Life of a Chalkstream: Carp for supper?

Life on a Chalkstream

10th October 2025

All manners of people, from all sides of the political aisle, seem to have tied themselves in knots over allegedly the latest in fine dining – carp, which prompted me to look into the regulations.

Each day, excepting the closed season, you can take from rivers one pike (up to 65cm), two grayling (30cm to 38cm) and fifteen small fish (up to 20cm) including barbel, chub, common bream, common carp, crucian carp, dace, perch, rudd, silver bream, roach, smelt and tench. Any eels you catch (except conger eels) must be released alive. You can also take minor or ‘tiddler’ species, such as gudgeon, non-native species and ornamental varieties of native species like ghost or koi carp.

Crispy Fried Carp - a Polish Christmas Eve tradition

Having never eaten any of the above species bar eels I sought out some opinions. Carp, which was much reared in medieval times, especially in monastic circles, was considered the best, with bream the second favourite. Perch, tench and roach were also reared which suggest they had appeal as food. Pike were much liked but rearing difficult for all the obvious reasons. Eels of course, along with trout and salmon, were the most sought after but more seasonal and harder to harvest.

But back to today; I have to admit I did not realise we were quite so free to kill quite so many fish on a daily basis. I am sure there is some logic behind both the listed species and the associated sizes, but for the life of me why anyone would want to kill two good sized grayling a day defeats me. And more importantly, why, if eels are protected why not grayling?

I did get briefly side tracked into the regulations for trout, salmon and sea trout but that is a whole new world of pain which you can enter for yourself via this link. Apropos the Boden skirmish there are still plenty of rivers where, if you have the wish, you may keep a salmon which makes me think the pile on should be directed at the Environment Agency, custodian of the bye-laws that control such things. To requote myself, why, if eels are fully protected why not salmon?

When salmon were plentiful: Sir Thomas & Lady Sopwith with a day's catch from Nursling, River Test 1954.

Confected outrage

The headline in The Daily Telegraph last week ‘Boden ad campaign featuring dead salmon triggers angler backlash’ caught my eye on two fronts. Firstly, having seen the advert I did not feel in anyway triggered and secondly, in full disclosure, Boden founder Johnnie Boden was one of our teenage gang who grew up in the Meon Valley of East Hampshire.

The ‘outrage’ was that the models, kitted out for salmon fishing, were holding a dead salmon. Now to be fair, I am not a great fan of grip ‘n grin photographs of dead fish, but they do have a place. Across our website nearly all the fish featured are on the way to being safely released. However, at Nether Wallop Mill, I see no harm in recording the incontestable joy of catching and keeping that first ever trout which often is the beginning of a lifetime of fly fishing with all the abundant adventure that will bring and an appreciation of the great outdoors.

But back to Boden. It seems that the ‘angler backlash’ was that someone, somewhere (let us assume for the moment a click hungry keyboard warrior) had decided that holding a dead salmon, patently obviously a farmed one, was in some way hastening the demise of the wild salmon stocks. Cue The Daily Telegraph, and the following day The Times, contacting the usual string of people and organisations who wheeled themselves out as a rent-a-quote to support this flimsy assertion. One even tried to draw some feminist connection.

This was confected rage of the worst kind that does little to move forward the cause of angling. In fact, I would argue that the likes of the Boden campaign, left unremarked by activist anglers, would have been a boost for our image. Yes, there was a dead fish but the British public do not resile at images of this kind, as evidenced by frequent supermarket TV and poster advertising campaigns featuring dead fish.

Frankly, I thought they were great images that bought some fun and youth to fishing, precisely the target audience the rent-a-quotes are usually so keen to go after. But no, thanks to this ‘backlash’ Boden withdrew the adverts, issued a grovelling apology and you can be absolutely sure that no advertising campaign manager is going to touch anything angling related for a very long time.

So, well done everyone who piled on, great job.

Resolving UK water scarcity

Here is a good idea. You live in a country where water is at a premium, where rivers are starved by over abstraction when they are at their most vulnerable during the summer months. So, in the name of climate change, why not grow a water hungry crop like rice in artificially created paddy fields.

Nah, its never going to happen, you might think. However, you could well be wrong because in East Anglia, Britain’s driest region, trial rice crops are about to be harvested for the first time, the scientist leading the study saying, ’In 10 years time, rice could be a perfect crop for us.’

Perfect? I sometimes wonder if people like this have entirely lost the plot. Though water for agricultural use only accounts for 1-2% of overall UK consumption the problem is that irrigation is consumptive. That is to say water is not returned to the environment in the short term, concentrated in the driest areas, in the driest years and driest months when resources are most constrained. Fortunately, not everyone is quite so smitten with the rice plan, a fellow scientist involved in the project, pointing out that the likely upshot will be a wildlife haven for tens of thousands of locust-like Canada geese.

The Ely rice crop

Last week I did in fact touch upon the use of water in farming when I gave a seminar to the team at Imperial College London who are undertaking the Water Scarcity Project Inquiry. The bulk of the discussion was around a national grid of water, reservoirs, desalination, and encouraging less wasteful use in both residential and commercial settings. The theme, in essence, was that we are a country with plenty of water where we only need six inches of rain a year to sustain our needs from an annual rainfall of 32-40 inches; the trouble is that, as things currently stand, we often have the most water where we need it least and vice a versa. In this, farming has a role to play.

The growing water consuming crops such as maize or sugar beet, and field vegetables like potatoes, carrots, onions, and salad crops, and in extremis rice, should be confined to those regions where water scarcity is not an issue. This can be done by pricing – namely varying the cost of abstraction licences by region or simply proscribing certain crops in certain areas. In a similar fashion, commercial enterprises should be subject to water pricing in areas of water scarcity or denied planning permission altogether. Likewise new residential housing should be subject to similar strictures.

Today technology and innovation frequently makes the previously impossible readily possible but sometimes, as with the rice project, we should stand back to consider the broader implications.

Commemorative bench to Halford & Marryat unveiled by the River Itchen in Winchester

I am indebted to Michael Rescorle who saw this article in our local paper the Hampshire Chronicle which I reproduce in full.

A bench commemorating a meeting between the fathers of dry fly fishing has been unveiled in Winchester. The bench is located in The Weirs, and marks the April 28, 1879, meeting in Winchester between Frederic M. Halford and George Selwyn Marryat, which led to the development of dry fly fishing.

The bench was officially unveiled by supporters on Thursday, October 2. They were joined by Johanna Halford, the great-great-granddaughter of F.M. Halford. She said: “I think it is rather magical that we are celebrating this meeting between Marryat and Halford. Marryat had all this knowledge that he shared with Halford. Halford tried to share the spotlight and asked Marryat to be a co-author, but Marryat said no.

Marryat was the brains behind it all. I would have really liked to have met him. I think to have a bench for this meeting between these two men will shed light on this part of history. It is really down to the hard work of Mike Davis and the team, that we have this bench here. Like fly fishing, it is all about patience and observation. I have studied trees, and one of my teachers said, it is all about observation. My family and I are thrilled that this bench has been placed in The Weirs.”

Mike Davis, Johanna Halford and Terry Lawton

Mike Davis, who was one of the main drivers behind getting the bench erected, said: “I am delighted that there is finally a memorial to Winchester's role in the history of fly fishing. I am surprised there has not been a memorial to date for this meeting, which led to the development of fly fishing and made Hampshire chalk streams world famous.”

Terry Lawton, another of the main organisers for the bench, said: “We are very pleased to be here today to unveil the bench. It is a memorial to a most significant meeting in the development of dry fly fishing."

I have to say this is a great tribute but a horrible bench, though I guess the hand of the Winchester City Council, or maybe the Cathedral authorities, laid heavy on the choices. If you wish to visit, here is the What3Words location.

That was the month that was September

I would say this September was just about the perfect month to end the final full month of the season. Plenty wet enough at 149% of long term average rainfall (LTA) to perk up the streams but the rain concentrated enough to leave blue sky, short sleeve days to enjoy a final cast. In fact, we were inundated with last minute bookings which added up to one of our busiest Septembers on record with some stellar catch reports.

Of course, as you well know, I now start to look nervously to the heavens as October-January are the critical months in which the winter rains recharge the aquifers that will carry us through 2026. Currently we are set fair with groundwater levels and river flows measures showing Normal. That said on the 12 month rolling measure we are tracking at 92% of LTA but that comes on the back of the very wet winter of 2024/25.

If your of a mind, the grayling season has kicked off in earnest and our winner of the September Feedback Draw Marcus Wide who fished Whitchurch Fulling Mill will be able to head out with 10 grayling patterns from our Vice Master Nigel Nunn. Tight lines Marcus!