Captain Parker and the Millers Thumb

Captain LA Parker was one of the most famous anglers of the first half of the 20th Century. "Skipper" as he was known took over and ran the Bull Hotel in Downton which became a place of pilgrimage for many anglers. By a strange quirk of fate I found myself renting a holiday cottage in Downton from Len and Eileen Parker, Len is "Skippers" son.

Captain Parker's book "This Fishing" published in 1948 is well worth a read and the chapter relating to water temperatures and fishing prospects was well ahead of its time, I will certainly be carrying a thermometer in future.

Unfortunately my arrival in Downton coincided with heavy rain which meant that apart from the Hampshire Avon the Wessex rivers were unfishable. The Hampshire Avon being a chalk stream holds its water better than most rivers and although bank high was still running clear.

I opted for a day after the dace on the London Angling Association stretch at Britford. Although the carriers are renowned for big roach the better dace are on the main river, so I headed for a favourite spot on the main river where big dace normally congregate prior to spawning. Although the water was tanking through there was a slacker area on the far bank that I could trot. After a couple of hours I realised that the dace were not at home and only managed a couple of chub in the two pound class.

After fishing a couple of swims without success Stuart the river keeper put me right and directed me to a weirpool where only half the gates had been lifted leaving an eddying area of slack water on the inside. Trotting this swim was a bit strange as the float went round the swim in an elongated oval, one minute the avon float was going fast downstream and then slowly returned towards me. I missed a number of bites as tackle control was tricky but soon managed a couple of dace, some minnows and a roach of around twelve ounces.

It was one of those swims that was more efficiently tackled on the feeder so relunctantly I set up a light quivertipping outfit with a small blockend feeder. My catch rate improved and I added several more dace to 7oz, four brown trout, yet more minnows and a bullhead.

The bulhead is an unusual capture on rod and line and is also known as the Millers Thumb, its flattened shape said to resemble the thumb of a miller splayed from testing flour.

The last couple of hours were reserved for roaching and I fancied a slow swim on a carrier just above another weirpool. A couple of handfuls of mashed bread were thrown in to prime the swim. I fished a piece of breadflake on a size 10 hook to an 18 inch hook-length below a cage feeder. I missed the first bite and had to wait until after dark for the quivertip to pull round again, unfortunately the culprit was not the expected big roach but a chub in the three pound class.

The river had risen a couple of inches in the last hour and with further rain overnight the Avon was in the fields the following day.

One almighty stretch!

Another week of below average temperatures meant that my planned river perching session would have to wait. Instead I opted to go chub fishing on the Welland, revisiting the stretch I fished last week. The river had fined down nicely and carried a greenish tinge with the bottom visible in eighteen inches of water, perfect.

 My approach to small rivers is simple, I fish each likely spot for about twenty minutes before moving onto the next swim. Although many anglers recommend baiting half a dozen swims before fishing, I prefer to introduce the hook bait only as I feel that this approach offers a better chance of catching the largest chub in the group.

During the course of the day I had three chub to 4lb 6oz, although I could easily have had a couple more! Just before dusk I decided to fish a tree lined eddy where I hoped that a perch might be in residence. There was just enough room to poke a rod through the branches and flick a lobworm just off the crease (the junction between the flow and slacker water). After five minutes the bobbin moved steadily up to the rod and a controlled strike connected. I soon saw the broad flank of a decent river bream on the surface, however due to overhead branches I struggled to get the fish within reach of my net. With one last almighty stretch a large river bream, which weighed 6lb 12oz finally came over the net.

Lovely chubbly!

The last couple of months of the river season are the best for catching big chub. For twenty years chub fishing on my local river Welland was the mainstay of my winter fishing programme.  In recent years my chub fishing has been carried out during occasional visits to the Dorset Stour where I have been lucky enough to catch chub in excess of seven pounds and my local river has been neglected.

It was time to make amends, although when I set eyes on a brown, foamy river with visibility limited to a couple of inches I nearly went straight home. I spent a hopeless couple of hours on the first stretch before deciding to move several miles downstream, where a tributary would, I hoped, be fishable. On this stretch the water level had dropped several feet meaning that the chub would no longer be in the feeder stream. At least the flow was more manageable so I decided to make the best of it and search out the slacks. The stretch was always prolific although my best from it was only 4lb 9oz and only a handful of fours came my way (remember that).

I have to admit I was not feeling confident as chub and coloured water do not go together. In years gone by I would switch to roach fishing in these conditions, but nowadays I am more likely to locate rocking horse droppings than I am to locate a big roach on the welland.

Not having the benefit of summer observation I would have to rely on watercraft, luckily there were plenty of features to fish to, rafts, small slacks, deep bends and confluences. By staying mobile and moving swims every twenty minutes it meant that a lot of swims could be covered during the course of the afternoon. Chub tackle is best kept simple so I was equipped with a quivertip rod matched to a small fixed spool reel loaded with 6lb line. The end rig consisted of a swan shot or two pinched around eighteen inches from the hook and my bait in these conditions would be two lobworms on a size 6 hook. Where the current allows I like to use a washing up liquid bottle top as a bobbin.

The afternoon passed by quietly with two chub in the two pound class being hooked in slacks, the second dropping off at the net.

A large raft on the other bank could not be ignored especially as a crease meant that the flow was on the inside bank and the far side was slack. In coloured water chub often retreat into the slacker water away from the crease, maybe the suspended mud in the water irritates their gills, so I flicked over the bait and raised the rod high to avoid catching the line in the flow. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a large dark brown creature run along the waterline, it seemed too big for a mink, an otter maybe? Before I could look at it properly the rodtip banged over and my strike saw both the creature disappear and the rod hoop right over as a big fish headed for the tree roots. After some hairy moments at full stretch guiding the chub past some marginal reeds she was finally netted. I noticed that the chub was the same size as my landing net, twenty two inches and although hollow I felt she would probably go over five pounds.

The scales confirmed five pounds exactly and my biggest ever from this stretch. "Lovely chubbly"

Is this the future of salmon fishing in Britain?

Salmon in Britain have had a pretty hard time over the last few decades. Pollution, abstraction, disease and especially overfishing reducing wild salmon stocks. English rivers such as the Hampshire Avon and Wye are a shadow of their former selves with the annual run of big spring salmon, some weighing thirty or forty pounds, being consigned to the history books. Even the Scottish rivers, once amongst the best in the world, have declined to the point when the capture of any salmon is an event.

So why not stock salmon in stillwaters, after all almost all our trout fishing in Britain is now 'man made'? Salmon have been stocked in trout waters since the early 1980's with limited success. These stockings generally consisted of a sprinkling of salmon being added to existing trout fisheries providing a surprise for a lucky trout angler. These fish reared in sea lochs soon lost condition and these early experiments came to little.
Palm Springs Fishery in Rutland is as far as I am aware the first fishery to stock only salmon and these are reared on site in freshwater by Ben the fishery manager. I decided to give myself a birthday treat, although expensive, the cost of a day is a fraction of what you might pay in Scotland.

I was pleasantly surprised to find not a 'raw hole in the ground' but a nicely landscaped small fishery set in an attractive valley. I was met by Ben who gave me some information on the fishing and while we chatted a red kite flew overhead. I tackled the fishing as if I was fishing for winter rainbow trout, concentrating on fishing small lures on an intermediate line. My method is to ring the changes, both in depth (counting down in intervals of 5 seconds), retrieve and lure colour. Rather than filling the fly box with loads of different lures I would suggest concentrating on a single pattern in various sizes and colours, my preference are Nomads. Between 10am and lunchtime I caught and released five small salmon in the three to five pound bracket and briefly hooked a couple more. You do not strike a salmon but wait until it has hooked itself before lifting the rod.


After lunch I promised myself that the next fish would be retained, and with that the lake switched off! With only half an hour to go before dark the line tightened and I found myself playing the biggest fish of the day a hen fish of 6lb 3oz.

Is this the future of salmon fishing in Britain? I hope not as I would love to see wild salmon stocks recover and a 'man made' fish really is second best.

I just don't understand pike!

I have a confession to make, for some reason I can't seem to get into pike fishing. This is despite the fact that my first big fish was a pike , surely I should be a pike nut!

It's not that I don't appreciate pike, they truly are magnificent creatures, the apex predator in freshwater. Maybe it's because I don't understand pike, and so my pike sessions are usually either pikeless or I fluke out a single fish. Although I have caught a handful of twenty pound plus pike, I somehow don't feel that I deserved to catch them. Maybe it's because I have only fished for them on stillwaters with static deadbaits, perhaps if I fished for them on rivers or employed active techniques such as lure or fly fishing I would finally catch the pike bug?

I tend to pike fish only when the rivers are out of sorts and today was one of those occasions. With the rivers high with snow melt I decided to revisit one of my old haunts, a shallow gravel pit in the Nene valley.

I arrived just before first light and cast a sardine into a marginal spot, or should I say onto a marginal spot , blast it the lake was still frozen. The daylight seemed to take an age to arrive but eventually I could clearly make out a large ice free area to my left so both deadbaits would have to be fished in the same area.  Just after 9am the rod carrying a half herring was away, I hit it and felt the fish for a few seconds before it was off. I recast another half herring to the same spot and that was taken almost immediately, I didn't even have time to attach the drop off indicator. Only around seven pounds, but in my eyes any session that produces a pike is a success. An hour later I had another slightly smaller fish to the same rod and that was it for the day.  I still don't understand pike!

(To make me feel better I have included a photo of a twenty pound plus pike from a couple of years back to inspire both you the reader and me the incompetent piker.)

Small Water Trouting in the Cotswolds

Finally the thaw has set in, too late in the week to make any of the local stillwaters fishable so my planned piking session had to be postponed. A river rising with snow melt and laden with salt is just not worth fishing. A couple of telephone calls later and I had my venue, Lechlade trout fishery in the Cotswolds which was ice free over 50% of its surface area.

I arrived at Lechlade ready for when the gates opened at 8am. I have always found the first couple of hours on small stillwaters to be especially productive. I expected that the trout would be fairly deep and set up with an intermediate line with a 15 foot fluorocarbon leader with a 6lb tippet. In the first couple of hours I had three good takes on a white nomad fished with a slow figure of eight retrieve, landing two rainbow trout including a double.
 
My trout sessions are relaxed affairs and I like to take regular breaks from the fishing. It always amuses me to watch other anglers flailing away for hour upon hour in the same spot. If you are not catching, move and if you can't move, have regular breaks. It is surprising how fish move into undisturbed water.

I tried various other tactics for a couple of hours without success before reverting back to the white nomad on an intermediate. A move to a vacant area by the ferry, where I had spotted a few fish moving, added another double figure rainbow trout to the bag. Like the first it tipped the scales at 10lb 2oz. Don't you just love the sound of the drag screaming as a fighting fit rainbow heads for the middle of the lake?

I had earlier tempted a follow from a big brown trout but ran out of water. I suspect this may have been the fish I later caught from the next spot along the bank. What a session! Three big rainbows including a brace of doubles and a new personal best brown trout at 7lb 3oz. After a late lunch I enjoyed a leisurely drive home across the Cotswolds, taking in the glorious scenery and villages.

I will be glad when I have had enough of this!

"A strong easterly wind with light snow blowing horizontally will make it feel like -5 degrees" said the weatherman.

On the basis of this forecast I decided to forgo yesterdays planned piking session on my local River Nene and enjoy a lie in. By lunchtime I realised that the forecast blizzard was not going to reach Peterborough and I had missed out on a days fishing. Why do I listen to the weatherman?

The late great Fred J Taylor when fishing in hopeless conditions was quoted as saying, "I will be glad when I have had enough of this!" I have resolved in future to continue to plan my fishing around the weather forecasts but not be a slave to them, after all the weather men don't always get it right.

"Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she heard there was a hurricane on the way......" Michael Fish in October 1987.

                                                                                                                           

Arsenal maggots and the lady of the stream

The last couple of weeks had seen a Siberian weather front locked over the country with more snow and ice than we have seen for a decade.

What do you fish for when the temperature barely moves above freezing? My experience would suggest grayling or rainbow trout, failing that river pike, chub and dace in that order. With stillwaters frozen solid, a winter trout session was not an option. Peterborough isn't renowned for its grayling fishing, but I do know of a small stream locally that holds a few, I lost one last spring whilst upstream nymphing for brown trout. The fly rod would be left at home this time and I would go armed with a 13 foot float rod matched to a centrepin reel.

I have caught plenty of grayling from the Hampshire Avon and Dorset Frome but I have never caught one locally, so a grayling of any size would be a result.

Mobility is key to success on small rivers and most anglers carry too much gear. A pair of breathable waders enables you to kneel or sit on the banks and dispenses with the need to carry a chair. My landing net clips into a ring on the back of my coat leaving the other hand free. A couple of pints of mixed red and white maggots, along with a disgorger, are placed in a bait apron and lastly a shoulder bag carries a flask, camera, scales and a small tackle box.

I arrived an hour after dawn and enjoyed a days trotting, feeding each run for five minutes before running the float through the swim a dozen or so times and then moving down to the next swim. I had a mile or so of small stream to explore and by the end of the day had trotted a float through most of it at least twice. Try it, it is a great way of getting to know a stretch of water!

As is usual on a trout stream the local trout population could not resist the maggots and I ended the day with four pristine wild brown trout and a couple of grayling. I had enjoyed a great days sport trotting arsenal maggots (one red maggot with a white maggot on either side) for the 'lady of the stream' on a freezing cold day in the countryside where the stream glistened in the winter sunshine with only the local birdlife for company.

An Angler Reborn

After thirty years of specimen hunting in rivers and lakes, I found that I was no longer enjoying my fishing. Unless a water offered a realistic chance of beating a personal best I wasn't interested in visiting it. I had been sucked into the numbers game to the point that I was only enjoying the destination (another specimen sized fish or new personal best) and not the journey.

Catching big fish is not difficult and having an impressive personal best list does not necessarily mean that you are a good angler.

To my mind a good angler is one who can catch any species of fish in any conditions.

How many anglers nowadays are all rounders? Back in the days the long defunct Angling magazine many of its writers were true all rounders, fly fishing for trout in the spring on the reservoirs, surfcasting for bass through the summer and long trotting for chub and roach on the winter rivers. Surely this is what real fishing is all about, experiencing a variety of locations, methods and species in all seasons of the year!

Does anyone remember the Fishing Race from the 70's in which several pairs of anglers, including Jim Gibbinson, Clive Gammon and Ian Gilliespie, had 72 hours in which to capture as many species of fish as possible in order to win the "Golden Maggot"? More recently Matt Hayes and Mick Brown's The Great Rod Race saw the protagonists race around the country attempting to catch all of Britain's freshwater species in 30 days.

For me the greatest angling achievement of 2009 was Sussex Angler Dave Park (aged 75) catching a bitterling, bringing his total of species caught in British waters to 100. Can you remember as a beginner the thrill of catching a new species for the first time, Dave Park has experienced this 100 times!

The challenge was set 100 species of fish from British waters in three years starting on 1 January 2010. An angler was reborn!