Life of a Chalkstream: A cast from the past

Greetings!

Not so long ago I was hosting a fishing day attended by a guest who had just had a significant birthday for which his wife had bought him a truly beautiful, bespoke split cane rod. To say he was excited was an understatement, the whole ensemble costing as much as some people spend on a small family car.

Not wanting to burst his bubble I said all those platitudes usually reserved for ugly babies. My view on split cane is that when I see Roger Federer marching out onto Wimbledon Centre Court clutching a wooden tennis racquet, I will know it is time for me to empty the loft to recover my most hated fishing instrument. Sure enough, after lunch I noticed a lonely spilt cane rod standing in the corner whilst its owner headed out with something more contemporary.

I was reminded of that day this week when I was very kindly gifted a bit of Nether Wallop Mill heritage, a Wilson/Sharpe 8’3” International, the first rod Dermot Wilson commissioned to his own specifications to sell mail order. Despite being over 40 years old it is out-of-the-bag new; I’m not sure it has ever been used. It is a strange beast of a rod, the only rod I can recall coming across where the butt section and tip section (it is a 2 piecer) are different lengths, what Dermot called in his finest marketing spiel, a ‘staggered ferrule’ which included an extended ferrule stop so both sections became of equal length for packing and transportation.

Wiggling it about as you do any new rod in that rather pointless way that is meant to imbue in us some sense of its merits I was struck as to not only how heavy it was at 4¼ oz (120g), at least a third more in weight than its modern equivalent, but how it could so easily double as a broom handle. Stiff? It needs at year of yoga to loosen it up. I guess time and technology have eroded from the memory split cane inadequacies. As to cost back then in 1981 it was £50.72, which in real terms is £175 today which makes it look pretty cheap even though it was at the top end of Dermot’s trout range.

But regardless of its fly casting merits it is a blue The brass ferrules. The high-grade aluminium reel seats. The embroidered, thick cloth bag. Soon we are going to hang it in the fishing cabin by way of tribute to Dermot and the long gone Aberdonian craftsmen of J S Sharpe.

Hip, hip hoopoe

It is becoming a veritable wildlife park around these parts, with the reappearance for the third year in a row of the very rare, and highly distinctive, crown-feathered hoopoe bird, so called for its hoo–poo cry.

As far as anyone knows this is the first time a hoopoe, a European native, has returned to over summer three times in a row but sadly our male, nicknamed Eric (ref Monty Python) is alone, though in the 1950’s there were eight successful breeding pairs, including a pair in Nether Wallop in 1956.

I did not realise it but in the bird world these things are much monitored, with the hoopoe long tipped as the next bird to become a UK native. To a certain extent we could certainly do with its help as ever-increasing lengths of hedgerow are killed by the smothering webs of the processionary moth, a favourite food of the hoopoe. Ash dieback might also contribute to the desirability of an English home; the millions of dead trees offer nesting habitat along with a providing a rich source of food in ants, caterpillars, crickets and so on.

All in all, I’d rate the hoopoe chances as pretty good as the young have remarkable defences evolved in regions tougher than our own. First the mother, and then later on the chicks, secrete a foul-smelling liquid that has the odour of rotting meat, into their downy plumage. Then, from the age of six days, the nestlings can also direct streams of faeces at intruders and will hiss at them in a snake-like fashion.

Things might get interesting in the Test valley one day soon.

Not Halloween but hedges choked to death by the egg laying caterpillars of the processionary moth family

Riverwoods

I never like to be unkind about the creative efforts of others – bitter reviews and correspondence of my own stuff has made me sensitive to such things, but I found Riverwoods, a film from climate change activists Scotland The Big Picture at best head scratching. The premise? Well, let me use their words because I became a little confused,

Riverwoods is the story of a fish that lives in the forest. And in the soil that feeds the forest. And in the predators, scavengers and even herbivores of the forest. Scotland’s Atlantic salmon - the King of Fish - is not only the ultimate angler’s prize, but a key building block in a complex forest ecosystem.

If I understand the filmmakers reasoning the argument goes that Scotland needs to rewild the landscape replacing heather with forest which, in turn, will aid the recovery of the Atlantic salmon. I guess it might, but will it? The Scottish landscape was largely denuded of trees in the Bronze Age, the wood used for, as the name of the era suggests, bronze smelting. But the precipitous decline in salmon runs dates back decades, or maybe a century or two at best, rather than to the Bronze Age three millennia or more ago.

In parts this is an interesting film; it has important things to say which it says well. But I could well have done without a preachy adolescent, as sort of Caledonian Greta Thunberg, who told me what I should be thinking both at the beginning and end of the film, which nicely bookended my rage when there was a five-minute love-in to the beaver.

You can watch the trailer here and register to watch the film for free.

2022 Kids Summer Camp

The annual Kids Summer Camp has become something of a fixture – three summer days, two here at Nether Wallop Mill and one on the River Test, in early July. There are groups for two age ranges, 8-11 and 12-15 years.

There is no requirement to have ever held a fly rod before as we start with the basics building all the way through to some stylish casts, plus fly tying, bug identification, anatomy of a trout and much, much more.

There is a discount for sibling and friend bookings. More details here

Two winners for the price of one

I was very remiss last month not offering up the winner of the feedback draw for April, so killing two birds with one stone, the Fishing Breaks snoods go to Simon Turner who fished the Lambourn in late April and James Whishaw who fished the Coln in May, just ahead of the mayfly.

For them, and you, all names will go back in the hat for the end of season draw for the special edition Hardy reel created to celebrate the 150^th anniversary of the founding of arguably the world’s most famous tackle maker.