There are places where a British coarse angler absolutely has to cast a line at least once in a lifetime of fishing. My list is topped by Redmire Pool, even though the carp fishing there is a now a mere shadow of its record breaking heyday. The Royalty on the Hampshire Avon is a must and one day before I die I will walk its hallowed banks. I'd like to do Throop on the Dorset Stour, Startops Reservoir, Kings Weir on the Lea and other rivers stretches, lakes and ponds too numerous to mention.
However, there is one fishery that I would suggest be forcibly entered into the top three of every serious coarse angler's wish list by an officer of the law and that is one day's trotting a stick float off a centre pin reel on the Lower Itchen Fishery in Southampton, for grayling in the morning, and roach in the evening...
We, that's Keith and I who fished it this time last year and Danny who'd joined us on his maiden voyage, arrived Monday evening and spent an hour or so drinking beer, watching and feeding a group of four big chub swimming about in the free stretch that runs past the beer garden of the Swan pub just below the fishery. There were loads of anglers fishing hereabouts and after drinks we elected to join them for an hour. Under the frequent rush of noise that accompanied the arrival of planes onto Southampton Airport's nearby runway Keith had three half pound roach, Danny a chub too, but I had not a bite...
That night we met up with Sash, the organiser of the party, for food and drinks in the airport hotel. He'd already spent the day fishing the holy waters and to our relief had had plenty of grayling, trout, a chub, no big roach unfortunately but had hooked and lost a salmon, a fish that had just 'gone around the corner' apparently, and there was nothing Sash could do, on trotting gear, to stop it.
By eight thirty next morning we were fishing. I chose to start on a wide stretch of rapid and very shallow water, my starting peg last year in fact, where I could have fun with big wallis casts, long trots and the tricky maneuvering of the float downstream across the white gravel beds and between the highly visible weed banks to catch out the grayling who hover effortlessly just off bottom in the fastest currents.
My first fish was a perfect little brownie...
Followed next cast by the first of the days grayling, and at five ounces I was off the mark with the fishing challenge point - just sixty ounces to go!
It took just an hour or so to clinch it landing one fish after the other averaging five ounces, and up to twelve, falling to the double red maggots. Keith who had elected to fish a corner with deep water just above me built his swim with loose feed and got there very quickly but I saw no point in attempting to feed such a large area of shallows and simply fished the bait alone. It worked just fine, tiring admittedly having to do all the work standing, but a lot of fun!
I then moved down to a sweeping bend and a deep pool near the first fishing hut that I think (the map is unclear) is called The Pulpit. I'd decided to try corn to pick off the bigger grayling and it worked brilliantly with all the fish now around the twelve ounce mark. Then I had another brownie of a pound ~
I was fishing way over depth now with the bait dragging bottom, a technique that was proving very effective in the remarkably snag free environs of a managed game fishery with fish after fish falling to it...
Then I hooked a fish that failed to pull back but rather confusingly seemed be racing up stream at an appalling pace so I wound down hard only for it to turn and rip line off the spool at an equally frightening rate - and then I saw the fish deep down in the pool, an angry double figure salmon, undoubtedly, and one that was now launching itself upstream once more, shuddering like a hurled javelin as it went by and with me attempting to hang on with my little wand and string in hand and heart pumping in my mouth...
Keith was approaching and seeing my rod bent over cheerily enquired whether or not 'I was in'! I managed to blurt out 'salmon' at the same time as I remembered a nugget of advice that upon hooking a big salmon and out of ones depth, that one should 'walk the fish', which was my only reasonable option really given the vertiginous playing field, but then the size fourteen match hook opened out under the force of the weight of the fish as it shook its head...
Not many fish make my legs tremble...!
But just a few minutes later, and while Keith was back at the car setting up his feeder rod, I had another crazy fish take the corn and one that immediately leapt clear of the water (the salmon stayed deep and low) a full three feet into the air, crashing back in a plume of spray. It was clearly not double figures, not even half the size of the salmon, but still more than a couple of handfuls on light float gear. I went carefully, gingerly, giving all the line it wanted and taking only what it relented, and I really think that I convinced it that it was free. I couldn't exactly 'walk the fish' as I had gone out upon one of the jetties to cast, but I did the static equivalent and carefully eased the fish around the pool and back for five minutes (of fishing time...) and then shouted for Keith when I realised that I needed his safe hands at the net just in case it went berserk when it caught sight of it.
It did, but Keith pushed the net under somehow as it thrashed, and it was mine! All 3 pounds fifteen ounces of it. Whoohoo!
We were convinced that it was my first ever banked salmon at that time, what with the pronounced kype to the lower jaw (and the bailiff looking at Keith's pictures on the camera screen in harsh sunlight pronounced it one too) but now I am convinced that, despite the concave appearance of the tail and the relatively few markings below the lateral line that this is no salmon but a cock sea trout as the mouth extends backwards slightly farther than the eye, and it never does with a salmon...
Part two coming very soon............
However, there is one fishery that I would suggest be forcibly entered into the top three of every serious coarse angler's wish list by an officer of the law and that is one day's trotting a stick float off a centre pin reel on the Lower Itchen Fishery in Southampton, for grayling in the morning, and roach in the evening...
We, that's Keith and I who fished it this time last year and Danny who'd joined us on his maiden voyage, arrived Monday evening and spent an hour or so drinking beer, watching and feeding a group of four big chub swimming about in the free stretch that runs past the beer garden of the Swan pub just below the fishery. There were loads of anglers fishing hereabouts and after drinks we elected to join them for an hour. Under the frequent rush of noise that accompanied the arrival of planes onto Southampton Airport's nearby runway Keith had three half pound roach, Danny a chub too, but I had not a bite...
That night we met up with Sash, the organiser of the party, for food and drinks in the airport hotel. He'd already spent the day fishing the holy waters and to our relief had had plenty of grayling, trout, a chub, no big roach unfortunately but had hooked and lost a salmon, a fish that had just 'gone around the corner' apparently, and there was nothing Sash could do, on trotting gear, to stop it.
By eight thirty next morning we were fishing. I chose to start on a wide stretch of rapid and very shallow water, my starting peg last year in fact, where I could have fun with big wallis casts, long trots and the tricky maneuvering of the float downstream across the white gravel beds and between the highly visible weed banks to catch out the grayling who hover effortlessly just off bottom in the fastest currents.
My first fish was a perfect little brownie...
Followed next cast by the first of the days grayling, and at five ounces I was off the mark with the fishing challenge point - just sixty ounces to go!
It took just an hour or so to clinch it landing one fish after the other averaging five ounces, and up to twelve, falling to the double red maggots. Keith who had elected to fish a corner with deep water just above me built his swim with loose feed and got there very quickly but I saw no point in attempting to feed such a large area of shallows and simply fished the bait alone. It worked just fine, tiring admittedly having to do all the work standing, but a lot of fun!
I then moved down to a sweeping bend and a deep pool near the first fishing hut that I think (the map is unclear) is called The Pulpit. I'd decided to try corn to pick off the bigger grayling and it worked brilliantly with all the fish now around the twelve ounce mark. Then I had another brownie of a pound ~
I was fishing way over depth now with the bait dragging bottom, a technique that was proving very effective in the remarkably snag free environs of a managed game fishery with fish after fish falling to it...
Then I hooked a fish that failed to pull back but rather confusingly seemed be racing up stream at an appalling pace so I wound down hard only for it to turn and rip line off the spool at an equally frightening rate - and then I saw the fish deep down in the pool, an angry double figure salmon, undoubtedly, and one that was now launching itself upstream once more, shuddering like a hurled javelin as it went by and with me attempting to hang on with my little wand and string in hand and heart pumping in my mouth...
Keith was approaching and seeing my rod bent over cheerily enquired whether or not 'I was in'! I managed to blurt out 'salmon' at the same time as I remembered a nugget of advice that upon hooking a big salmon and out of ones depth, that one should 'walk the fish', which was my only reasonable option really given the vertiginous playing field, but then the size fourteen match hook opened out under the force of the weight of the fish as it shook its head...
Not many fish make my legs tremble...!
But just a few minutes later, and while Keith was back at the car setting up his feeder rod, I had another crazy fish take the corn and one that immediately leapt clear of the water (the salmon stayed deep and low) a full three feet into the air, crashing back in a plume of spray. It was clearly not double figures, not even half the size of the salmon, but still more than a couple of handfuls on light float gear. I went carefully, gingerly, giving all the line it wanted and taking only what it relented, and I really think that I convinced it that it was free. I couldn't exactly 'walk the fish' as I had gone out upon one of the jetties to cast, but I did the static equivalent and carefully eased the fish around the pool and back for five minutes (of fishing time...) and then shouted for Keith when I realised that I needed his safe hands at the net just in case it went berserk when it caught sight of it.
It did, but Keith pushed the net under somehow as it thrashed, and it was mine! All 3 pounds fifteen ounces of it. Whoohoo!
We were convinced that it was my first ever banked salmon at that time, what with the pronounced kype to the lower jaw (and the bailiff looking at Keith's pictures on the camera screen in harsh sunlight pronounced it one too) but now I am convinced that, despite the concave appearance of the tail and the relatively few markings below the lateral line that this is no salmon but a cock sea trout as the mouth extends backwards slightly farther than the eye, and it never does with a salmon...
Part two coming very soon............
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