fewer than three options in South Yorkshire, and I chose –

April 2011 – the Don

The Don, sometimes called the Dun, rises in the Pennines and flows for 70 miles and joins the Ouse near Goole in East Yorkshire. Incredidibly, to me, it flowed once to join the Trent, but was ‘re-engineered’ by Vermuyden, as the Dutch River, in the 1620’s!

“The Don can be divided into sections by the different types of structures built to restrict its passage. The upper reaches, and those of several of its tributaries, are defined by dams built to provide a public water supply. The middle section contains many weirs, which were built to supply mills, foundries and cutlers’ wheels with water power, while the lower section contains weirs and locks, designed to maintain water levels for navigation.” (Wikipedia)

And so it is at Oughtibridge.

Only 6 miles from the centre of Sheffield, whilst a suburb and dormitory of the City, the Don, flowing through beautiful ancient wooded acreage,

still shouts ‘urban’ at you. Below the town bridge is a stepped weir (there is another only a quarter of a mile downstream) evidencing what is described above, and across the upper runs, the buses and commercial vehicles pass by modern four and five floor buildings

containing apartments and flats, but are largely masked by foliage. The river this day was low, the rocks, after sunshine were covered in algae and slippery. To get to the water, it was necessary to clamber down steepish, dry mud banks where possible. Where not, this was because of concreted walled, or rock inlaid defences for what can only be to contain the rush of winter flood waters when the Pennines are awash, and this drain is one of few to relieve the hills of their watery burden. What the Don valley must look like in these conditions, I can only wonder. How fish find cover to prevent them from being washed down to Doncaster, I cannot imagine!

But….. the fishing is FREE, and the link is made! And it is so, all the way to Sheffield’s Hillsborough stadium, home of ‘The Owls’.

A bank side chat with William from Doncaster revealed that 25 years ago the river ran ‘black’ with industrial effluent. It still has too much man discarded detritus in it for my liking….but it also has grayling, so it must be clean. He also advised me that I was in ‘ooo-ti-bridge’ not in ‘or-ti-bridge’ as a local once corrected him!

Anglers are an impatient breed. A bit of sunshine and a bit of warmth in the air (it was 19c today) and we are ‘off’….well, Winters are getting longer? And I saw half a dozen fellow ‘impatients’, as well as couple of coarse anglers trotting for the grayling. It is only the third week in April, and the good weather has enabled me to get onto water four times, already. Me….impatient?

And I saw fish rising…lots of them, and all wild, for there is no stocking here. And my third cast into a pool below the town bridge produced my South Yorkshire trout to an olive klinkhamer.

And during the next few hours I worked my way downstream, leap frogging around fellow casters, to net another on a black gnat, then a third in a fast run on a PTN.

I probably fished a mile or so of stream, and there was plenty of variation. But the rising fish were in the slow, deeper glides are were not that easy to catch.

Another angler told me he was taking on Adams (#22), a typical early season fly. But I saw no duns, and only pale (watery) midge like flies on air, so the ‘rises’ must have been to emergers, and small ones at that.

Lucky folk those, Tykes, with so much good fishing to enjoy!

I am coming up again, next month, to fish the Rye in North Yorkshire, and the Driffield Beck in the East….just West Yorkshire to sort, now!

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WORCESTERSHIRE

09 Saturday Apr 2011

Posted by in Worcestershire

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Surfing the net revealed that the county is bereft of trout streams. Its rivers and streams are mostly within the Severn catchment, and these are at levels where pace and depth are more the domain of bottom feeders. The search was revealing though.

I discovered the river Rea when I chanced upon Pete Marshall’s website and we had an exchange –

“Worcester itself has the lower Teme, the middle Severn and the Stour, all of which have Trout in them. The middle Severn and the Lower Teme are pretty tough going for the fly angler. Plenty of trout  about in the lower Teme as you find out when bait fishing later in the season and they ruin your day, however the river is pretty hard to fish on the fly, wading very difficult and dangerous and banks steep and overgrown.”

I thought that James at Gliffaes might have some ideas because he, and the Brabners  are so well connected with the fishing community that way, and through him, Simon Evans of the Wye Usk Foundation suggested the Rea (!)  but also Dowles Brook; and more searches connected me with the Tenbury  Fishing Association, and Lynda Rickett (aka Hon Sec) from whose enthusiastic writing I sensed, really wanted to help me, but most of their water on the Teme (which I would still love to fish, at some stage) represented the county boundary, and I have to fight fair! It’s only INside a county that counts!!

I also discovered, by luck, a property called Tundridge Mills, which sits on the Leigh Brook. I knew about the Leigh Brook, which with its near neighbour, the Cradley Brook, have featured in the WTT Auction the last couple of years. So, I wrote a completely speculative email to their web address…..and received a reply from Keith Beard, which was welcome and exciting.

“Dear Tony,

You are welcome to come and fish. We have about 700 yds of river bank.

You will be the only one to fish there since I last took my children, 15 years ago, apart from the Herons that is!

To my knowledge there are brown Trout and minnows.

Regards,

Keith”

April 2011 – the Leigh Brook

The previous day, Howard (Mann, of whom, more will surely follow!!) and I had been privileged to fish a private beat on the Usk near Talybont,  just a few miles out of Brecon,  courtesy of a fellow Director at a company where Howard is Senior Independent  NED. We fished and chatted hard, but caught nought!  “Too bright, too cold, not enough water “….was how Dai Land Agent defended the river.

So, and after a night at the Three Cocks Inn (yes!) near Brecon and a super, Welsh Lamb cutlet dinner et de vin rouge du maison (Oz), it was off to Longley Green, and SatNav allowing, I hoped to arrive by 10.Through beautiful Herefordshire countryside in the most extraordinary April sunshine, numerous mobile telephone conversations when connections allowed, being buzzed by SAS choppers, and into Worcestershire, I did…but only via courtesy of a farm worker ‘en Defender’, because my StreetMap printout was lacking, and Volvo’s SatNav does not allow full Post Code input (why not?)

I was greeted by Keith’s charming wife, Penny, and was intrigued to learn some of the recent history of their lovely home. I cannot do it justice, but to précis it…living in a home (as they have this one for 25 years) attached to a mill, beside a river, can become tedious, when winter floods flow through  your living room! So, Keith, an engineer, designed a method to eliminate this. He limited the flood water in the millstream by piping it under the garden, elevated by moving tons of earth into a long barrow extending the whole  length of the formal gardens of his home, and flood waters now irrigate the  meadow adjacent to the river, sixty yards away, and not his house. Simple, really….but an enormous amount of work! Some of the earth came from land levelled to build some very comfortable, modern cottages which are rented to holidaymakers on short term lets. Apparently, the angling community has still to discover this (they have a stocked lake of a quarter acre, as well) and mostly, visitors are ramblers.

The village of Longley Green is picture postcard with pretty white washed cottages, a pub and a post office, and a blaze of aubretia and daffodils. The setting at the Mill this day was serene. When I arrived there was not a cloud in the sky and in the bright sunshine, and with foliage yet to appear on the trees, the wild flowers were visible in the woods on the hillside opposite. Not a breath of wind, and warm already, and the only sounds, the cacophony of, crows crowing, cockerels calling, pheasant wings flapping and screeching, and the buzzing of bees awoken too early for their liking.

It was pure peace, and there is really no place in the World I would rather be, in early Spring, than in England.

Penny told me that there was a big fish the local lads tried to catch dangling bait over the bridge in the pool at the bottom of their beat.

Sounded like a good place to begin my quest, and walking across the garden still to decide whether this was to be a Halford or a Skues Day, I saw a rise, and this encouraged me. But as it happened this was to be the only rise I saw all morning, and Skues, won.

I fished ‘small’. My Loomis Xperience (7’6” for 4wt.) was perfect for this stream, and for flies, I tied a gold headed PTN (#18) to the point, and a black gnat (#22), to the dropper, on a leader, the length of my rod.

Brought up on a diet of spate rivers and chalk streams, I am having to learn the craft of small stream fishing, and must if I am to achieve my goal, for these streams are in the majority in non traditional trouty counties. And to remind myself of the need for stealth,

I saw and spooked my first fish quite early. This was the only fish I actually saw, because the sensible ones were hiding in the pockets. And it was not before I found one,

and netted Worcestershire at the same time. And relaxed now, I became more adventurous and slid down many a steep bank and into shallow water below pocket after

pool seeking out more fish, and did, hooking and losing, or netting on both flies. Only 700 yards of river but with many juicy looking spots, this is a lovely bit of water, but so much easier now, before the trees become fully in leaf, and even now, I lost at least three leaders to overzealous back casts.

I finally arrived at what Penny told me was the weir pool.

And unexpectedly, it was. This was fished with a short line, and yielded the best of my five, netted. All were 4 – 5”, wild browns with characteristic red spots,

and some with a char like white edge to the tail fin. My ‘specimen’ which told me that after only two and half hours, it was time to stop and enjoy, thoughtfully, my morning, was about 3/4lb, and a real scrapper, which will be a 1lb-er before it spawns next Winter, I hope.

My day concluded with a grateful (and boastful!) showing of my pictures to Penny, who shared my joy in success, and told me that I must return (and maybe, even stay!)

What a morning, and I am justly thankful to Keith, and take pleasure in recommending Tundridge Mill to my readers.

EAST SUSSEX

05 Tuesday Apr 2011

Posted by in East Sussex

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Its April 4th and early in the season for me. I can only remember fishing earlier, when eager to start, I rushed to Brecon to fish opening day on the Usk (March 3rd), maybe twenty years ago. It has been sunny for some days and the forecast for this day was good, so freeing up time, I headed off in Tonka Too (cleaned, and fully loaded with all the tackle I should need for the ‘Campaign of 2011’) for Sussex.

April 2011 – the Dudwell

I have joined Burwash Fishing Club, and already checked out the beats during the close season weekend of sister Carolyn’s latest big birthday party, so I knew where to start on a lovely sunny morning. It is as Jonathan described it, and I wrote to him –

“I visited the Bateman beat today and fished downstream of the Dudwell Bridge in mid  morning sunshine.

Interesting and difficult…to be mountain goat-like would be an advantage, and I am not! Sunny to start with but getting windier and greyer, and casting a downstream nymph, I had nothing.

Your Bailiff, Ben, and I had a chat and after, I went above the bridge and spooked a lone trout in the shallows.

I cast, again, downstream nymphing, in a number of places, to no avail.


Walking around the field on the (true) right bank, now and over the bridge and through the gate to the narrows, I spotted some bank work, which was a useful ‘clue’.

Sliding into the water and casting upstream for the first time, I had a 5” fish which took the PTN on the point in a pocket etched out beside the roots on a bankside tree.


Brilliant…a very early season visit, which repaid my endeavour with an East Sussex trout, and a new ‘County’ for my list. But….I will take advantage of my membership. Yours is a tricky water, and I cannot imagine how hard it will be when the foliage is dense in the Summer!

But I hope you will tell me that upwings are the norm and that dry fly can be productive in weeks to come!

One note , of which you may be aware. When back at my car and retying a lost cast, a dog walking ‘local’ told me he saw mink in the lower beat, last weekend.”

Ben also told me this stretch of this diminutive river contains only minnows and trout, as well as the odd sea trout, and lampreys….and I watched a small one wriggling amongst stones in the shallows (I have never seen one before, but did enjoy ‘Lamprey Bordelaise’ at Chateau Giscours at lunch in the Summer of 1979!?)

Just three hours of fishing….and it felt good to be back in the waders again, and enjoying a beautiful part of England in the colour of our Springtime.