River Test 5th May

It was another early start, up at sunrise which was around 5am.  It's the most perfect time of day, it's the equivalent of a spring day in the year.  Everything to look forward to, full of promise and hope - and that's precisely the emotion fishermen go through before each and every fishing trip.  This is going to be the day when we catch the most/biggest fish....the one that didn't get away.

We managed to get on the road by 6.15am giving us an ETA of 7.45am on the river - a first and certainly to the surprise of Phil the river keeper who assumed we had been up all night and hadn't gone to bed yet!  The weather was fair and considerably warmer than the prediction of the weathermen.  The temperature was around 12c and was getting warmer.  Perfect conditions for fly life and we would be shown later in the day what a proper Hawthorn hatch looks like.

We were on the Upper Beat today which is my favourite.  Rather than one large piece of river this is a maze of small carriers with a combination of slack water, rapids, wide glides and weirs.  As a result the fishing is both challenging and exciting at the same time.

I went straight to my favourite spot, a narrow fast moving part of a carrier just down from a weir pool.  It has always held fish and i can't remember the last time that I didn't connect with one and today was no exception.  I put on a Hawthorn as it was apparent that these were in great numbers.  The fly landed at the top of the glide and came over the sweet spot perfectly and sure enough WALLOP!....and then promptly came off AAGGHH now that was annoying as this fish was going to be out of action for the rest of the day.  What's the expression?  Once bitten, twice shy well once pricked by a sharp hook, twice shy that's for certain.

I walked all the way down to the bottom to fish my way up and was consoled by a lively over wintered rainbow trout (no rainbow's had been stocked this year)  It was lean as they tend to be at this time of year before they have had a chance to gorge themselves on the prolific mayfly hatch.

By 10.30am the temperature was now around 14c and the mild temperature had stirred up the Hawthorn and this was a site that Guy and I had not seen before.  We walked across the marsh and were literally covered in Hawthorn.  These as I said last time are terrestrial insects and do not involve the river in their life cycle but when you see the sheer numbers of these insects and the vast number that get blown on the water you can see why the trout get turned on to them.  Interestingly enough though when I looked at the stomach contents of the fish we caught there was a big difference between one fish that had only been feeding on cadis and water snails, bottom feeding which is odd that it rose to the fly, one that had a few Hawthorn and one that frankly would have won any pie eating contest in a former life as a human being - this one was STUFFED and I really mean stuffed.  Its stomach was so full that it was impossible to count  the flies, literally hundreds, crushed under the pressure of so many.  I have never seen anything like that, way more than during the Mayfly.   You can see why they can put on weight so quickly at this time of year which is essential to build up reserves for the energy intense period of mating (although thanks to the previous stupidity of the government fish stocked have to be triploid - sexless, although they still can go through the motions)

Midway through the morning there was a nice fish rising very close to the bank and was clearly taking full advantage of the prolific number of Hawthorn that were passing overhead.  A well presented imitation over its head triggered the feeding response and up it came and off it went.

The fish takes

The fish dives again, you can see that it's a good sized Brown Trout

The fish tires, the heads nearly up 

Ready for the net 

They think its all over

It is now!!

Fat as butter, a 5lb brown trout having feasted on Hawthorn soon to be Beetroot Gravadlax and on The Mansion menu

By 1pm we had had a few fish and I stopped fishing to do a bit of foraging.  Nettles.  At this time of year the tops of the nettles are tender and make a great soup.  We had picked masses of wild garlic in Devon and planned to make Nettle and Wild Garlic Soup  and a Wild Garlic and Nettle Pesto for the trout. (Since fishing on Wednesday we have been serving our soup and have a new dish - a trio of trout - cerviche, smoked and beetroot cured gravadlax.  Luckily Guy had rubber gloves in the boot of his car (don't ask) and after a backbreaking hour I had picked a sackful of nettle tops.

And so to the pub....Off to The Boot for our ritual meeting up with the locals, including Johnny Robinson, joint owner of Robinsons, an institution in that part of the world,  a good old fashioned family butcher and smokery where our trout is cold smoked.

After a few pints of cider, Robinsons pork pies were calling and what great pies they were too.  I defy anyone (except that Hawthorn obsessed trout) to eat two of those bad boys, deeeee-licious.

Johnny keeps ferrets which not only provide great sport but are a very effective way of hunting rabbit, lovely little critters but watch your fingers!

After a few hours break we returned to the water and the Hawthorn activity had died down but the prospect of a sedge or olive hatch still loomed.  As the afternoon turned into dusk it was clear that no such hatch was going to happen and the fishing was getting increasingly more difficult and the number of fish rising had dropped off to a few and these few had turned on to something else.  In fact often when there is no noticeable hatch they are often taking very small black knats.  I keep meaning to have a collection of very small flies but my eyesight is poor and when its dusk they are impossible to thread without a magnifying glass and a lamp!! (old age, I didn't think it would happen to me!)

So we pushed on without much luck until we could see no more and headed back to London feeling very satisfied...

another plucky pheasant!