Chalkstreams, Fly-fishing, Freelance copywriting, London, Trout, Urban rivers

Riders on the storm…

While this summer’s rogue jetstream took yet another swing at southern and central England, rolling an endless procession of thunderheads up the M3 corridor and finally landing a knockout blow on 2012’s Game Fair

… Rich and I gambled a late afternoon off gainful employment and drove south west from the Wandle to Winchester.

Under the Roman walls and medieval mills, the Itchen was running as high and clear as we’d ever seen it, swaying with ranunculus and splashy with rising fish. 

Careful casting couldn’t prevent at least one fly from snagging an ornamental lamp-post, but when the rewards were inch-perfect presentations to hand-sized wild urban trout rising just inside ancient culverts across a tangled skein of currents, it was an easy sacrifice to make.

“You won’t catch any ‘ere,” slurred a local expert from the bench behind us. “I’ve got a drinking problem and an ASBO and I know about fish.”

As dusk deepened and big red spinners spiralled downwards into ever-more-furious rise-rings (or could they be raindrops?)

… we reckoned two out of three weren’t bad.