The Lessons of Spring

 You know how it goes; romantic notions of the birds singing anew, the smell of wild garlic carpeting river banks and crushed beneath your wader boots, that nervous excitement of wondering if you can still throw a decent loop, tying on one of the hundreds of flies that you have tied over the last few months… Spring trout fishing is full of cliché. It begs the question though, if enough people are coming to the same conclusion, maybe it’s for good reason? Since moving to Devon, I’ve been spoiled for choice for rivers to wax lyrical with the same cliché, throw some dodgy flies tied in the absence of time on the water and drifting further from their intended pattern, and maybe even snag a fish or two. Fortunately, between fighting to improve my computing to analyse trout genomes, I’ve found the time to get a few trips in between initial high-flows and latter east winds that have otherwise given a uninspiring start to the 2021 season.

On one such trip, nymphing deep through some pots I’d noted last season, I eyed up a few rises as the upper reaches of this river ran cold and clear off the moor, likely sipping the odd large dark olive or midge that were feebly coming through. Snipping the 4.5mm tungsten depth charges off the leader, a pair of small simple spiders were subbed in, the point with a little copper bead to anchor the rig. Crawling on my knees, eyes intent on where rings had formed a few minutes ago, willing another rise to confirm systematic feeding, I nearly jumped out of my waders where a voice hollered over, ‘Any luck, mate?’ I’ll not give the offender away, but by saying that they were male and middle-aged to elderly should suffice for a description whilst still including 99% of the club members. ‘Not yet’ I slyly replied, one eye still on the tail where the fish had been rising. With a shrug, they moved on and eyes were back onto the pool ahead, crawling up the riffle. Casting spiders on a French leader isn’t the easiest, but content that I was close enough, I waited for one more rise to confirm that I hadn’t spooked the source of the rises. Another dimpling of the surface and the spiders were slung over, rod raised high and a nice 11’’ fish was soon brought to hand.

The rest of that session was fairly quiet, though I expected the best of the water in the second half of the beat where I’d caught my best fish last season. You can imagine then my horror as not simply one but two generic middle-aged men had, having seen me fishing downstream, decided to wade and fish upstream of me, spooking the water that I’d anticipated. They smiled and walked over, consoling that there were no fish rising and that it was still too cold, expecting me, the scruffy junior, to agree. Apparently put back by this upstart, they boasted gladly of the 2lb brownies that they had previously caught on this beat and high on the moor, on the very same flies they had tried today. A car crash of a rig if I ever did see one too, barely 7ft of leader to a generic klinkhammer, with a large gold beaded hares ear tied with maybe even thicker mono only a few inches below. It seems that they expected the trout to bow before their angling egos, rise obviously and hang themselves on a blunt and dragging fly. Having my butt kicked more often than you’d like helps you to remember that you’ve got to bring something in your approach to the river and the trout owe you zilch, when you get a little too big for your wading boots. Perhaps I’m just bitter though…

The last year has had many of us thinking about making the most of what’s on our doorstep and fishing local, something that was once more of a necessity than a quirky notion. That spring a few years ago was a whole disaster bucket of stress; preparing for final university exams, trying to fundraise £50 000 for an plastics pollution project in the space of a couple of months and fighting the slugs off of my veg plot in the midnight hours. Sparse log book entries reveal the unsurprising fact that fishing had taken a back seat. With limited time and reliant on pedal and foot power for transport, it was a good opportunity to indulge in a game of, ‘find the tiniest stream nearby that you can catch trout from’, with a myriad of small coastal brooks feeding into the large rias of Cornwall to choose from. Strolling out on a sunny spring afternoon, donning wellies and a cheap 7ft fly rod in hand, I set out to scout one such spot. Tucked into a valley behind a large residential housing estate and draining off two large reservoirs, heavily culverted and canalised before meeting the sea, and narrow enough to jump across in almost all places; this had all the makings of an high-scoring location in the improbable trout stream game.

Picking between trollies and suspension springs, bow-and-arrow casts and squashed rolls were just enough to get a scruffy nymph into some tasty looking deeper pockets. To my amazement, time and time again, the yarn indicator would hesitate nervously, prompting a strike and a wonderful jewel of a trout would be revealed. Some fair fish too, up to 11.5’’ which is not to be sniffed at in the West Country. As it turns out, this little stream is a real pocket of refuge to wildlife in an otherwise built-up area, with a friend’s camera trap even managing to capture otters and water rail making use of this habitat. Walking here, I’d not expected much but to steal away a few hours for my own silly little game. I was happily gifted with more than one might catch from a big-name river on another day, adding a spring to the welly-clad stride on the 45 minute trudge back.

Fishing on a known river can take some of the joy out of this absurd game that we revere as fly fishing, expecting the river to deliver what it has before. The clichés tell the truth – the river is never the same one day to the next and yes, I’m afraid, even if you have shelled out for an expensive ticket, it really doesn’t owe you anything. Perhaps that is the joy of spring, as we all fall in love again with aquatic and riparian ecosystems bursting with life, seeing it all in high contrast after yet another monochrome winter, not falling into expectation for this trip to be the same as the last. You bet that I’ve got some big plans for the season ahead but for now at least, you’ll find me chuckling away at another humble brown trout and enjoying each gift from another overlooked stream.

 

We Sleep When We Are Dead

An icy breeze whistles through the window as I lower it a little more, straining over the steering wheel, praying to stay awake just a little longer. I know these lanes well, too well, as to drift absent-minded into auto-pilot and reawaken into consciousness minutes later, knowing that I could not have slept by virtue of still being at the wheel and yet not remembering any of the last 5 miles of road. Carbon blanks rattle in the back and a dry crusty feeling, a mixture of salt and scales, coat my hands. A speed sign catches my attention upon reaching the penultimate village, reminding me to check my speed and, disconcertingly, finding myself to be going well below the limit despite barely processing the road. Just get there, almost done. Stuart and Tommy were ahead, somewhere, or had they bailed off in exhaustion too? I resigned myself to having been picked up by those unjust average speed cameras through Trewennack, at this point making it back incident-free seemed the only thing to focus upon. This time next week I would be wed, a thought that kept me occupied until rolling late back into Falmouth.

It had been a fairly mad summer, getting the green light with mere weeks’ notice to plan a wedding ceremony of reduced capacity. Permission too had been granted to collect much needed tissue samples from the metal-impacted trout of Western Wales. Suddenly it seemed that a spring and summers’ worth of saved activity had to be crammed into the little remaining summer, and that’s not even mentioning the long-awaited chance to travel for fishing. Field working had involved sleeping on the crude bed platform on the border, being awoken by illicit transactions in the same car park late in the night, entering Wales in the small hours of the very morning that travel for work came legal there. We bashed out sampling on three catchments over those days before getting rained off, boxes of fin clips secured in the foot well and datasheets buried safe amongst my sleeping bag – these were worth an inordinate amount to my project. Wipers screeching, I made a call to a Devon farmer, ‘You have sea trout fishing, can I come tonight please?’ my conversational skills had apparently suffered months of reduced contact but there was a tidy window tonight before this low pressure system I was currently sat in reached the south west and I’d received a tip off that this farmer had access to some good water that might soothe my mania to grapple with nocturnal sea trout. By 3am, I was back home, dinner of ginger nuts washed down with whiskey infused tea, a celebration of my success in both making it home and having landed a fine 3lb sea trout on a wake fly.

Catching a break in the madness. 

Unpacking the field gear and repacking for a weekend of bass fishing in Cornwall, I had a message from Pete Tyjas inviting me to join him for a morning of salmon fishing on the Taw, an offer that I could never refuse. I met Pete at the Fox and Hounds hotel early the next morning, he later commented on my looking a little worse for wear, but I was soon bristling with anticipation as we looked upon a pair of fantastic looking pools, weariness washed away. ‘There’s more water we could fish’ said Pete, ‘but this is pretty much the best of it’. That it was, though tempered by the understanding that silver is just shy of mythical in the south west, every swing felt like the line could come tight with the writhing of one of those aquatic unicorns. On my third cast, the water boiled a few meters shy of the tip of my fly line with an undeniable bright flash. No pull though, I brought the fly to hand. Looking down the river towards Pete for affirmation, he was absorbed in making a slick snap T in his own pool, I stood a little straighter as I suddenly felt as though I were standing in the presence of royalty. A salmon, a real salmon looked at my fly. Alas, there was no further action that morning but it lit a spark that would consume me for the rest of that summer, culminating in my first salmon, on a fly and from my local river. Biding my energy, I took some time to admire Pete’s artistic anchor formation before lifting the line across the river to the far bank with pin point accuracy. I looked over to Monty, Pete’s black lab who had followed us diligently down the bank, as if to say, ‘your old man’s pretty good, eh?’.

Down to Cornwall, I found Joe and Tommy in the car park. Joe had been down in Cornwall for a little while already and his report of the recent fishing did not bode well for our odds, but the team was coming together, and anything seemed possible. Stu had made his way separately after work and we made plans to meet in the middle at a promising looking mark. In an effort not to give too much away though, it seems that we’d been a little vague in our description of the point and now could not locate the oracle of bass. Matters were made worse when, stood from a likely looking steep rock mark, our phones buzzed with a picture of a bass from Stu, the man nowhere to be seen and now not returning our calls. We made a run for it, laden with rucksacks and rods, knowing that he couldn’t be far. Finally, sweaty and panting, ankles nervous over the boulder beach, we found Stu casting over a patch of shallow reef. He gladly greeted us, giving way and urging us to cover the ground where there was obvious feeding activity. Over the next half hour, as the sun dipped behind us, I managed to land a couple of modest sized bass and a territorial wrasse, before all fell quiet. We tried to follow the coast along that eve in hope of bumping back in with the fish, but it transpired, after some thought the next day, that the bait fish had pushed in the opposite direction to us, and we had a quiet, albeit pleasant, evening. Fishing over for now, we caught up a little of how life was treating us, each having gone in different directions in the time since graduating.

Modest bass but nice to be catching back on home turf!

Joe with a healthy bend in the rod. 

Rods stashed, held from sliding too wildly into our heads on the makeshift rack of strung-up bootlaces and with bags on laps, it was approaching midnight when we dropped Joe off at his campsite, bidding him well for the rest of his stay as he planned a little mackerel bashing in the morning. Tommy, for some reason, assumed that we might go back for the night, though Stu and I had other thoughts. After rattling through some excuses, ‘I haven’t got anything to sleep in’ – I produced a spare sleeping bag and blanket, Tommy made a hostage-esque call to his girlfriend, telling her that he wouldn’t return that evening but was instead being taken to a beach by the bass maniacs. Stu and I chuckled in excitement as we laid out sleeping bags, alarm set in less than two hours to fish pre-dawn on this reliable beach. Tommy, apparently fearful at what he’d got himself into, produced a ransom of caramel shortbread, our dinner for the evening as we laid shivering under a brilliantly starry canvas, waves sweeping up the beach at an imperceptible distance. Chuckles petered out, hypnotised in awe of the milkyway, which spread from one horizon to another, detailed beyond our perception. It seemed the right time to say something profound, but we all just thought it instead and rustled for another shortbread as eyelids grew heavy.

Going to be a cold one!

I guess we must have slept a little, but we were soon awake and switching sleeping bags for paddletails. A couple of hours later, not a touch for any of us, dawn now ripe. If something would happen at this spot, it would have happened by now. A couple more caramel shortbreads, we trundle to a deep rock mark perhaps half an hour away by these little lanes. Here we found plentiful joey mackerel, stomachs full of little sprats, hitting metals and feathers. Following Stu’s success previously with such tactics, I opted to switch from casting soft plastics to livebait, one of these little mackerel for a predator lurking below the ball of smaller fish. As the heat of day arrived, the bait fish pushed further offshore and off the feed, my livebait unmolested save one tug and some mystery tooth marks. By 9am we’d already been up fishing for five hours, hit two different marks and felt like we’d given it a good bash. The decision was made for us as a mother and son pair arrived to our spot, placed themselves between us and proceeded to instruct us on feathering for mackerel – the apparent pinnacle of angling in their eyes, confused as to why we might be using light weedless lures to target wrasse on balanced lure tackle. They didn’t much like the taste of wrasse, so why bother catching them?

Early morning off the beach. Tommy gave Stu quite a lot of flack for the failed prediction of wild action guaranteed at this spot. 

Tommy supplying the livebaits! 

We took a few larger mackerel and returned to Tommy’s garden for some fried mackerel and a cup of tea. Hesitant at the prospect of using valuable fishing time for such frivolities as a cooked breakfast, I came round as Stu promised that we could look through his google earth for marks if we did so, a closely guarded database that would be well worth an hour or two. We basked happily in the sun, casual swigs of tea to wash down the greasy taste of our fried fishy breakfast, discussing options for the evening. Given the wind direction and tide times, our usual favoured marks wouldn’t be performing at their best on this occasion, so into the database of Stu’s google earth it was. I could swear that our faces shone as Moses after his divine revelation on Sinai at the secrets we viewed from Stuart’s pins and notes but, before we had time to inscribe them onto stone tablets, the laptop was closed and we had a game plan. On the falling tide, we’d head to some shallow, kelpy reef to target wrasse under the bright heat of the afternoon sun, before working further round to a point with close access to deep water where the tidal current should be working nice and close.

After a pit-stop at Anne’s pasties (I brought two so as to give one to Charlotte when returning to Devon, however both only lasted approximately 15 minutes) I pulled up in our chosen layby. Parking in this stretch is a real premium so, wary of the start of Cornwall’s busiest summer, lounged about reading in the remaining space to the disgust of hungry-eyed drivers until Stu and Tommy arrived in another car. Following the footpath along, we caught sight of a likely looking spot to bush-whack down onto the tidal golden granite platforms below. Stu rigged up with a small Texas rigged senko, whilst I opted for a larger 3 inch ‘creature’ style lure, with appendages suggestive of the claws found on much of wrasse’s natural diet. In the clear, calm water, we could clearly see wrasse tracking the lures back to our feet, making polarised glasses potentially as helpful here as on any classic trout stream. After a little while came the interesting pattern that, though the worm style baits certainly attracted interest from more wrasse, the larger ‘creature’ lures seemed to pick out aggressive slams from larger individuals. Whether the lures were being recognised as crustacean food items and the wrasse hunting as they might on crabs is hard to be sure on, with a possibility that these very territorial fish just wanted rid of potential competition. Indeed, many of my largest wrasse to date have come from large paddletail lures, perhaps invoking more of an aggressive response rather than an attempt to fill their bellies. More surprises waited from these brilliant, attitude filled fish later on…

Brilliant colours!

Golden.

Tommy got a good lesson in 'HRF' for wrasse. 

The wrasse fishing was excellent, with multiple fish occupying each kelpy bed or rocky shelf below our feet and we took to sight fishing under the rod tip, leapfrogging each other and making short underarm flicks towards likely looking habitat patches. Double hook-ups were aplenty! Importantly, we were able to collect some fin clips from the wrasse we captured (with the hardy fish returned unharmed!) to contribute towards the genetic samples of a fellow PhD researcher at Exeter, examining the population connectivity and structure of ballan wrasse to better inform management of the controversial live wrasse fishery around the south west coastline.

As the tide slackened, action quietened down as did the, now quite tired, boys. We tried picking out some spider crabs with a landing net, having not brought a snorkel, and pestered the odd remaining wrasse. A brightly coloured orange and green black minnow 90mm with a light head worked well to this end, sneaking up to ledges and then jigging along under the rod tip. There were more follows than takes but it eeked out the afternoon before we were due to make a move, and a few more boisterous wrasse made powerful, strong dives against the tight creaking drag. In this dirty, hook, hold on and pray style of fishing, a short, fast-actioned rod is a good bet in delivering the light lures but also having enough grunt to hold the wrasse during their powerful first run. I could scarcely remember fishing ever having been so much fun. Looking around to show Tommy and Stu my latest catch, I found Tommy settling down for a nap on the rocks and Stu already far gone, at peace, cap over his face. He was laid to rest in his happy place. Alas, no peace as, in my immaturity, I dangled a lure over his face, jigging it over his mouth. Stu often talks of trying to think like the bass and, during a period of obsession and sleep deprivation a couple of years previously, Stu boasted of how he understood the bass, knew what they were doing, had become one with the fish. In this vein I wondered if, occupying the psyche of a bass, he would snap at a lure dangled in his face. Sadly, it transpired that he didn’t but was simply quite confused, probably called me a tit in more polite language, before starting thinking about our next mark.

Double hook ups!

Bright lure, bright wrasse. 

Dreaming of bass, or being the bass? 

Traversing along the coast, hopping over boulders and rockpools now crusty with salt under the baking summer sun, we made our way towards a steep granite tower of a headland. Rods were passed between us as we scrambled downwards from a high point, the sun now masked by the wall of golden rock behind us. Large, sharp crystals give excellent grip smearing walking boots down sodden, wave eroded fissures in the rock but also bite hard on wet hands, giving a smattering of cuts to admire during the working week to reassure that the trip hadn’t just been a dream after all. We laid down our gear on a sloping ledge and stood afoot a broad platform, arriving as per our planned time. The location immediately proved its quality, with glimmering shoals of sprats holding themselves in tight balls just a few meters from shore, telling of the anxiety of nearby predators. Racing to rig up, we were all soon into mackerel and pollock, hooking up close in and below the bait shoals. After seeing to a supply of mackerel for supper, it was apparent that a change of tack was required to get into more quality fish with such an abundance of mackerel and average pollock.

By now, a literal wave was being created as a line of mackerel swam like a Roman legion into the baitfish, with bigger predators below picking off the mackerel. Whilst Stu and Tommy opted for larger lures, I tried my luck at dropping a livebaited mackerel into the fray. Excitement was running high and reeling in just half a mackerel, bloodied and absent from the pectoral fins below, was enough to have us all exclaiming wildly. Bass and pollock don’t bite mackerel in half and leave such a bloody mess, what could it have been? Whilst pondering this and rigging up another livebait, we saw a great form breach out of the water a couple of hundred yards out. We debated the identity, it was certainly a predatory fish from the tail silhouetted, but seemed on the small side for a Bluefin – perhaps another tuna species. The warm seas in SW Cornwall have thrown up their fair share of more southerly species over the years and, with warming seas, this seems set to continue. Before we had time to say much more, my livebait was twitching erratically and, reeling into rather than striking to set the circle hook, I was soon into a powerful fish at my feet, pulling braid from the spool despite a tight drag. When brought to the surface we couldn’t believe it – another ballan, and a plump one at that! Wrasse are not often known to take fish baits, preferring instead a crunchy diet of crustaceans and molluscs, and I’ve certainly not heard of them taking a full sized mackerel live before. However, it was not a coincidence, the local population of wrasse must have clocked into this opportunity for a glut of protein as the mackerel were feeding too hard to realise their perilous position, tight to shore, allowing the wrasse to dart upwards and snap with their ugly molars – the apparent cause of the bloodied half mackerel earlier. Not only one wrasse was captured this way but another, just as fat, followed in quick succession. Utter madness! I begged a photo as the others were also tight into frantic action, too excited and eager to get another lure out to compose myself and the wrasse properly, whole mackerel still hanging from the corner of its mouth.

Proof of the absurdity.

Lots of pollock around this stamp, kept this one for the pot and (no surprises) the stomach was packed with sprats!

It was soon Stu’s time to shine, having been diligently casting a large enough paddletail into the fray that it had been ignored by the mackerel and small pollock, and holding out for a larger prize. He got his reward as his rod bent double into a fine bass, giving him some good stick as it thrashed its head about. There was some anxiety as the fish neared the sharp ledges by our feet – a quick burst of energy here could easily sever the line and lose the bass, which we could now see was a lovely dark, deep-set individual. Happily though, it was soon within the landing net to much relief! Measuring 55cm, it was a better stamp of bass than those the previous evening and we were all made up for Stu, even posing for a chaotic selfie with the three of us, and bass, in the midst of the action.

Dark wrasse from deep ground.

By now the whitebait had been broken up by many waves of predators and we took to casting at more distance, with action less frantic. We still picked up some pollock up to 3lb and a few wrasse, glowing in the experience of one of our most surreal shore fishing sessions to date but as the sun was setting things were surely slowing down. Seeking out remaining patches of activity and retreating as the tide rose, Tommy and I climbed over a couple of car-sized granite blocks to reach a bay behind us. To our surprise, tight to the rocky shelf were yet tens of thousands of sprats, the water black with them. Utilising my landing net, we took turns to swipe whilst the other held open a carrier bag, the mesh of the net being too wide and a rain of whitebait sprinkling our feet before being emptied into the bag. Stu’s face soon poked around the corner, probably curious as to the source of our cackling, finding Tommy to be saying, ‘That’s probably enough don’t you think?’ as I continued to swipe at the sprats, a wild lust in my eyes. ‘Now I understand why commercial fishermen are so greedy’ I let slip, a quote that was recited a week later in Stu’s best man speech. I was coaxed away from the poor sprats after a few minutes, with a morbid carrier bag full of 3-4kg of fresh, sustainable fish.

In our degraded inshore marine ecosystems, plagued by destructive fisheries techniques and overexploitation, bygone tales of such feeding frenzies seem fanciful at best. This though had given us a glimpse of the richness of life that once existed in our seas and might yet return with more progressive regulation and protection. For tonight, we were satisfied and, laden with our scale-covered gear and bag of a few choice mackerel, pollock and whitebait, made a drudge back towards the cars in last haze of evening light. Happily, we all survived the drive back into Falmouth and, cracking out my gas stove in Tommy’s garden, we stayed up late frying whitebait in a Trangia pan of bubbling oil, dousing them in enough salt and lemon to make a doctor shudder. We spoke about rising early the next morning to do it all again but, truthfully, we all knew that we’d be giving the morning session a miss, savouring instead what had been.

Until the next time! 

Butterwell Special

 My hands are numb, I can taste the mist. The noise of the river over my right shoulder shrouds all clarity and tiredness only turns the overdrive up to distort it further. I’m not sure of the time anymore, maybe 1, maybe 2? I’ve staggered my way through all the pools that I noted earlier with only a half-hearted pull to mockingly raise hope. Running my tippet through my hands, I can just about make out a couple of kinks in the 15lb mono. Maybe knots for disorientated casting, perhaps damage from casting into one too many clutching trees. Defeated, I trudge back up the woodland path. Though it is thick and dark, I’m unnerved by the coolness of the soft night time breeze and damp, not the hazy, sticky midsummers nights that gentlemen of old would wax lyrical about for sea trout (called peal in these parts) before the runs declined. This isn’t quite how I expected life to look just two days into marriage.

This year has been a pretty mad one for everyone. In the absence of a government announcement on plans for restrictions over the year, Charlotte (my fiancé) and I had to hold all ideas up in the air for wedding during July and subsequent honeymoon, our original intent for a road trip around Scotland being a long-time dream for both of us. Fortunately the wedding was still able to happen, albeit in a much different way to how we had imagined, and we got to make our vows in front of a small group of close family and friends. Scotland however was sadly off, so, in search of something to look forward to in amongst the uncertainty, I mentioned a place that I had surveyed for lampreys during my masters research. Butterwell Farm sits nestled in the Camel valley, feeling like the end of nowhere, in spite of being only just between the relatively well built up towns of Wadebridge and Bodmin in East Cornwall. Most importantly, the self-catering accommodation looks over some prime pools of the river Camel, home to my obsession for this year: sea trout. Much to my surprise, Charlotte thought that the whole affair sounded quite lovely for a honeymoon, so a week was booked before she had time to fully consider the implications of having such good fishing on the doorstep.

No sooner had we arrived, had a cup of tea and unpacked our bags when we took a stroll down the beat for the evening with Sam. Whilst the size of this modest river is familiar, the clarity and quality of the undisturbed pools seemed far beyond such a peasant as I, with peal seen flicking lazily in almost all the pools, compared to the puzzle of turbid waters that I have otherwise been cutting my teeth on. As Sam pointed out the opportune spots to access the river, where the fish tend to lie, notable catches from each pool over the year, success seemed guaranteed and I was buzzing. A few hours later however, reality kicked in. Fly fishing small streams at night is a real challenge, and I was due a kicking. I’d cast into too many trees, spent too long trying to visualise each pool from earlier memory and best access, bumbling instead into scaring an otter by the bank and, when the air turned cold, it was just the excuse to let my own ineptitude off the hook. This night-time sea trout fishing requires a real process of preparation, familiarity and the right head space for all the elements to come together and I just wasn’t quite there on this occasion.

Fishing every other night allowed a little time for consideration however and, a couple of days later, after trad climbing on the Culm Coast, the evening approached with much improved resolve. Having walked the pools again with Sam in the evening, creeping softly through the long tussocked grass and peering behind stands of bracken which line the banks and offer a thin veil from these nervous fish, one pool in particular got us fired up. As we got our eyes zeroed in, it became apparent that there was a sea trout there, and another behind, and further back another pair which were themselves flanked by yet more. Laughing and smiling as a pair of boys, we decide that this pool must be fished well, with an added spring as we finished the rounds of the water available. Sitting out with a BBQ and glass of prosecco, surveying the water for the evening, it was quite apparent that the dirtbag was not only dead, but had been buried deep into the earth. Such thoughts of reverse class shame were soon drowned out by the realisation that the evening was coming together just lovely. Really lovely. Too lovely in fact, where was that cloud that was due to appear over the evening? Alas, at least we had an excuse in the bag if the fish decided not to bite again.  

Sea trout pools are like pancakes, you always want to have one or two as you get going that you can screw up. Swinging in one of the less promising runs, going through the motions at 22:30, a firm pluck shuddered up from the inch-long silver and black tube fly, along the slack fly line to my fumbling hands. Bugger, a positive take and I’d given just enough slack for the fish to stick two fins up to me and run. Resting the tree-lined run for 10 minutes before covering the lie again brought no returned interest. A chance was had and, I scolded myself, it had been blown. Strolling up the bank with my five weight (casts here are short and the river small, using much heavier lines might risk spooking the inhabitants with heavy slaps), a few searching casts were made along other noted water. Nothing. It’s okay, I console myself with the same conspiring self-belief as the manic gambler, this run of losses is just part of the game, killing time whilst it’s not quite right, my luck will turn when I need it to.

Having bided my time long enough, it was time to hit up Upper Denby Pool. The fast head was covered first with a heavier fly, more as a matter of process than a belief that the fish would lie there. The savoured water of this pool would be found in the smooth middle to tail, fish edging out into these easy lies under the shelter of night, the shallow clear water giving every opportunity for the dim silhouette of the fly to be seen by fish. Soon enough it was time to work down to the expected taking zone, now in tune with the gear to, by some unknown instinct, know exactly where the fly was swimming in the run, how much line I had out of the rod tip and how far to shoot my line. The latter of these points is addressed by shooting as much line as feels sensible, then stripping another yard or two from the reel to make the same cast, the fly drifting a little further down the run, until the fly can be heard clipping the branches. Stout tippet aids greatly in this process, and I’d rather not fish anything below 12lb on anything but the lightest on nights, with line-shyness really not bearing any real risk in comparison with the menacing jaws of the ‘tree-fish’. Working with a fast figure of eight retrieve almost parallel in the slow water, the night is quiet. The mind drifts a little to focus in on the trickle at the head of the run, the cool air on my bare hands, the now familiar shrieks of foxes. Bang! The line goes taught and I strip into it by reflex, lifting the rod to absorb the shock as the line goes slack again. Panic and confusion take over for a minute, stripping as fast as I can manage within the second’s moment, before the fish landed back down with a crash, revealing the source of the slack to be his airbourne streak. My unseen company is now taking for a turn of tact, pulling hard for the tail of the run, gaining back coils of fly line and back onto the reel. It’s surreal, in spite of this moment being the focus of such devotion, now that it has come I can’t quite manage to process what’s going on. A voice scolds me back to the moment, ‘focus, you tit, don’t you dare lose him. Keep him tight, don’t let him go too hard for those sunken branches, but don’t pull that hook!’. With relief, the fish turns and, perhaps out of habit, returns to his lie parallel with me, allowing side strain to be applied and knock him off balance into my dangling net. All of this is, of course, applied without the use of artificial light - I’m feeling greedy, there are more fish in this pool that I might yet target if I can avoid dazzling them. A moment is taken to give the fish a breather, before lifting him briefly within the net up to the riffle above, where I might switch the lights on from a safe distance of the run.

A fresh silver sea trout sat in the net, perplexed, the single hook perched in the side of his jaw and the black tube slid a short way up the leader. A moment is taken to admire the silver flanks, small black mottling and large, keen eyes, before slipping him back on his way through the riffle. Another follows in quite the same way, albeit a little smaller, from the same spot. After unhooking and releasing, a whistle from the path catches my attention, it’s Sam. ‘How’s it going’ he asked, ‘yeah good thanks, had a couple of fish from Denby, missed one earlier too’. He congratulated me on the share of success, turning then to discuss strategy. I’d had a few missed snatches from the run and knew that something was awry, in spite of the measured luck. A surface lure had done me well on previous forays and, now that it was past midnight, the trailing wake might just be enough to wake the fish up into a more wholehearted slam.

After covering the whole run however, all had gone quiet, not a plop where I’d previously experienced a snatch every few swings. Weird. The surface lure can totally save a noodle-busting night when the fish are active but reluctant to bite but sometimes it just seems that they’re not in the mood. I’ve developed a habit of gripping my red LED bike light between my teeth to change flies and tie knots, it’s just about bright enough for the task at hand. It’s not every day that you get to fish water like this and, with that in mind, I’d again opted to break my dirtbag ethic and invest in some professionally tied patterns to fish with confidence. One such costly dressing sat in my fly box, sticking out as the next option, a ‘Yellow Peril’ as tied by the Welsh expert, Steffan Jones (I’ve since devoured his excellent book and would thoroughly recommend it as a clear modern authority on sea trout fishing in the UK). The dressing was less the object of focus, but instead the hook arrangement, with a single wide-gape stinger pointing upwards in the tail of the hook. Perhaps this could do the business, fishing much like a wet tube but catching those tricky nipping fish. Quite happily, proof of theory was quickly given, with four more sea trout gracing the net, bringing the night’s total to a proud sum of six fish between a pound and two.

Most interesting to me however was how these latter four fish were hooked; all had the single stinger lodged firmly in the top jaw. In theory, sea trout take large wet flies at night from below, seeing the silhouette drifting against the flow in a life-like manner. As I struck into these fish, snatching below and then turning back downwards, the upturned angle of the single hook seemed to be working well against the movement of the fish to catch in the upper jaw. I can’t pretend that I’d done a conclusive comparison with a stinger pointing the other way up, but it certainly reduced the number of nips that didn’t convert to hook-ups in comparison with a tube fly, also using a large single hook in the tail end. Other stinger arrangements are frequent in sea trout flies, some resembling medieval torture weapons with the density of hook points surrounding the fly, with a small treble (from my observation) being the most popular. From my own experience of lure fishing for bass and pollock, I’ve got much more trust in the security that a single hook provides in comparison with a treble and, even if trebles do hook more fish (which doesn’t seem the case), the risk of pricking and then losing a fish, leaving it spooked, on a marginal treble hook-hold seems a pretty raw deal. Worth thinking about, my faith in the single-hook stinger arrangement is reflected by the number of such patterns I have subsequently tied up. But, satisfied on this occasion, I called it quits at 2am, a shot of whiskey warming my tea, as prescribed by Falkus, as I unwind from the evening’s events.

The final evening was upon us and, having recounted the wonderful success of my previous attempt, I managed to persuade Charlotte out to witness that I don’t, as Stuart suggested during his speech at our wedding, ‘google pictures of fish and claim them as my own’. In one of the more tree covered pools, early success was wrought in half light, on the yellow peril stinger once again, with a typical Camel fish of a little over a pound. Over the day, as drizzle turned with more resolve to rain, I’d watched as the target pool for the night emptied from a dozen to just the odd fish by the evening. The sea trout could feel the low pressure and they were on a mission, get back to their natal tributaries and spawning redds whilst they could. Happily though, one fish remained and gave a dogged battle, stubborn to hold just out of reach of the net, jumping flippantly just to screw with my nerves, before at last, with a little bullying, resigning to the net. A nicer peal of two and a half pounds gazed back from the net, sharing a moment as we gazed into an appreciation of one another, before slipping her back to complete her spawning pilgrimage. Making an early departure the following morning (almost scuppered by my car’s exhaust falling off during the day), we called it quits at a rather civilised time of midnight. Sure, there might have been more fish about, but what would flogging it out prove? We’d managed what we’d hoped for and the river had been very kind to us. Not only the river, but Butterwell too, with Sam gifting us a ‘Butterwell Special’ fly, with a soft arctic fox tail and silver body, as a wedding gift. The fly now sits lodged in the ceiling of my car as a memory, not daring to cast and lose it in a tree.

Matching the Hatch

'Well, I'm back'. The closing words of Sam, having returned to the Shire at the end of Tolkien's epic. Simple words, and yet carrying so much weight with them, as the reader has journeyed 1300 emotional pages to hell and back again is his company. Unremarkable such words might be, were it not for this journey that we've been on. And with a similar feeling can it be said, 'well, we're back'.

I've laid low, not saying too much too publicly, only close confidence with those who might understand. Maybe that's an unfair slur, maybe folks are more sympathetic than I give credit for, yet fear of proof to the opposite perhaps being true holds me back. We've come a long way in the past few months and I'm sure that we've still a long way to go. It feels a mockery when grief is still all too real. Lost people, lost security, lost plans and insufficient experience of the like to process it all. It's less than two months till I was due to be married, the happiest day of your life so I hear. And yet now we can't quite be certain of where we will be in two weeks time. And yet, as I wrote about in the last post, angling and its wild places offer just the refuge, the escape to process, that I'm sure so many people need right now. And with that I bring this rambling introduction to a close: The return to fishing is a sweet thing and all the sweeter for the bitterness of late.

I've missed country lanes. Scooting along, half asleep, woken periodically by a patch of loose gravel or blind corner, driven through the gloaming half light of dawn by the thought of fish. Maybe they're already on the feed, maybe we've missed the tide? This early in the season such concerns are largely without merit, the fishing is rarely as dramatic as activity towards late summer. But such sessions early in the season prove a valuable learning experience, finding the marks that might prove fruitful later in the year without wasting that precious window. On this particular morning, Stuart and I planned to check out a headland new to both of us. Without any reliable information online, we were left to spend the first 45 minutes or so simply working out access routes to a rocky platform below. We're beaten back on many of our first attempts, the schist proving too snappy and steep, or small blobs of windswept grass crumbling away from their poor foundation of thin soil upon rock. Happily, an access route is eventually beaten, though requiring some slab traversing on thin pockets above deep water - less easy with a rod in hand.

'I think we have grown soft', Stuart concedes to my suggestion as, to my surprise, he's the first to buckle to sitting a little while out of the bite of the penetrating east wind. As suspected the fishing isn't easy, with just a couple of small pollock to myself and a foul hooked sandeel for Stuart (quite a remarkable catch really) but it's nice to catch up and be back on the exposed SW coastline. We traverse back as the tide rises, mindful not to lose our barnacle encrusted route to the lapping waves, giving a shallow bay a try for a wrasse. Happily, one such fellow obliges and gives my natural black minnow a smash as it was drawn perpendicular to a kelpy shelf. The donkey-like teeth of ballan wrasse generally make short work of such a soft bodied (and expensive!) lure, but this always seems to outperform other soft plastics in locating wrasse at a new mark. After a short scout around coast path for any more likely looking spots to check out next time, we call it a day and part ways. Or at least Stuart calls it a day, I've still got the whole afternoon on my hands...

Give us a kiss... incredible blue and green rubbery lips give way to crab crunching molars.

It's quite amazing how quickly litter can accumulate in my car: empty engine oil bottles, CD cases, half chopped leaders, custard cream packets. After a brief rummage, an OS map is located. Crunching down yet more custard cremes, I trace the blue veins of the rivers of South Devon, stretching upwards into the depths of Dartmoor. The lower reaches of these waters are prized, lorded over by gluttonous clubs asking ticket prices in excess of my budget to feed myself, let alone cast a line. One particular square of this map is located however where no such barrier is to be found, where the river is so narrow that it can be jumped in many spots and tangled branches reach across the whole way. I follow a hunch and make my way up there, it's kind of on the way back anyway I justify.

Little to my knowledge, it seems that everyone else has had the same idea. Pulling up towards the car park, I notice a lady sneer from her Range Rover at the occupied parking bays before skulking away. I manage to back my wearied campercar up onto a grass verge, making sure to keep the front wheels clear of loose gravel so as to allow my escape later. I soon realise that perhaps not everyone has had the same idea and start to get the distinct feeling of being a zoo animal, as families passing with picnic mats and tugging cries of children suggest a very different purpose for their being here, young children staring at my uncouth waders to their parents embarrassment. No matter, I'll keep off the busy highway of the footpath through my own path of the riverbed.

I stop for a moment to photograph a mayfly upon my wing mirror. The first I've seen this year and a sure sign of the season and with it the good things to come. Getting to the river, the clutter of buggie wheels are drowned out over the soft rumble of this clear, low river. A canopy of oak and sycamore filter the heat and brightness of the mid-afternoon sun, encapsulating a damp, dappled-green tunnel. Large mossy boulders offer cover from which to cast in the thin water, whilst long fallen trees bridge the stream and offer vantage points. Black gnats buzz and in thick clouds over the fast water at the heads of pockets, and a small black klinkhammer is tied on to try to best match. It might seem an absurdity to an onlooker to try to get inside the mind of a fish, the brain being perhaps the size of a pea at best and yet such is the central dogma of much of fly fishing. In fairness, behavioural ecology models do suggest that it can be energetically beneficial to an organism to lock on selectively to a small food item and ignore rare more calorific food items when such small items are encountered frequently enough, so forgoing a large (and less agonising to see!) mayfly in favour of a pathetic tiny black imitation does have some sense. The trout however disagree, as pool after pool is fished through without the usual suicidal approach of Dartmoor's diminutive brownies.

They're not always big in size but wild Dartmoor browns certainly lack nothing in character. 

Having fished through one particularly deep slot in the gorge, with only a half-hearted inspection by one unimpressed fish, I looked ahead to the next pool. A cursed golden retriever came bounding through into the shallows, followed by owners. Disappointment is hidden best as possible beneath beard, cap and polarised glasses, as the couple hold a phone aloft to take a picture of this real-life, wild, free-range adolescent fishing dirtbag, spooked trout skittering behind unbeknownst to them. I take a moment to sit and think, or more realistically sulk, this is quite a pleasant river but the fish really aren't having it. As I do so, a young child walks along the path above chattering happily to their mother about looking for tadpoles, bucket in hand. I crack-up into a smile, remembering being that very kid except I, unlike most, never seemed to grown up from seeking out the wild squishy beasties of the outdoors. Who knows, maybe this kid will grow up into an unwashed obsessive angler too.

But it sparked a moment of thought too. If you were to read much into the fly selection of lots of aesthetic traditional fly fishermen you might think that the humble brown trout has the weightwatcher's own slimming club diet, only picking at the dainty little insects that float. But if you look into the real diet of brown trout, particularly in nutrient-poor acidic rivers, bigger individuals need to be stomaching much more substantial items in order to hold any weight up, the biggest fish often even becoming cannibalistic. Here comes the potentially controversial bit: matching the hatch, a phrase often tied up in the aesthetic world of select dry flies, should then often lead you to try to imitate the fatter more nutritious items than just little midges or even (dare I say it) fishing mayfly patterns for the sake of tradition (I recently made an appearance of Fly Culture's podcast with Pete Tyjas, touching during that time on that very matter. It was an absolute blast and honour, and you can listen to it here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/402997).

Looking down into a shallow eddy, I spied those little black squirming figures that made up many a childhood escapade. Surely a tadpole must make a pretty nutritious and welcome meal for the desperate trout of Dartmoor? It certainly doesn't come with the awkward chitinous packaging that most arthropods that they're used to do. Nipping off my klinkhammer, I delve into my fly box for a likely imitation. Perhaps were it not for so many hours in the flat, sinking deeper into madness late at night and into the peeping hours of the new day, I might not have tied up some of the less orthodox patterns in there. I thank my moments of madness on this occasion, as I pick out a heavy tungsten weighted jig hook, dressed with black dubbing and a short black marabou tail. Perfect, as tadpole as tadpoles come. The pool here looks as though it reaches depths of perhaps 4-6 feet, though hard to tell in the crashing white water. Clambering above, it's possible to flick the fly into the churning undercurrent and hold it deep on merely the leader and a foot of fly line outside the tip of the rod.

Tadpoles and my little tadpole imitation.

The drift stops, flicking the tip upwards to free the fly of some snag, only to find the snag pulsating and throbbing in the strong current. It worked! In such a manner, a handful of otherwise elusive brownies are brought to hand, including a very nice fish for these parts of 10.5". Slipping the barbless hook from the upper lip, my fingers graze some sharp teeth. Such teeth surely can't be for sipping little insects and, save sexual selection, nature is rarely superfluous. Here's the noodle bending bit, was this capture an excellent exercise in matching the targeted food item, or merely exploiting the aggressive tendencies of trout towards an easy meal. Might it not equally be said though that to fish a dry over the water, even a mayfly, when the trout are not feeding on such is not matching the hatch but instead just inducing the aggression of trout towards surface food items?

That's like a real sized trout! Quite a specimen compared to Dartmoor's usual standard. 

I catch plenty more trout as the afternoon wears on, just shy of 30 and the majority on elk hair and CDC caddis in shallower glides. No caddis hatch was seen, but such a fly is buoyant and visible and thereby easy to fish when the trout aren't being too selective. Despite the usual esteem for dry fly fishing as being the 'proper, right and respectable' way of catching trout, those fish which came to my tadpole imitation were those which felt most rewarding. It sets the mind wandering, where there's a bunch of thumbnail sized froglets about in a few weeks, will the trout lock onto those too? What possible Frankenstein frog fly could imitate them? You can keep the mayfly, it's all about the tadpole hatch for me now...

Okay, I guess mayfly fishing is kinda cool too... 

Where shall we go when the gates are locked?

Skylarks mockingly sing their cheerful tunes, parachuting effortlessly to the ground before flitting back to their aerial displays. I wobble unnervingly, just about holding balance as my front tyre sinks into the rut of another babyhead, carrying sweaty momentum forwards. Apart from the lumbering heave of my panting, the crunch of dry grassland and shrill calls of moorland birds, the landscape is empty. It’s no wonder, even in the long carefree days of school summer holidays this corner of Devon is never busy, and that’s exactly what’s drawn me here. I unclip my pedals in relief as I reach a gate along the bridleway, the path has given up here, not me, my legs have held this far. Reaching for the latch, an angry person has entered my company, seeing a shiny new chain and padlock barring this public right of way.

I’ve no right to complain about the circumstances we find ourselves in during lockdown and perhaps my biggest reflection upon this time is to judge those around me as far more commendable than myself for selfless acts in trying to cope with the COVID pandemic. But after 47 days of working, resting, eating, calling friends, cleaning and maintaining gear and all the other things that make up daily life all within the confines of an inner-city flat, the spirit grows deflated. I’ve grown lazy for lack of excitement in life, and regularly sleep beyond the beckoning call of dawn, mustering a purpose for the day a real marathon effort. Anxiety creeps around the covers as uncertainty grows over the ability for us to hold our long-planned wedding this summer and well laid plans for my PhD research lay scattered. This is the world we find ourselves in though, and no wallowing in self-pity will change that.

Wilderness has always been a refuge for the restless mind, from biblical stories of spiritual growth in the desert to the modern fable of Chris McCandless making peace with American middle-class society by retreating to the hard frozen landscape of Alaska. There’s something about these places that gives us the chance to feel small, give space, to vocalise our grief, put ourselves back together and perhaps return with greater fortitude for it. In my own small way, this process is not alien to myself either. Finishing my final exams a few years ago, I packed the hatches of my kayak with a stove, bivvy gear and a few supplies. In the year prior, in youthful optimism, along with some friends we had decided that we would head to Svalbard to document and make clear the impact of plastic and noise pollution on this apparently pristine arctic wilderness. But with mere weeks to go, we were 10’s of thousands of pounds short, committed by our belief in the need for this kind of work but on the brink of financial ruin. After kayaking a kilometre offshore, a wobbling spec in the waves, a rough landing onto an empty beach and spending the night under a clear sky, resolve was found to commit to go for broke, to see it through to the end. More recently, with no home to speak of but my old car, the weight of a long field season and accompanying loneliness made the deteriorating health of my grandfather all the harder to stomach. Walking the banks of the East Lyn, casting a line for small wild brown trout, washing my cares out with a plunge into the cold, cleansing water, the pieces of life seemed to fit back together.

A dip in the East Lyn. 

I’m very grateful for the ability to still get out running and cycling to break the monotony of everyday life, it’s quite hard to imagine how those in the rather more strict measures of Spain are coping. During these times I ponder where I might go when clipped wings are allowed to grow again, to cast a line. Will I head alone to Dartmoor’s tumbling acid rivers, enjoy the improbable buzz of urban trouting or roam the coastline making more time to chat with long missed partners than to cast? The question reverberates: if you could go anywhere, where? Meeting this locked gate across the bridleway reminds me that I cannot go anywhere, that choice has been taken long before I was even able to walk, swim, cast, climb; the UK’s wilderness has been diminished and privatised. And nowhere is this more apparent than for our waterways.

'But on the other side, it didn't say nothing. That side was made for you and me'. 

A very wet run.

It’s 00:30, a scattering of hook packets lay around my bed, loose dubbing covers my shirt and a selection of scruffy flies are packed up in an envelope. An OS map glows from my laptop screen, numerous tabs open beside. The task at hand to equip a friend with the ability to get out fly fishing. His psyche to get into fly fishing is only matched by my elation to have another fishing partner without a pension scheme. Flies complete, I’m looking for likely looking local water for him. Forget the major rivers, a ticket on these is likely to cost a month’s rent or at least more than what we’d pay to feed ourselves for a week. Instead, I seek out the neglected, arse end tributaries, the turd on the shoe of the lordly water. This is the paradigm that we’ve come to work by, accepting that the most beautiful wonderful places in our own country are held at arm’s length. Not because they’ve been put there by these exclusive fisheries but instead are claimed on some antiquated documents of fishing rights, held as scripture to condemn ruffians such as ourselves. In the words of Joni Mitchell, ‘They took all the trees and put them in a tree museum, then they charged the people a dollar and a half just to see them’.

One of the better rivers we've found, even more fish than trolleys!

Back on my ride, I’m now cruising along forestry fire tracks. Looking at the conifer plantations, I’m taken to the wilds of Northern America. The land there is vast, so I hear, rich, true wilderness. Interest is stoked by Stuart’s tales of fishing in Tasmania, a temperate wilderness not unlike what the UK could have been. Rather than scratching through local post offices, obscure forum entries and dodging the gnashing of untamed farm mutts to knock on doors, here you know your rights. A state fishing permit allows you to roam wherever your spirit might take you, never fearful of having a crazed nutter attack you and steal your fishing rod for casting towards ‘his side on the river’ (a story for another time). I wonder if the populous of these countries suffer the same Nature Deficiency Disorder as we’re widely experiencing in the UK, with school children unable to identify our most common species. We shouldn’t have to fly half way around the world for access to awe inspiring rivers, with such landscapes abundant within our own country, and yet every year it proves more accessible for many people to do just this.

Nick Hart said that I reminded him of one of the American 'Troutbums' on one of the first occasions of meeting him. It took sometime to understand how great a compliment that could be!

In true University Student fashion, I’m milking the most out of a free trial to FishingTV, cancelling this before I have to pay. On the list of top rated films is ‘Chalk’, a story of chalks river fishing in the UK. And you know what, it’s everything I feared that it’d be. To give credit, the nod towards river restoration on the Wandle and smaller Yorkshire catchments give some lift in spirit. But the rest just serves the alienate, as home county accents wax lyrical about the tranquillity, perfection of these rivers, overlaid with slow-motion videos of anglers dressed up in thousands of pounds worth of beige, casting rods and reels worth more than my car, not exclusively retired. Words say that this is the glorious heritage of British fly fishing, what is heard is that you are not welcome in this natural beauty unless you earn such an exquisite income so as to buy your way in.

Aforementioned car. 

A small experiment for the next time you are at a party: Firstly, tell people upon meeting that you are a rock climber. Results generally consist of, ‘Awesome’, ‘Wow that’s pretty cool’, ‘Man, I’d love to go climbing sometime’. Now try and tell the other half of the room that you enjoy fishing for wild trout and you might expect such responses as, ‘I wouldn’t have expected that’, ‘each to their own I guess’ or ‘I’d never have the patience for that’. Now for the purely hypothetical part: I reckon if you repeated this experiment in cultures with open land access, right to roam and without the hoarding of natural beauty behind pay gates, the result would be totally different. Indeed, it doesn’t take much looking to see the difference in the fly fishing scene between the UK and America, New Zealand and Tasmania. The average age of anglers in the latter must be at least a generation younger, full of psyche and positive energy, not arthritis. What would it take to get young people enjoying their own right to wilderness, to give space for their spirits to roam, to find peace against the doomsday barrage of news in the media? Cut the locks, remove the ugly barbed wire, both people and the sport will be healthier for it.

Scottish winter climbing. See a mountain, climb the mountain. Marvellous. 

On a lighter note, various passport style schemes are making a positive change here. The Westcountry River’s trust launched their ‘Fish Pass’ app a little over a year ago, making wild fishing available and easily located for the cost of a pint and pasty. Hats off to them, it’s good to see and has made a big difference to my own fishing. But sadly this remains the exception.

Where will you go when it’s safe for us to wander again? This time of confinement has made all the more clear the need for all people (not just those on London salaries) to roam, to experience wild places and be refreshed by clean air. It’s been suggested that our society will change for this experience. I sincerely hope that the British countryside will become a more welcoming space and the ability to fish a far less exclusive acquisition when we do return.

Tasmanian getaway Part 1

As Dan has already mentioned, the 2019/20 winter fishing in the UK was dire. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to travel to the Southern hemisphere and swap seasons for just shy of a month, spending most of my time camping and fishing in Tasmania’s vast wilderness.

With the season comparable to early June in the UK, I planned to spend    most of my fishing time targeting trout and leave marine species till the last week of my stay. Unfortunately, after an early heatwave in October, the weeks leading up to my arrival in Tassie were characterised by unseasonal storms, snow and sub-Antarctic wind. I secretly hoped this lull in spring would pass by   the time I arrived, but sadly this wish did not materialise. Despite passing through smoke-ridden Sydney, I touched down in a windy, 9°C Hobart. The walk to the terminal building got me questioning whether I’d packed enough warm clothes, as I had intended on spending a considerable amount of time in the west and central highlands.

All negative thoughts soon disappeared; no sooner had I stepped into ‘Spot On – the fishing connection’, Hobart's legendary tackle shop, I was eager to cast a line. I must have spent a good hour discussing different lakes and rivers to try over the coming weeks but did eventually head off with a license and selection of new lures to try.

The first session was an urban trip in South Hobart, working my way upstream from the CBD, fishing the creek that supplies Australia’s oldest brewery. It was a pleasant trip, I caught about half a dozen pristine trout from the minute creek in the company of numerous wallabies, cockatoos and pademelons. Although I enjoy fishing tiny urban streams, I had my sights set on exploring some of the more remote areas where the trout have often never seen an angler.

Cascade Brewery and Mt.Wellington in the distance

An urban trout

 After an evening pouring over maps, a plan was hatched with Jon to climb mount Anne and fish the mighty Tyenna river on the return to Hobart, hoping the water levels would have dropped by then as no more rain was forecast. The Tyenna has been somewhere I’ve wanted to fish for some time, this small river is renowned for being incredibly productive; every year double figure fish are pulled from its idyllic waters.

Sadly, we heard the following morning that the Mt Anne region was closed due to bushfire damage so quickly came up with a plan B. We elected to head north-west to Mount Field national park, hike the Tarn Shelf circuit and fish the Tyenna over the long weekend.

The weather was glorious in Mt Field, I distinctly remember applying copious amounts of sun cream before we shouldered our bags. Fishing rod in hand, we began a steep ascent through mixed forest dominated by the endemic and charismatic Richea pandanifolia, the giant grass tree. A few patches of slushy snow were scattered through the forest, but we thought little of it. As we climbed higher, the pandani grove morphed into a thicket of snow gum and the patches of slushy snow became more prevalent. 

Jon beneath a towering 'Pandani'

First signs of snow

Rather alarmingly, at perhaps 1050m altitude, there was a good 5 inches of snow on the track. This did not bode well as the track would climb several hundred metres more before levelling out and following the tarn shelf. We spotted a couple walking towards us, which sent alarm bells ringing. It was still early in the morning; surely no one would have managed to already complete the circuit anti-clockwise? My fears were confirmed, we were told they lost the trail above the treeline in deep snow. Eager to carry on, we ignored their advice to turn back and sought an alternative route to the plateau. We hoped it would be possible to at least make it out if the trees and get glimpse of Lake Seal. Thankfully we did find the track and managed to join up with another set of footprints which followed the route we were following on the map for several kilometres. We were blessed with blue skies and stunning views; a white blanket coated the peaks and cols above us, in stark contrast to the dark, tannin stained waters of Lake Seal below.

A surreal scene for Australian summertime

Our hearts soon sank again as we saw the two figures who had been walking ahead of us approaching. A quick chat revealed that making any progress through the waist deep snow and icy bogs which lay ahead was unpleasantly arduous, so they had chosen to turn back. We decided to carry on regardless, following their footprints to a hut in the distance where we could stop for a bite to eat and assess the situation – it was almost midday and we hadn’t even seen the lakes I planned on fishing! From the hut I could see the Mackenzie tarn, the first of a series of 8 small lakes which the trail follows. It appeared to be frozen over, not something you often come across in Australia!

We decided to make our way slowly down to the tarn, we still had ten hours of daylight and no other plans. It was quite entertaining, trudging through deep snow whilst probing for rocks and pools, every now and then coming across the top of a trail marker confirming we were still on the right track. After a few obligatory pictures by the frozen tarn, we decided to venture onwards to the next one (which was only half frozen) so I could finally cast a line. I wasn’t surprised that nothing was interested in my lures, but nonetheless felt some sense of achievement for attempting to fish in this surreal location.

Not a bad spot for lunch!

We made the decision to have lunch then turn back to go and fish one of the lower lakes below the snowline. Whilst sitting by the lake, a German girl who was running the route showed up and exclaimed “Oh, I guess the footprints end here then!”. We had a chat and explained how we were turning back; it had taken five hours to walk little more than a quarter of the circuit. She tried to persuade us to continue as she didn’t have a proper map, only a small pamphlet with a sketch of the route. We decided against it and wished her good luck before finishing lunch. Feeling slightly worried for her, I climbed a small crag to see if I could spot her bright blue jacket in the snow. I caught sight of her, however she appeared to be lost, stuck on the wrong side of the next tarn, penned in by a braided creek and boggy ground hidden by snow. We decided to continue to show her the correct route, crossing the stream on the other side of the lake. She thankfully saw us and re-joined the right track. We decided to try and reach the next tarn and have a few more casts before heading back, however in the distance ahead of us we could see a group of brightly clothed hikers! This signalled that we’d reach the halfway point if we met, assuming they had started at a similar time to us that morning. We decided to put fishing on hold and meet the group. It turned out that the snow was a lot sparser ahead and progress a lot quicker.

This meant we could finally justify an hour or two fishing the tarns and streams that abound the high plateau. We caught numerous pristine trout from this magical place before heading off at pace to complete the circuit before darkness fell. Reaching the Tyenna valley in twilight, we pitched our tent and cooked two trout surrounded by a plethora of endemic Tasmanian fauna emerging to graze on the lush floodplain. We ended the monumental day by hunting for glow worms amongst tree ferns in the nearby forest before setting pre-dawn alarms for the next fishing trip, in total awe of the experience we had just been through.  

An immaculate brownie, note the vivid red spots on the adipose fin