In memory of my mother, The River Test Middle Beat 2nd June

Anne Veronica Sowton 

1st July 1934 - 6th June 2010

It is with a very heavy heart that I write this entry.  This time last week I received a call at 3.30am to be told that my mother had been taken suddenly, very seriously ill and was not expected to last the night.  My mother was able to have the strength to enable us to say our goodbyes, she was sedated but I know in my heart she could hear us.  She was an incredibly special person.  It is with my mother that I can remember catching my first trout, just days before I was due to go to Prep School at the age of 8 while my parents went off to Malawi in 1974.  This was a public strech of the River Itchen just below the weir in the water meadows just down from the chucrh of St Mary where my mother is to be burried.  We had no idea what we were doing but a worm on a hook in the right place saw us hook and land our first.  It was no monster but it was a trout and like the fish I was hooked.  In the same place last year mum and I took Max and we caught a trout, Max's first.  


I remember my mother waking me at 4am to drive from Blantyre to Mount Zomba where I had just started to fly fish.  Again neither of us had a clue but after awhile the thrashing around was productive and a trout was snagged and landed.  Both my parents were very patient with my fishing, my father rowing me out over Lake Malawi and fly fishing on the 10,000 foot Mount Mulanjie (where we hooked and lost a monster that nearly dragged us both in and I snapped the rod!!) and I owe it to them that I am now a semi-competent fisherman.  


They both came down to the Middle Beat exactly this time last year for the Mayfly, a very happy day and one I shall never forget.  The Test is very special to me and for my mother to have seen it means a lot to me and will do every time I come to fish here...

Mum and Dad on The Test June 2009 for the Mayfly

So I owe it to my mother to make sure that I continue with this blog, she loved cooking and was an amazing cook, hostess you name it.  Someone who really lived life to the full and I can honestly say she managed more in her lifetime than most people could do in two.  I love you very much mum and I will miss you terribly as will hundreds of people but I can assure you, you will never be forgotten.


The Mayfly

This was the day we had been waiting for all year.  The conditions were perfect, warm and sunny.  Whilst we new the sun would put the fish down in the day due to the brightness, the warmth would stimulate a lot of fly activity and we weren't disappointed.  Not on;y were there prodigious numbers of Mayfly, there were huge hatches of Sedge, Olives, Pale Wateries and Black Gnats.  The air was thick with flies and under all the leaves, the Mayfly that had hatched earlier, were waiting expectantly for the mating dance that would take place in the evening.  The Mayfly spends two years of its life as a nymph and spends only a few days as an adult fly from the order, Ephemeroptera, coming from the Greek, meaning 'short-lived' - hence the name.  

For 2 weeks at the end of May and beginning of June you have an explosive number hatching and the trout go crazy for them, no wonder, they are a big meal in comparison to the usual fair of gnats and smaller insects and grubs.

The fishing 

The morning was brief, we had some good sport for the first hour and a half but by 10.30am it was already getting hot and the sun was bright pushing the fish down and making it difficult.  We persevered for another hour calling it a day at 1130 to go in to Stockbridge to top up on some more flies.  We went via The John O'Gaunt pub as they sell flies for half the price and have an excellent selection of dry fly patterns.  The most popular being a fly called a Grey Wulff which is tied in many sizes as it represents any up winged insect from the Ephemeroptera order - small patterns for Olives, large for Mayfly.  

The famous Grey Wulff

Lee Wulff, an American fisherman invented the fly and left a few for fisherman on The Test and is now the most popular fly pattern and has many variants in size and colour, a serious legacy!

We returned to the river and having brought with us , wasabi and dark soy we decided on the freshest trout sashimi for lunch.  We had a large brown trout which in hindsight was probably a bit on the old side as the fish wasn't as tender as we had hoped.

Trout for the chop

Well at least it looked good!

Well it was a good experiment but I think a younger fish than the big old gnarly leviathan would be a better bet. 

In the afternoon the boys came down to the river with Lisa, it was the first time they had been down and Lisa could see why Guy and I so look forward to coming down to the river as it is such a magical place.

Lisa and the boys with Joseph, Nick's grandson.

The fishing started in earnest around 5pm as the mayfly were now starting their mating dance and come to the river to lay their eggs.  The fly has 3 main stages as an adult - emerging, the dun (upright adult) and the spent gnat (dead, flat winged on the surface).  The fish will switch to the different stages when one is more prevalent than the other and the fisherman has to adjust accordingly.  Not only that but you have to present the fly so that it looks more appealing than the thousands of actuals on the water.  

The dance was well under way now and it was looking better than we had seen in years.  We had been lucky that the weather had been cold up and till today so the ones that had hatched previously had all been waiting under the leaves.

The air thick with Mayfly 

Guy with a very nice looking brownie (not a chocolate one!)

 The fishing was spectacular and a number were caught and reaching our 4 fish limit was a little too easy so selecting the fish to go for was important, you didn't want to waste your limit on small fish today, this is the one time of the year that the fish loose all sense of safety and just smash into these flies - manner from heaven so to speak!

I have to thank Max, my eldest who was very handy when it came to landing fish and he managed to land some pretty big fish which I was very impressed with. 

Sunset and the end of a lovely day

So the day ended having been a spectacular days sport for us all.  Earlier in the day Lisa and the boys had spent a lovely day with my mother, I take great comfort in that she enjoyed a beautiful day with my wife and my children and her last day was an earlier summer's day, having seen the best of her roses and blossom and not a horrible winter's day.  I will remember my mother in that way, a summer's day spent on The Test with my family, that's as good a way of remembering someone as I can think...

I love you mum....