Life of a Chalkstream: The longest day and the biggest fly

Greetings!

I did something on the longest day I did not expect to do when I woke up that morning – catch a bunch on trout on the biggest Grey Wulff Mayfly in my box.

If it is the longest day there is not really much point to an early start, so we did not set off until late afternoon, heading westward towards Wiltshire, the opposite carriageway populated by an intermittent convoy of dilapidated charabancs transporting the occupants to wherever the Stonehenge sun worshippers go to next.

Arriving around 5pm the Nadder was its usual customary summer self, slow flowing even measured by a chalkstream metric, with a slight cloudiness to the water. I never think that is a bad thing; there will be some point, later in the season, when it goes glass clear which does not necessarily translate into easier fishing. Anyway, it was still pretty warm so whilst the BBQ burnt itself to the required temperature the fishing was, at best, desultory with just the very occasional proper Mayfly hatching which both we, and the fish ignored, preferring that old standby, the Parachute Adams.

Compton Chamberlayne, River Nadder, Wiltshire

As the evening arrived it became really quite chilly, at least for June, but still those Mayfly kept popping off. For some reason the fish were not hitting them, so following their lead, I kept my Mayfly box stowed away. But eventually I became curious even if the fish were not, selecting the largest, bushiest Grey Wulff Mayfly I had. Ginking it up and caressing the badger hair horns to sharp tips like a moustachioed bandit I thought, this is pointless. Then, as if on cue, there was all of a sudden, a flurry of hatching Mayfly. Not exactly a full-on hatch, but enough to think mmmmmm……

And then after a few speculative casts I rose a fish that I missed, hooking another shortly after and then another. Just to prove it was the fly not me (ha-ha) I handed the rod to my companion, a keen but less of a headbanging fly fisher than me, and sure enough both the Mayfly and fish obliged for her.

In the space of a few minutes we had had four fish without moving a single yard which was enough to sate our piscatorial desires so we left the fish, river and Mayfly to see out the rest of the fading daylight content with the knowledge that the plan, that was never the plan, had succeeded.

Mayfly Grey Wulff s8 from Fulling Mill

How To Spend It: Fine money

I am going to take all the credit: in the previous Newsletter but one (6/June) I wrote about the small fraction of water company fines that are being spent on damage remediation, the remainder, a £100m plus, disappearing down the throat of an ever-greedy Treasury.

And then, without much fanfare, thirteen days later a short press release came out from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs by Minister Steve Reed announcing that, in future, the Government will invest water company fines into local projects across the country to clean up our rivers, lakes and seas. I wish I could tell you more about what that investment (a dangerous word when applied to anything Government touches) looks like as the release contained no details and essentially ended with a ‘watch this space’ message.

Now, I know for absolute certainty that all those angling trusts across England and Wales would have been doing high fives at this news. They can smell grant income, often used to feather their already commodious bureaucratic nests, like a shark can smell blood in the water. Local projects? That phrase is like catnip to them. I am not, per se, against these projects: some are great, some are worthless but what nearly all of them have in common is that they fail to address the root of the problem, namely poor water quality and over abstraction. Which brings me to an article I was sent from the New York Times about a project to restore the trout streams of West Virginia, USA that have been devasted by the coal mining industry.

Essentially, abandoned coal mines had left the waterways of West Virginia acidic and rusty orange, but local residents are cleaning them up, and recovering valuable minerals in the process. I will not go into all the why and wherefores as it is fairly complicated (read full article here) but essentially by using lime as an additive to the polluted water, that then flows through settlement ponds, the resultant clean water is bringing the rivers, Decker's Creek in particular, back to life whilst some of the cost is met by recovering the rare earth metals captured in the purification process.

West Virginia settlement ponds

What I like about the West Virginia project is that it addresses the root cause of the problem rather than try to mitigate the effects of the problem. It would be good to think we could use the fine money in a similar way, such as financing alternative water sources to save over abstracted streams. Or paying to remove the causes of pollution, two thirds of which comes from sources other than water companies. Am I confident this will happen? The trouble is that this is the boring stuff, the nuts and bolts of repairing our rivers without the benefit PR forays with ministers and NGO officials sporting hi-vis jackets.

But ultimately, it will be work of this nature that will save Mother Nature from ourselves which is why, even if I am not confident it will happen, we should try to make it happen.

Decker's Creek, West Virginia

How To Spend It: Your money

It has been a while since anything new has popped up on my radar, but this fishing on the River Wylye in Wiltshire recently came on the market via Savills.

The 59 acres and two semi-detached cottages has 673 yards of double bank and 924 yards of single bank fishing. This is a lot included in the larger sale of Bapton Manor which is just to the north of the A303 at the junction of the A36, so 5 miles past Stonehenge if you were travelling west.

I have not viewed so hard to know how much road noise there might be from the A303/A36. However, I do know the river well, it being just upstream of Fisherton de La Mere that we had for many years, which is a really good bit of water.

Here is the link to Lot 3 of the Bapton Manor sale. This is the link to the cottages on Google map. I have been unable to find a site plan. The asking price is £1.3m.

River Wylye, Bapton Manor Estate

That was the month that was June

June may have been the hottest month on record but it was not the driest. With rainfall data for the final week of the month still to be added to the total England is at 71% of normal rainfall for the month.

However, that does hide some dramatic regional differences with the north-west at 115%, the south-west at 92% and the south-east 71%. I assume it is due to those regional differences as to why the river flow data is literally all over the map with as many rivers Below normal as Above normal. In the primary chalkstream counties Hampshire remains at Normal, whilst all the others are Below normal.

The June feedback draw winner is Tim Baily who fished Coln St Aldwyns in Gloucestershire early in the month. Nigel Nunn’s July collection of tactical Olive patterns is in the post today.

Photos of the Week

I am indebted to a Florida reader who forwarded me a recent article from the New York Post of a vibrant, quirky nail trend that has reeled in Zoomers with a fishy nail craze.

The look is directly inspired by our multi-coloured, glittery, eye-catching lures and game fish with a-fish-ionados of the eccentric manicure taking to social media to show off their handiwork.

It looks to me like we have a brown trout and cutthroat on the right, plus maybe a pike on the left? The lures are pretty realistic with that split ring on the yellow body/black stripe/orange back lure a nice touch.