A Couple of Hours on the Avon

[paulf]

I must admit to being one of those people who spend a lot of time reading forums and rarely post. I also follow quite a few blogs too. They all serve as motivation/inspiration for those moments when I can't get out fishing.

I guess this is a long winded way of saying "it is about time I posted something"!

I'm a UK based angler and my home river is the Kennet. As I don't have a fat back account or salary I don't get to fish near home where it is very exclusive fly fishing instead I'm a member of a couple of clubs which gives me access to the middle/lower Kennet and also to the Avon and its tributaries in Wiltshire. All the sections I fish are what are described as mixed fisheries, i.e. not prime trout fishing.

Yesterday I decided to head south to fish the Avon not far from Stonehenge. It had been raining heavily overnight and I wasn't too sure what the water colour would be like. I was delighted to find the water clear.

It was about 7am when I started to fish and I decided to use a nymph. I hadn't long slid in to the stream (a carrier off the main river) when I noticed a rise only a few yards ahead. Taking the hint I switched to a dry and covered the area where I had seen the rise. 3rd or 4th cast and I was in. A nice wild brown of about 10" was duly caught and released.

I contimued to wade up the carrier covering the water as I went. I rose several but only landed 2 more.

With 3 trout landed and looking at my watch I thought I had better head home. My wife is very understanding but I didn't want to push my luck.

As I got near my car I decided to remove some fishing line with weights and float (bobber) that some child had broken off in a tree. As I waded out under the branch a fish rose just across from me. I couldn't resist so I cast to it and first time up it came. The strike was a success and trout number 4 was landed and released.

A perfect end to the trip.

Oh, and I did remove the lost line before I went home.

Paul

[ksbioteacher]

Thanks for sharing a fine experience

[ofuros]

Nice contribution Paulf.......
Don't forget to take your camera next time, we all love to see trout in their
local environs from different parts of this big old world. :thumbsup:
Enjoyed.

[tinydries]

Sounds like a good time.

Forgive my ignorance, but is there no free trout/grayling fishing in England? I understand that as such an old country every bit of land is owned by somebody, but having to pay to fish would bother me.

[paulf]

Actually there are some sections of free fishing in England and Wales - same legal system. Scotland has its own legal system and regulation which someone else might be able to comment on.

In general all tidal waters are free fishing, however, there might not be a right of access but if you are in a boat you're normally OK.

In true freshwater it is a very different situation and most rivers are privately controlled. As it happens the section I was fishing was part public or free fishing. About a 150 yards only the rest controlled by a local club.

Most free fishing tends to be in urban or semi-urban areas where the right to fish was granted by the monarch as part of a Royal Charter sometime in the Middle Ages. Control now rests with local government, i.e. town council. The local geology and industrial history will determine the presence of trout and grayling.

There is an excellent book recently published called "Trout in Dirty Places" written by Theo Pike. It is all about trout and grayling fishing in urban areas and a lot of the fishing written about is free or, if not, cheap. (Did you know there is free fishing on the Itchen in Winchester?)

I live in an area dominated by the famous chalk streams. Not only are they prestigious waters but they are located in the one of the most affluent and populace parts of the country. This simply means they are beyond my means or beyond what I can justify to myself or my wife! For example a section of river upstream of one of my club waters charges about £2500 a year to fish, my club £60 a year.

If I were to live another 60 to 70 miles west then there would be a lot wild trout fishing available to me at very modest cost.

A long winded answer but hopefully giving a sense of the situation over here!

Paul

[Ernest]

It's interesting to read about the fishing elsewhere. If my encyclopedia can be believed the population density of Great Britain is about eight times that of Wisconsin. That would put a real squeeze on the fishing with or without private control of most of the resource.

[paulf]

Ernest you're encyclopedia is probably correct. And when you consider that some parts do have a low population density you can imagine what the rest is like. On the otherhand we do have some incredibly beautiful countryside.

I think this is why I found being over in Normandy earlier this year so strange - the landscape was a lot like south west England but it didn't have the same number people.

[Satoshi]

The population density of our country is even larger than the UK, but most of our rivers or streams are open to public. Accordingly, fish disappears completely in some streams close to big cities within a few months after the opening day, although the license fee is not cheap. Privately owned river is perhaps inevitable to keep good fishery in streams running through a densely populated area.

Satoshi

[tinydries]

You know, I didn't consider population density combined with open fishing = fished-out streams. In that regard, I can see paying a fee to keep up the quality of the fishery.

[paulf]

It is a difficult one. I find myself green with envy at the apparent ease of access to unspoilt water and lack of angling pressure. On the otherhand I don't want to see places fished out. My experience of free fishing in England is that it attracts a disproportionate number of casual anglers some of whom exhibit a total disregard for regualtion, fish environment etc. It is this minority that cause the problems. The majority, as ever, appreciate what they have.

A lot of UK fishing ends up in the hands of clubs and the subscriptions are normally very reasonable. Equally it is a free market so the most desirable fishing commands a premium that most a can not sensibly afford.

I guess Satoshi experiences the worst of both worlds with easy public access to fishing and high population levels? But surely, many parts of the USA must have high population ldensity too - what do anglers do there?

[Ernest]

When I was growing up in Minnesota the general idea was to kill your limit of trout at every opportunity. The limit was ten trout per day. We ate a lot of fish at our house, and when the fishing turned poor near the roads, my friends and I walked further into the forest to our secret places, where we caught and killed more trout. A nearby city meant a lot of fishermen, and the fishing success went down over time.

In Minnesota and Wisconsin there have been changes in regulations, with lower bag limits and special regulations on some waters, and that has helped preserve good public fishing. Over time many fishermen have adopted the practice of keeping no fish at all, or just a few.

Then there is the issue of land use and development. Stream trout thrive within a fairly narrow set of environmental conditions. If these conditions are absent for even a couple of weeks a year, there will be no trout. A dense people population means more impermeable surfaces, roofs, roads, sidewalks, parking lots, and the rain that falls on these surfaces quickly runs off into streams rather than sinking in and becoming next decade’s spring water. The land is too valuable not to develop, the developers don’t think about the trout, and the streams suffer. How much is a trout stream worth? We’re grappling with a public policy question. Some of the grapplers are trout fishermen, and some are not. Some developers maximize their returns in ways that do no good for the trout. It’s not just cities and towns. I know of a couple of very productive trout streams that were compromised by suburban developments with generous lot sizes. Each home had its own water well and septic system, and after a few years the nearby streams looked the same, but they were not the same.

So what is a trout stream near a population center worth? We can spend public money to buy the land to preserve a stream, or a private concern can buy this valuable land and sell memberships. Once the stream access is in private hands, it won’t go back to the public again.

Wisconsin has over 10,000 miles of trout streams, mostly small streams. The three streams I fish the most run through public land, are difficult to get in to, and offer fine fishing most of the time. They are not too far from my home, but they’re far enough from the cities so very few people will fish them in a season.

[adam]

Paul, there are some Englishmen here, been here for a very long time and they are pretty savy and cool, no less. You might want to send one a private message or do a search here at the forum for a keyword or something to find these guys...

And pictures?

Got any pictures? Even ones of Stonehenge or a crop circle or something cool like an old castle or a stream?

Love me some pictures.

Thanks for ringing in.

...and by the way, two hours by car driving fast to get to the first acceptable streams, my favorites are 4.5 hours, 10 hours by car to get to heaven.

That's what I do.

[paulf]

4.5 hours driving would be me on a lot of trout fishing! Right in to Devon and also a lot if not most of Wales.

Currently the waters I fish vary between 20 minutes and an hour away. Total time out of the house, fishing + travelling time, is typically 4 hours tops.

There are a few photos on my last couple of threads which hopefully folks can view! (Never posted pictures before.) They were all taken with a mobile. I will try to take a better camera and get some photos of famous historic sites :)

Paul