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Wednesday, 28 December 2016
2016 in Photos
Tuesday, 20 December 2016
Take the hard road
Greetings!
By the
onset of dusk on Sunday I had had enough of being shrouded in mist; with the
exception of a glorious Wednesday us Wallopians have barely seen the sun for
two weeks. We rise to mist and go to bed to mist. It hangs around all day
gathering in ever increasing swirls of density to become fog as soon as the sun
starts to dip from its already feeble zenith. It is the shortest day on
Wednesday; it cannot come soon enough for me for it is the starting point
towards a new summer.
But frankly by the time the
church clock chimed three I could not wait any longer; somewhere up there at
the far extreme of Nether Wallop is a much higher place, the hill they call
Danebury Ring. On a clear day you can spy the Isle of Wight from the top even
though it is 40 miles distant. At night red warning lights blink from
tall poles ushering the training helicopters from the nearby Middle Wallop
airbase away from catastrophe.
Within a few
dozen paces of leaving The Mill the steep climb starts. In summer the footpath
is garlanded with daisies as it weaves you up a sloping field of shimmering
corn. Today it is rotting stubble. The path is starting to turn to mud. I
refuse to slacken my pace even though the incline starts to make me puff, so I
distract myself recounting in my head for the umpteenth time the disputed
origin of the suffix to the name of our village. Some say Wallop refers to the
family name of the Earls of Portsmouth, once mighty land owners around these
parts. Others say 'wallop' means hidden valley. As I breast the rise I turn to
see what I know I won't see; even on a clear day the village will already be
hidden from view. Today it snuggles under a white duvet.
Likewise
Danebury Ring is still nowhere to be seen but the route to it is marked by the
grass swathe that was once Stockbridge racecourse that gently rises away from
me into the distance for a straight 10 furlongs. I know it is a mile and a
quarter because today, even a hundred years after the last race was run, the
bouncy turf is training gallops to the local racing stable who have helpfully
laid out marker dollies. As I pass one the next looms up ahead, a vague form
hidden in the mist which slowly comes into sharper focus as I approach.
As I count each
passing marker the mist is definitely thinning until, without warning it
breaks. Whilst all behind me is clouded, ahead, in sharp relief, in bright,
clear air is the Iron Age fort we call Danebury Ring. I quicken my pace
to reach the summit ahead of the soon-to-set sun. I am not the first. Men
have been drawn to this place for seven thousand years or more. It is the
highest point for miles around. As an easily defended settlement it
pre-dates Stonehenge. The climb is harder than anything earlier so I do pause
for breath at the natural breaks as the hill, as prominent in this landscape as
a jelly mould on a table, rises then plateaus before rising again.
At the top I
marvel at the full circumference of the scene below me. In some respects it is
not so remarkable. The rolling, sheep-grazed chalk downs disappearing into the
mist. The spindly silhouette of the leaf-bare beech trees on a ridge so many
miles away that those colossal trees appear no higher than matchsticks at this
distance. No roads. No people. No buildings. The only colour is from the static
grey sky where breaks in the cloud allow for bright patches of the pinky-orange
setting sun to show through. The crows provide the soundtrack, swirling in
their hundreds beneath my feet as they caw-caw in incessant unison whilst
seeking out their night time roost.
Actually I am
wrong. It is remarkable. Because for thousands of years men have stood at the
very spot I am now and seen the very self same landscape. Heard the crows.
Watched the sunset. And like me shivered in anticipation of the chill hours ahead.
For this continuity we as a nation should be very proud. In a turbulent world
we still have on our doorstep some of the most amazing, beautiful and
unchanging landscape that remains, for me at least, a thing of great wonder.
But we stand at a threshold.
In my lifetime I
have seen the population of Britain rise from around 50 million to close to 70
million, most of the increase in the already densely populated parts of
England. Steel pylons have strung electric power cables across what we now call
National Parks. Motorways have obliterated villages. Where there were once
rivers there are now just boreholes. The sleepy market towns Pevsner celebrated
are surrounded by a mish-mash of development, a beleaguered hole in an ever
growing donut. Agriculture has long lost its way farming solar parks,
wind turbines and government subsidy. Where once we had communities we
have boroughs, or if you are really unlucky, a unitary authority. And industry
does whatever it chooses; the lure of jobs and taxes blinds all to any possible
downsides.
It is a horrible
triptych of urbanisation, industry and pollution that threatens what we hold
dear. Thirty years ago The Economist wrote tongue-in-cheek that no UK
government would rest easy until all of southern England was concreted over.
Sadly they may well be right. In our own way all of us recognise this, doing
our bit to fight the fight: recycling, green energy, eco cars, campaigning
where we see damage and misdeeds. I could go on, but you get the idea - it is a
long list of battles. But let us be honest we are fighting the symptoms of the
disease not the disease itself.
At some point,
if we wish to preserve what we hold dear, the time will come to call a
halt. No more new houses. No more roads. No more factories. No more of
the disease because the medicines will not work forever. Individual
communities, be they towns, villages , counties or whatever groups coalesce
around the cause should be entitled to say, accepting the consequences of that
decision, 'we are full'.
It was
completely dark by the time I made it back to The Mill to the welcoming warmth
and light of a home which made me think: is it the ultimate complacency of
entitled nimbyism to hold up the FULL sign to exclude progress to those that
follow me? I guess in a way it is. But then again progression assumes an
upwards path with a duty to nurture a better world for those that follow.
As a nation we need to realise that we stand at something of a crossroads. The
correct road to take is the hard-to-argue one. Whether we take it depends on a
collective will.
FISH HAVE FEELINGS TOO
Jonathan's
Balcombe's book What a Fish Knows is a complex read. On the one hand it
is full of fascinating insights into the behaviour and lives of fish. How they
live, how they communicate, how they navigate their lives. Read it today and
you will, with little effort, be quite the bore over Christmas lunch.
But on the other hand
Balcombe's book is a Crie de
Coeur for all fish. He firmly believes (and I am with him on this)
that fish should have equal rights to animals. But clearly they don't.
As he says of vegetarians
who eat fish they do it, 'as if there were no moral distinction between cod and
a cucumber'. This might be fine if we are treating our oceans with care, but we
are not. Ever increasing demand for fish allied with prodigiously efficient commercial
fishing fleets is gradually extinguishing sea life.
Balcombe wants us all to
stop eating fish now. See if you agree. Buy it on Amazon.
HAPPY
CHRISTMAS!
We will be
shutting up shop for a few days over Christmas, but us fly fishers are a
restless bunch so it will not be for long. With the start of the new season now
closer than the end of the last this is the time to start planning.
If you had an opportunity to
read my last Newsletter you will know we have lots of new stuff for 2017 and
that the web site is loaded up, ready to go.
So, if you are happy to book
on-line it is all there for a few clicks of a mouse. That said should you
prefer a chat on the phone or like to ping a few emails back and forth we are
happy to help in any way.
Closed
December 23rd-27th
10am-4pm
December 28th & 29th
9am-1pm
December 30th
Closed
December 31st-January 2nd
9am-5pm
January 3rd
onwards
QUIZ
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Who am I?
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You will notice a trend that
I am becoming something of a magpie. This week the questions come from What a Fish Knows.
1) What is the fish on the
right?
2) How many species of fish are
there in the world?
3) How many eggs does an Ocean
Sunfish carry?
4) How many million years ago
did the first fish evolve?
It's just for fun and answers are at the bottom of the
page. I will be back between Christmas and the New Year with 2016 in
Photos and the great 'Who's Fin is That?' quiz.
In the meantime from all of us at Fishing Breaks, and the fish as
well, have a very Happy Christmas.
Best wishes,
Simon Cooper simon@fishingbreaks.co.uk
Founder & Managing Director
Quiz answers: 1) Pufferfish
2) 33,249 and counting. 4 new sharks were discovered last year 3)
300 million 4) 530 million; homo
sapiens appeared 2 million years ago.
Friday, 9 December 2016
New for 2017 & diaries open
Nether Wallop Mill, England Friday December 9th 2016
I suspect we will be a nation divided as midnight approaches on New Year's Eve. In the one corner there will be the Brexit/Trump contingent still partying as if there is tomorrow. In the other will be the Remain/Clinton camp musing that there may well be no tomorrow. Who is right and who is wrong I have no idea, but what I do know for sure is that the rains will fall, the rivers will fill and by April the dark nights of winter will be a long distant memory. Like the emerging insects we try to imitate us fly fishers will don our garb, dismiss the mad axis around which our respective daily lives revolve to head out to a far better place - the river bank.
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| Qing Ya Xi Lodge |
Our big project over the winter has been the restoration on Beat 1 at Bullington Manor. For those of you who get muddled with the beat layout that is the most upstream of the four with the red brick viaduct of the disused railway near to the top. Some people have wondered whether the work will adversely affect the fishing or impede access. The simple answer is absolutely not; you will see some bare soil on the banks and structures in the river but beyond that it is at the very least business as usual, or if our works are as successful as we hope, better. If you missed the last Newsletter read a full update on the project here.
Absolutely brand new for 2017 is Qing Ya Xi Lodge on the River Itchen. Formerly known as Kingfisher Lodge, the new name roughly translated from its Mandarin origin, means tranquil waters. The new owner has embarked on extensive work to return the fishery to its original glory which is in essence three beats in one: the leat, the navigation and the main river proper. The fast, tumbling leat has a host of wild fish, the slower flowing navigation the big, fussy fish and the main River Itchen ideal for sight fishing. The season opens on April 16 and it is perfectly suited for one to three Rods.
At Dunbridge (River Dun) we have always slightly struggled as the access and rod room were right beside the house, so I am delighted to say that we have flipped everything around. Now you'll park near the top of the beat, walk the winding path through the gorgeous wild meadows which will bring you out to the new hand crafted, architect-designed cabin in splendid isolation right on a bend in the river.
Our beat on the River Meon at Exton Manor Farm is one of the true wild trout delights but it has, until now, only been open to single Rods. However, with the addition of some extra bank length, it is now a much longer beat for one or plenty for two sharing. The added bonus is that it now starts within casting distance (well, a world record Spey cast if I am being honest ...) of The Shoe Inn, still a proper village pub.
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| Ilsington Lodge |
At Benham Estate on the River Kennet having originally been four Rods daily we dropped back to two last season but are now back to three for 2017. In Wiltshire Avon Springs has produced some huge fish in the past two years, including a monster caught by Charles Jardine in the One Fly. Most people have released the big 'uns but not everyone, which is a shame but maybe understandable for a fish of a lifetime. However, that will not be an option in the future as we are introducing a slot limit so only fish between 1 ½ to 2 ½ lbs may be killed.
Fish Camp, two days fishing with a night on the river, is back with more venues than ever, plus a new selection of Season Tickets with the 4x4, The Wild Bunch and the All Wading 4x4. The Kids Fish Camp for 12-16 year olds, which was over-subscribed last year will be back in July and I am currently putting together an advanced programme for those who came in 2016.
You will find all this plus more on the web site that is now fired up for 2017. Nearly all the diaries are available for on-line bookings though I would caution that some (see list below*) are not, so contact Diane by email or phone for dates and bookings.
I hope you find all your old favourites or maybe something new.
*Online from 22/December: Bullington Manor, School Farm, Middleton Estate & Wherwell Priory. On-line early January: Barton Court, East Lodge, Mottisfont Abbey, Timsbury & Wimborne St Giles.
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ACE FILM MAKERS DO IT AGAIN
Ace film makers Chris Cooper (no relation) and Leo Cincolo have been at it again with a wonderful grayling video shot at Bullington Manor back in October. It needs no further words from me.
View it here or click on the photo.
ALAN TYING AT LONDON FLY FISHING FAIR
If you ever fish with us, be it here at Nether Wallop Mill or with one of the guides, you will likely be fishing a fly tied by Alan Middleton.
Alan, who has been a Fishing Breaks guide for over a decade, used to be Chairman of the Fly Dresser Guild so knows a thing or two about creating the perfect imitation.
So now, with the fishing ended for a while, you'll find Alan hunched over his tying bench in Sussex turning out thousands, and I really do mean thousands, of flies that we will use next season. Probably not a good idea to mention Pheasant Tail Nymphs or Parachute Adams in Alan's company anytime soon. Our most popular nymph and dry patterns respectively, the two combined turn him a bit stir crazy as he winds them onto a hook for the umpteenth time.
But hopefully by the spring Alan will have returned to normal as you will be able to see him tying on the Veniard stand at the London Fly Fishing fair that takes place in Islington March 10th/11th. Tickets and details here.
QUIZ
I am going to mercilessly pillage Jack Perks' new book Freshwater Fishes of Britain again.
1) How many fish species are there in the British Isles?
2) What is the largest?
3) What is the smallest?
4) When were carp introduced to the UK?
5) Which species of fish does the Queen own and should, by law, be offered to her on capture?
It's just for fun and answers are at the bottom of the page. Jack's book is available from bookshops and Amazon.
I will be back with one more email before Christmas (my letter to Santa on what Brexit gifts our rivers need), with 2016 in Photos and the great 'Who's Fin is That?' quiz to follow during the holidays.
Have a good weekend.
Quiz answers: 1) 42 native, 14 introduced. 2) Atlantic Sturgeon (880lb) 3) Ten-spined Stickleback (0.7oz) 4) 15th century 5) Atlantic Sturgeon.
Thursday, 24 November 2016
New life to a chalkstream
Nether Wallop Mill, Hampshire England Thursday November 24th 2016
I delighted to say the restoration work at Bullington Manor was completed, on time and on budget, just ahead of the recent rains. It is all still a bit raw and, in truth, will take the full circle of the four seasons before it looks wholly natural. However, such is the success of the work we are back fishing so if you head out for the grayling between now and January you'll be able to see how quickly the fish have adapted to their new, improved home.
I am indebted to Kris Kent, PR Officer for the Grayling Society, for his account of the work which he recently posted on the Wild Trout Society web site. As you will read he forsook his warm office and smart suit for a week in waders. It probably seemed like a good idea at the time ........
"I was between jobs so I emailed Shaun Leonard, Wild Trout Trust Director, to see if there was anything I could help out the Wild Trout Trust with. I was thinking of a little light administration, spreadsheets, reports or the like. Within a few minutes Shaun called me on the mobile. "Did I fancy helping out Mike Blackmore with a project he was working on?" I said "Why not." Shaun suggested I call Mike to make the necessary arrangements. Mike seemed a little bewildered by the fact that I was going to be helping out but he suggested that I start the following Tuesday and filled me in on the logistics.
In Guildford on business and on my way back to home in Lambourn, I realised I would be passing close by the project site, so I popped by to make sure I knew where I would be going the following week. I pulled off the narrow lane that skirted the river by the pretty little church of Saint Michael and All Angels. Mike's white VW Transporter was parked up by the stables so I knew I must have been in the right place.
Saint Michael and All Angels, and the team working hard
I decided to take a quick stroll along the river and see if I could find Mike and the team and see what was going on. It didn't take me long to find them. Mike and Jonny, the Keeper, were being ably supported by volunteers from Sparsholt College. They looked a little confused as I strode down the path in suit and brogues!
Mike walked me down the river explaining the background to the project, the problems being addressed and the plan for the project. The Environment Agency had identified this reach of the Dever as being an ideal opportunity to undertake a major habitat restoration project with the Wild Trout Trust as part of the Test and Itchen Restoration Strategy. Following engagement and planning with the riparian owners and the team that run and maintain the fishery (Fishing Breaks), a project was pulled together. The project was funded by the owners, the Environment Agency and a donation from a WTT partner, Springwise, through an initiative called 1% for the Planet by which environmentally-minded businesses can donate 1% of their turnover for work to improve our natural environment. Fishing Breaks also provided skilled labour in the form of River Keeper, Jonny Walker.
This section of the Dever was suffering from a number or problems. Impoundments meant that long sections lacked significant flow and had led to siltation of the spawning gravels, uniformity of habitat, and tall, vertical banks. It was overwide in many places and had been artificially straightened. The uniform habitat was limiting biodiversity and, whilst there was a reasonable head of wild trout and grayling, the lack of suitable spawning habitat was hindering recruitment and a lack of refuges meant that fish (particularly juveniles) were vulnerable to predation.
The project had two phases. Week one focused on opening up the canopy in strategic places to let more light in and aid weed and marginal plant growth. The wood generated would then be used to create flow deflecting woody habitat features. Woody mattresses and hinged bankside trees would create fish refuges and trap silt, providing additional marginal habitat. Together these would help narrow the channel, increase flow, scour gravels and create a more sinuous, meandering channel.
Creating a woody mattress, and the plant required for 'dig and dump'
In week two, the heavy plant would arrive. This would enable the team to do some 'dig and dump'. Pools would be dug out with the waste materials from that process used to create marginal berms that pinch the channel and accelerate flow. Then, new gravels would be introduced to make the new pools more hospitable for fish and provide spawning opportunities at the tail of each pool. Additional riffles would also be created to further diversify habitat. Sections of tall, steep bank would be re-profiled to improve floodplain connectivity, improve marginal habitat and provide easier access for anglers.
So I arrived at the beginning of week two and found the river already transformed. My job was to run around and help out with anything that needed doing, freeing up the professionals to focus on the important stuff. After the digger had introduced the gravels into the new pools, I would follow on and rake them over, blending them in and tidying them up.
I helped peg in some woody debris as juvenile refuge habitat and I stacked up the leftover wood and piled up the brash ready to burn. During week one, the team had created a new river bank along an over-widened section. During week two, I helped to back fill this area and translocate marginal plants to the new bank edge.
Creating new bank
By the end of the week, I was exhausted, not being used to such manual work. But the sense of achievement was almost overwhelming. Seeing the transformation from degraded to vibrant habitat gave me a huge sense of satisfaction and pride. And the fish loved it too. Minutes after digging a new pool, the fish had already moved in and in one small pool we counted over twenty trout and grayling. I can't wait to go back in six months or a year and see how the river has settled into its new setting. The other thing I enjoyed was the sense of camaraderie, working together on such an important restoration project. I highly recommend it."
L-R: Jonny Walker (Fishing Breaks), Kris Kent (volunteer), Heb Leman (Environment Agency), Shaun Leonard (Wild Trout Society, Director) and Mike Blackmore (Project Manager)
FREE PASSAGE FOR EELS
If this photo of a bit of rusty steel means little or nothing to you I'll completely understand. Let me explain ......
Eels used to be an unremarkable sight on the chalkstreams. On a still summer evening a stroll along the river bank would be regularly accompanied by a hard-to-locate slurping noise. Close inspection rarely revealed the source, but just occasionally you'd see a shiny, black-grey head pop out from beneath the surface as an eel sucked down an emergent nymph as it made its way from the water to the air by crawling up a reed stem.
But sadly as the number of eels has crashed in the past decade this riverside oddity has become rarer and rarer. The reasons are manifold though the primary cause seems to be a virus that attacks the swim bladder of the eel, disabling its ability to regulate swimming depth in the ocean as it returns from the European rivers to the spawning grounds in the Sargasso Sea. This is important because the eel doesn't actually 'swim' back the three thousand plus miles, but rather hitches a ride on the subterranean ocean currents which he or she almost surfs to make it home. But catching those currents requires moving thousands of feet up and down in the thermal layers of the sea but without a swim bladder that can't happen so the eel, which doesn't eat in saltwater, starves to death before ever reaching the welcoming embrace of the sargassum weed.
All the time eels were populous we never had to bother much about their survival in the chalkstreams, but today they need every helping hand we can offer. So, a programme is underway to remove the obstructions that impede the progress of eels upstream when they first arrive in the rivers and downstream when they return to the ocean anywhere between five and twenty years later, hence the rather strange grille pictured here.
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| Mill race | |
Today eel trapping has all but died out; I did hear of an old fellow who continues on one of the Dorset rivers. But for the most part all that remains are a few of the abandoned structures, so by removing these impediments, as we have with this one, it increases the chances of survival of the eels that remain.
THE MOP FLY GET A RISE
It must have been about the moment Brian Clarke was working himself up into a state of fulmination as he penned his monthly column for The Times about the Mop Fly (read his article here) that an unexpected email popped into my Inbox. Geoff, who I don't know but describes himself as a river keeper, simply said in the briefest of emails,
'In my youth we used Dock leafs to relieve nettle stings and when we pulled up the roots we used the grubs to fish for trout, so I guess the mop fly is just the latest imitation of the Docken Grub.'
As it turns out he is absolutely correct; the grub is close to being a dead ringer to the pale version of the Mop Fly and as you will see from the picture below similar patterns have been tied in the past.
Now clearly the originator of the Mop (c. 2010) was not deliberately imitating the grub which, it seems, has a long history. In the wonderfully entitled Sporting Almanack and Oracle of Rural Life (c.1843) the author lauded the Dock grub to the skies.
'There is not a more killing mode of trout fishing in the months of April and May than by dropping one of these baits into a gentle stream, or still deep hole.'
If grubs are your thing he goes on to recommend the Ash grub for winter fishing and the Oak grub for relieving the post-Mayfly torpor. This was man with few boundaries: he further recommends cheese and honey as useful baits plus many varied types of worm, mostly it seems found in or under cow-pats. Here is the relevant page from the book.
And all this twenty years before Halford came on the scene. It makes you wonder how fly fishing ever caught on.
QUIZ
I highly recommend Jack Perks' new book Freshwater Fishes of Britain that captures all our native fishes with some great underwater photography with plenty of interesting facts, figures and bios on each species.
Jack has researched the collective nouns to many of our fishes. Match the fish to the correct collective noun.
Eel Spread
Goldfish Swarm
Grayling Shoal
Rudd Pod
Salmon Pack
Stickleback Hover
Trout Glint
Zander Bind
It's just for fun and answers are at the bottom of the page. Jack's book is available from bookshops and Amazon.
Have a good weekend.
Quiz answers: Eel/swarm, goldfish/glint, grayling/pod, rudd (and bream, roach & minnow)/shoal, salmon/bind, stickleback/spread, trout/hover and zander/pack.
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