Tuesday, 8 July 2025

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.

Quiz

The usual random collection of questions this week inspired by the date today. Happy 4th July to all my American readers!


1)       What officially ended on this day in Britain in 1954, 9 years after the end of WWII?


2)       What was presented to the United States of America in Paris on this day in 1884?


3)       What children’s fantasy novel was published on this day in 1865?


Answers are at the bottom of this Newsletter.

Have a good weekend.



Best wishes,

Founder & Managing Directorwww.fishingbreaks.co.uk

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1)       Meat and all other food rationing

2)       The Statue of Liberty

3)       Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Monday, 23 June 2025

More fantasy figures from Southern Water

 

 

Greetings!

 

Move over Einstein. Put away your tables Pythagarus. Do not even bother to invent the computer Charles Babbage for a new mathematical genius is amongst us. Welcome, Tim McMahon of Southern Water, the likely recipient of the next Nobel Prize for Mathematics.

 

The story so far. Tim McMaths made a claim that the South-East of England was drier than Istanbul. This was soon shot down in flames, but with a brain that processes faster that the most super of supercomputers McMaths came back with new workings to prove that the South-East, though not technically drier than Istanbul, was indubitably equally dry. However, McMaths, who probably hones his calculating skills watching endless repeats of the numbers game on quiz show Countdown had to perform two feats of contorted logic to arrive (again) at this implausible claim.

 

Firstly, he had to include the population of London in his calculations. The last time I looked our capital was most definitely not in the south-eastern portion of England but hey-ho Tim perhaps you are lining yourself up for a Nobel Prize double to include geography. Secondly, Tim has used the historic average for Istanbul rainfall but compares it one of the driest on periods on record for South-East England.

 

 

All this I know because McMaths came up with the new ‘equally dry’ assertion having been challenged in a meeting which raised my comments in the previous Newsletter. Subsequently My Rain Truth as McMaths’ revised calculations should be known as from now on were then circulated to Southern Water employees as the official line to bail out the sinking McMaths.

 

Amusing as all this is, my worry is that it vividly illustrates the failing in the management culture of Southern Water. Rather than admit a mistake and move on, the employees are encouraged to hunker down behind the flimsy barricades of half-truths, defending the indefensible making both themselves and the company look, at the kindest reading, absurd. 

 

 

Water company economics 101

 

Just to prove I am not entirely unsympathetic to the plight of Southern Water let me tell you something of the small Hampshire village of Sutton Scotney, which happens to be close to the source of the River Dever, a major River Test tributary with our beloved Bullington Manor a mile or so downstream.

 

Sutton Scotney, with a population of just under a thousand, is what would be regarded as a big village. It has a pub, village shop, nursing home, fire station, filling station, garage plus the substantial Naomi House, a children’s hospice. Like many villages both in Hampshire and across England it has grown substantially this century, in this case by 35% but is served by the same sewage works that was built sometime in the previous century to serve a much smaller population at a time when average household water usage was much lower.

 

 

Sutton Scotney sewage works in progress

 

These works have not been up to the task of serving the current 590 households of Sutton Scotney for a great many years, as evidenced by the almost permanent presence of standby tankers taking away the overflow. These tankers, which you see at similar works all over the county, cost I am told £2,000 a day, so something in the region of quarter to half a million pounds a year just to keep Sutton Scotney on sewage life support.

 

That would be fine if Southern Water were deriving oodles of money from the villagers, but they are not. The income from Sutton Scotney for sewerage services, based on the 76p a day/household tariff Southern will be able to charge once the new pricing kicks in, will be in the region of £165,000 a year. So currently the annual loss, with standard running costs plus the tankers, is well into six figures. Now to be fair to Southern Water they are not blind to the issue and have been, since last winter, upgrading the works with the project costing £5.2m.

 

It does not take a financial wizard to see that there is no way this work is going to pay out for Southern Water. Even if we assumed the running costs of the sewage works were zero, with no future maintenance bills or any cost of finance to add, the payback on that £5.2m would take 31 years. Add in any or all of the true costs and the payback is pretty well no time ever.

 

 

Sutton Scotney

 

This is the bind that Southern Water, Thames Water and most all of the water companies find themselves in. They have to modernise to meet customer need and environmental legislation, but the cost of that modernisation far exceeds any possible financial reward. No wonder KKR and other institutions are running for the hills or writing down the value of water company stakes to zero. They see the writing on the wall.

 

For us consumers there is a mighty bill ahead. If we want plentiful water through our taps, toilets that flush away with ease and waste treatment standards that return clean water back to our rivers then charges will have to rise not just by a percentage but by many times what we currently pay. The question is whether there is a politician, both brave and wise, who can sell this difficult message.

 

 

The excitement of the opening day

 

My upbringing was such that I entirely missed out on coarse fishing; in east Hampshire we were blessed with chalkstreams so of bream, barbel, carp, chub and perch I knew nothing. In fact the first I knew of this strange breed of non-fly fishing folk who sought out such species was after an all-nighter at university. The residences at the University of East Anglia overlooked the Broads and at the dawn of one mid-June morning I saw figures emerge from the mist hurrying towards the water. It was, of course, 16 June, a date that had had no significance to me until that moment.

 

To this day, half a century or more, that vision still stays with me. I recall exactly the urgency of those figures to reach the bank, set up the rods and get fishing. The opening day was a very special event. Back then all year coarse fishing venues were few and far between. The close season meant closed to all fishing for most people, so the anticipation of the opening day ramped up as the end of the three-month fishing drought came ever closer.

 

People got positively excited about getting back on the water. The Angling Times doubled its page count to fulfil advertiser needs. Angling shops stocked up on all sorts of goodies. Kids pestered their fathers as if it was Christmas Day soon. In a way it is a shame that wide eyed excitement no longer exists quite as it did.

 

 

But that said, we still have a strict closed season on the rivers so I know of one person who will be exhibiting childlike enthusiasm to be back on his beloved River Wye this week. I am, of course, talking about John Bailey, both angler extraordinaire and currently in the throes of filming the eighth series of Gone Fishing for which he has been Angling Consultant since the very first episode. I know neither Bob nor Paul will gripe if I say this programme would not exist without John. You may never see him in front of the camera but believe me he is an almost Godlike presence behind the camera. He is the fishing Mr Fixit.

 

If you want to join John on the River Wye between his filming stints for predominately barbel and chub, check out our link. The season runs from now to late autumn with the days available for singles, pairs or groups to four. John provides everything - just bring yourself and a pair of waders.

 

 

 

In praise of the Summer Solstice

 

There is something inestimably special about the Summer Solstice. The day in the year when the upward trajectory towards summer ends, the rest of the year a slow slide toward the depths of winter. Of all the days in the year it is my favourite, albeit seasonally bitter and sweet. Usually I let sleep take me as soon as it comes but on this night I fight tiredness to enjoy every last moment of the blue/grey night that never really gets dark. Even the bats, who ordinarily return to their roosts, seem to treat this extended half-darkness as an all-night diner.

 

The thing about the solstice is that it is a moment in the calendar over which we have no control. Christmas. Easter. New Year. They are all human constructs. Should a cataclysmic event or manmade disaster wipe us all from the planet (my money is on the latter) none of those days will exist, the dates passing unnoticed. But the solstice is different. It has been here since the start of time. It will be here until the end of time. It regulates our very existence. Without the cadence of the seasons it creates the planet as we know it would not exist.

 

 

In truth, contemporary humankind is daft; we should have kept with the sun worshipping of the Inca tribes and their like. Our modern celebrations of made-up dates are laughable in the face evolution. The next time somebody proposes as new Bank Holiday for some notional event we should pause and ask: What date really matters?

 

 

Your photos

 

Here is a selection of a few photos sent with your feedback reports in the past few weeks. Thank you all and keep 'em coming!

 

 

 

Clockwise: Exton Manor Farm (Meon). Abbots Worthy (Itchen).

Breach Farm (Itchen). Exton Manor Farm (Meon).

 

 

Quiz

 

The usual random collection of questions inspired by the events that took place on this date in history or topics in the Newsletter.

 

1)     Who ascended the British throne on this day in 1837 to reign for 63 years?

 

2)     In what year did Royal Ascot extend from a four day fixture ending on Friday to a five day ending on Saturday? A) 1962  B) 1982  C) 2002

 

3)     The Norfolk Broads were formed by the flooding of areas dug to extract what fuel?

 

Answers are at the bottom of this Newsletter.

 

Have a good Solstice weekend.



Best wishes,

 

 

Simon Cooper simon@fishingbreaks.co.uk

Founder & Managing Directorwww.fishingbreaks.co.uk

 

 

1)     Queen Victoria

2)     C) 2002

3)     Peat

 

 

 

 

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