Tower and Town, July 2023

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A Day's Fishing

I thought my angling days were over, but a chance meeting with a keen member of The Piscatorial Society in the snow by my house in Avebury made me think again. It subsequently led to an invitation to join him for a day on a prime stretch of the Wiltshire Avon.

It was balmy weather when we met up below the Society’s rod room at midday. We began by walking along three stretches of water, my friend using Polaroid glasses to detect the fish. A few mayflies and sedges were spotted, an indication as to what artificial flies to use. Whilst he searched for fish “rising” on the surface of the water I was quietly noting the birds in this beautiful and unspoilt habitat: a pair of Little Grebes, a family of Grey Wagtails, Blackcaps, Reed, Garden and Cetti’s Warblers chattering in the dense vegetation, and suddenly a flash of iridescent greenish-blue: a Kingfisher!

The rod room, with its imposing committee round table and circle of surrounding chairs, is a fisherman’s shrine: a selection of tied flies offered for sale in little boxes, various fly-fishing books, a log book in which to record your catch, a stuffed trout in a glass case and a portrait of Izaac Walton, author of “The Compleat Angler.”

Now it was time to cast our lines: my fly was tied, a French Partridge Mayfly, neatly trimmed with a pair of snippers and sprayed with a dry fly dressing. Though my delivery was erratic and unpredictable I just about demonstrated the required basic level and was good to go. I needed to relax and lengthen my back flip and adopt more of a hammer action on the return. Then there was a drag on the line as it moved downstream, requiring a little flick to prevent unnatural movement. It was all too easy to snag your fly on the vegetation behind, or the flag irises and reed stems at the water’s edge.

Happy to have some time on his own, my friend landed a two-pound trout. The society recommends hooks without barbs, which means keeping the line taut until the fish is landed, and fish are put back slowly and carefully, head upstream.

Not totally outdone I hooked a small trout and then a grayling, slim and silver-grey.

I am not sure what next with my return to the river bank, but I left the water’s edge as beautiful banded demoiselles danced over the Avon’s clear waters in the golden evening light.

Robin Nelson