Life of a Chalkstream

Friday 25 October 2024

Why We Fish. The eternal quest for the answer to the ultimate question

Greetings!

This newsletter marks the last of the season as, by rights, the trout fishing officially closes 31st October. This provides the perfect excuse for a retrospective. However, this is not a retrospective that is going to analyse catch returns, hatches, stout angling endeavours or the weather but rather that eternal question, which having put our hearts and souls into this rather mad pursuit for the past six months, a madness that will certainly be repeated next year with, in all probability, equally little to show for such great endeavour, would lead anyone with an ounce of nous to ask, Why We Fish.

Now, neither you nor I are coming at this question entirely cold. I defy anyone to deny that at some point in the past few months not to have said either out loud or from one part of the cortex to the other, why the f**k am I doing this. Bad fishing. Bad weather. Bad companions. Bad casting. Sharp metal in soft flesh. Expensive waders that fail in the single attribute for which they were bought. You should have been here yesterday. You cannot be here tomorrow? But like Sisyphus, we return for each new day to push the rock up the hill at the behest of whatever God thought fly fishing was a suitable pursuit for mankind.

I do not have a simple answer to the question Why We Fish. Actually, that is not entirely true. I have many answers but they rarely stand up to even the mildest scrutiny in the company of a non-believer. We do what we do and we love it. I guess I do not really get base jumping and any explanation is lost to me in translation. To quote that sage Mr Bean, in his outing in a 1992 Barclaycard advert when haggling incomprehensively in a Bedouin rug market, “We [Atkinson and the Arab rug trader] are both fluent”, he remarks to his companion, “sadly in different languages”.

Back in December 2022 I did pose the Why We Fish question to you all and you replied in droves. It is to my shame that I have not quantified your answers sooner. The truth is that the volume and apparent diversity of your replies was rather overwhelming and I struggled to piece together a narrative that would make some sense. However, with some time on my hands I have read and numerously reread all that you wrote. It is fascinating.

Setting out I am not going to try to create Daily Telegraph style article with a headline like The Six Top Reasons to Fly Fish. It is obvious from your replies that fly fishing is a nuanced pastime that people come at from all manner of directions. This is more going to be about drawing out common themes, plus a few left field thoughts.

Without a doubt the overarching reason as to Why We Fish, the one nearly everyone mentions, is to be a part of nature. The sounds of the countryside. The healing qualities of flowing water. The glimpses of wildlife. The escape to the great outdoors. To be absorbed into the landscape. Interestingly, this does not seem to require travel to some far, distant place. Tranquillity, with the space to totally relax, is to be found in all manner of unlikely places where fish just happen to live.

I was surprised how many people mentioned the very act of casting – the fluidity and the satisfaction of a cast well executed. That was also aligned with a cohort of you who just love your split cane rods. This is not something that is in my fly fishing DNA but for those who love bamboo it gives not only a satisfying feedback loop between rod, line and water but a connection to the origins of our sport. Allied to this was lifelong learning – every day is a school day somebody wrote. Clearly, we all take great satisfaction in the fact that there is the potential to learn something new every time we venture out.

Agate rod ring from www.chrisclemes.com

The act of not catching fish seems to weigh much heavier on the minds of non-anglers than us. I am sure you have had to field a question along the lines of ‘Isn’t it boring when you don’t catch anything’. Well, yes it can be boring, frustrating, annoying and for those of us in the trade, a dent in our professional pride. However, we are all definitely driven by the concept of man vs. fish even if along the way we have to countenance failure. However, when we succeed it is not the size or quantity of the fish that matters but much rather winning the elemental battle with the fish. The tug is the drug. It is not so much the act of catching but the split second moment when that happens. The rest, as they say, is history.

I cannot possibly mention all the many other individual reasons you gave to Why We Fish, but I will add companionship – the ability to share the joys and frustrations is high on most lists. However, those companions do not always have to be present. Solitude is sometimes a companion in itself; the chance to recall people and the past with fondness. Some years ago I had a regular client, one of the founding Fishing Breaks band, who was dying of lung cancer. Knowing his clock was running down I went to see Dick at Compton Chamberlayne to say hello and, ultimately, goodbye. We shook hands for a final time as I left him beside the river, walking back to the road where the Nadder passes under a humpbacked stone bridge. On the bridge I paused and turned; in the distance Dick stood where I had left him, slightly stooped, rod in hand gazing at the river. I simply cannot imagine the thoughts he had that day but as he raised his hand to acknowledge my gaze I hope they were of a life well lived. To this day I cannot cross that bridge without recalling Dick but that makes me glad for what fishing can bring.

One final thought, or one final word, that leapt out at me in your replies: esotericity, namely the condition of being esoteric.

a: designed for or understood by the specially initiated alone

b: requiring or exhibiting knowledge that is restricted to a small group

c: difficult to understand

d: limited to a small circle

e: of special, rare, or unusual interest

I must admit I did not know such a noun existed so it sent me to the Merriam-Webster dictionary and the definition of esoteric, not something I have ever thought hard about before. All in all, esoteric in nearly all its uses, is not a bad word to define the madness that afflicts us all.

Time for more s**t under the bridge

As you well know I have pretty well dipped out on commenting on all matters of pollution and I wish everyone well on the march next week; I will not be there having been booked for a trip overseas long ago.

Breaking my omerta I see we have Sir Jon Cunliffe, former deputy governor of the Bank of England, leading a Water Commission (Will he be on the march? I think we know the answer to that …..) with a sweeping brief to “strengthen regulation, boost investment and inform further reform”. I have to be honest my heart rather sinks – do we really need more navel gazing and lead by an establishment figure? As I have often commented we have more regulation than you can shake a stick at and investment is as simple as explaining to water users the true cost of water use.

But I suppose it suits everyone – government, regulators and the water industry – to await what will inevitably be called the Cunliffe Report which will, at best, tell us what we already know whilst wasting another 3-5 years. My only hope is that the kites flown since the announcement for the abolition of regulator Ofwat and the removal of water oversight from the Environment Agency to an independent body might actually happen. You never know my call of many years for a Pure Water Authority might see the light of day but not before we have allowed time for more epic amounts of s**t to flow through our rivers.

Is this the right move for you?

I can readily understand the Murdoch family pursuit of the property website Rightmove – its is one of the few portals I log onto every day by choice.

I have lots of alerts that are purely practical – obviously fishing for good commercial reasons and anything in the immediate vicinity of Nether Wallop to satisfy my nosy neighbour gene. I also have one for mills which bought me to Throop Mill on the River Stour near Bournemouth last week.

There are plenty of mills for sale at any given time but for the most part they were converted to homes a long ago, the original purpose and layout lost to all but memory. It some respects that is a shame, but one of the strengths of British architecture is the constant repurposing of old buildings rather than outright demolition. However, Throop Mill is a complete throwback, the Marie Celeste of mills, apparently barely touched since the miller ground his last decades ago.

On the outside the name of the owner is proudly displayed on the front elevation. Inside there are massive flagstones worn smooth with age, open beams, scuffed wooden flooring and much of the milling machinery remains. This is a building that remains stripped bare to its original purpose. For me, scrolling through the photos which you can do here, it was a step back in time of 25 years so similar is the current layout of Throop Mill to that of Nether Wallop Mill, even down to the cast iron supports, shape of the windows, open staircase and joinery of the crossbeams in the attic section. The agents say the building has been unused since 1974 – I can believe it.

I have no idea whether the asking price of £500,000 represents value but if you fancy your hand at a grand design I suspect you could do a great deal worse.

Throop Mill from Ellis and Partners

Quiz

The normal random collection of questions inspired by the date, events or topics in the Newsletter. It is just for fun with answers at the bottom of the page.

1) The infamous Charge of the Light Brigade took place on this day in 1854. It was part of which battle during the Crimean War? Clue: think of a woolly hat.

2) Which Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer begins, “Once upon a time there dwelt in Oxford A rich churl, that took in guests to board …..”

3) Who was the co-creator with Rowan Atkinson of Mr Bean?

Have a good weekend.

Best wishes,

Simon Cooper simon@fishingbreaks.co.uk

Founder & Managing Directorwww.fishingbreaks.co.uk

BUY 2 AND GET A THIRD FREE!

Quiz answers:

1) The Battle of Balaclava

2) The Miller’s Tale

3) Richard Curtis

Friday 11 October 2024

The original trout bum is no more

Life on a Chalkstream

11th October 2024

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· The original trout bum is no more

John Gierach has cast his last

· A speckled chub

· What is the point of slugs

· That was the season that was September

· September feedback winner

· Quiz

Greetings!

Sex, Death & Fly Fishing, so went the title of one of John Gierach’s books – sadly the middle part of that title caught up with him last week when John was felled by a massive heart attack.

John Gierach 1946-2024

It was his book Trout Bum that put him on the literary map and in the title was the clue to how he both lived his life and viewed his fly fishing. Published in 1988 the joy of the book was that it took the act of fly fishing seriously but not the b******t that he regarded the fly fishing establishment promulgated.

You could, if being critical, simply write him off as a Baby Boomer hippy who was anti-establishment for the sake of being anti-establishment. My gut feeling, having only met him a couple of times, is that he would not entirely disagree or, more importantly, really care.

My words can never better that of Gierach, so I am going to let him sign off from his 2010 book appropriately At the Grave of the Unknown Fisherman:

“I used to like fishing because I thought it had some larger significance. Now I like fishing because it's the one thing I can think of that probably doesn't.”

John Gierach died 3 October 2024 aged 78.

A speckled chub

News from The Parsonage on the River Test of an unusual chub that was caught in the carrier earlier in the week on a Pheasant Tail Nymph.

The inevitable question is what are the spots, which are in the skin rather than some fungus or similar on the surface of the skin. I have consulted the Brains Trust which is our guides and river keepers who have two possible explanations.

The first is a melanistic genetic mutation that causes loads more melanin and then dark patches appear on the fish which would be similar to the first ever Koi carp. The second is Blackspot which occurs fairly commonly on a range of coarse fish. It is the name given to the cyst that forms around the larval stage of the parasite Posthodiplostomum cuticola.

I do not know enough to offer any judgment but if anyone out there has any ideas, do let me know.

What is the point of slugs

This rather explicit tryst greeted me on the doorstep the other morning. If slugs are not your thing or you are molluscophobic (fearful of slugs and snails) look away now.

What you are looking at is the coupling of two slugs, which as hermaphrodites, simultaneously copulate with each other, the white ball in the middle being two packages of sperm, one produced by each slug. Then, each slug will take its partner's sperm into its body and head off into the undergrowth to lay eggs. Being essentially both blind and deaf, finding a mate is largely done by smell with slime trails used in the courting process for potential mates to find each other.

I know the gardeners amongst you may have a rather dim view of slugs but as with most creatures they have their niche which is important to the overall balance of nature. In the case of slugs they are the street cleaners, eating nature’s trash which they transform into helpful waste products that improve the soil.

They are also, unfortunately for the slug, an important food source for a huge array of other creatures: nearly all birds especially songbirds, hedgehogs, frogs and badgers to name a few on the land, plus of course, trout love a slug. If you are looking for a suitable pattern, a Squirmy Wormy will do you well or maybe even the controversial Mop Fly.

Mop Fly in action

That was the season that was September

Ahh, September the most settled weather month of the year I confidently tell anyone thinking of fishing the fall as eager trout take advantage of placid conditions to feed ahead of the coming winter. But clearly my predictions suck so do not ask me for Lottery numbers or the winner of Saturday’s big race because the final week of September was the wettest week of the year since January and September as a whole the wettest since, well who knows.

We talk of biblical rains but this season has been on a different scale to any I can recall. More a 180 days and nights knocking Noah’s 40 days and nights into a cocked hat. The rainfall statistics are remarkable. The snapshots of the rainfall measured against the long term average of the past 60 years are 189% for all of England in September (253% in the central region), 130% in the past three months (157% in the south-east) and 123% for the six months April-September that covers the trout fishing season with 143% compared to the long term average for the past 12 months.

The River Avon at the Netheravon tank crossing Thursday. Unbelievably, a moment after I pressed the shutter a fish rose mid-river to the small hatch of Iron Blues!

As you well know by October I am usually starting to scan the skies and every weather forecast for signs of rain as this time of year would, in any normal year, be the low point in the chalkstream cycle. The rivers would be on their bare bones with the aquifers starved of top up from rain and depleted by abstraction. No such worries this year which has, in many respects been one of the most difficult in all my 35 years at Fishing Breaks.

Often you have had to slog through distinctly dicey, swampy banks on many beats even in high summer, the unwary step sending your boot deep into the mire. At Upper Clatford on the River Anton, despite numerous attempts with walk boards and wading option, we gave up the unequal struggle closing at the end of July with banks wetter than they were in March. At the Middleton Estate the Half Water only fully opened at the end of August. It was often hard going on most of the headwaters, but if you could stand a bit of circuitous yomping the rivers were in an amazing condition with flow, clarity and weed growth not seen in many generations. However, every ying has its yang.

As you moved further west, particularly into the Wiltshire catchments and the Dorset rivers it was often tough going with the water pushing through at an unprecedented rate and far from clear. After a while trout learn to cope with this, they have to eat after all, but it was really the frequency of the heavy downpours which bought all manners of unpleasant runoff into the rivers, that sometimes turned the possibility of winkling out a fish or two by devious means into an impossible mission.

On the plus side the long term ecology of the chalkstream is always improved by sustained floods so we will see a spike in wild trout of a catchable size in 2-3 years’ time plus thriving growth of ranunculus weed which is key to insect life. On the downside, these wet conditions are always bad news for the already imperilled water vole population.

As for the human population, it has been a tough eighteen months for river keepers. When conditions are like this every job takes twice as long. Wet weather clothing is never as good as advertised. Machinery gets stuck. Strimmers have to replace mowers. Long planned projects remain on hold. Water always seems to get to where you want it least. In addition, we are now approaching peak Ash dieback with dead trees falling just about every day either overwhelmed with the weight of the ivy that has a knack of enveloping sick trees or the wet ground weakening the root structure.

September feedback winner

In the final full month of the trout season it is Adam Fairhead, a client of many, many years who is deservedly first out of the hat to win a selection of flies from vice master Nigel Nunn.

Next month we wrap up the 2024 draws with the October winner, plus, of course everyone going back in the hat to win Nigel’s amazing seasonal selection presented in a Wheatley fly box.

If you have not filled in a report from a visit this season it is not too late to do so. Follow this link ……

End of season draw prize to be announced 8 November

Quiz

The normal random collection of questions inspired by the date, events or topics in the Newsletter. It is just for fun with answers at the bottom of the page.

1) Which ship sunk in 1545 was raised on this day in 1982?

2) On what mountain did Noah’s ark come to rest?

3) Which country in the world has the most annual rainfall?