I'm not sure what it is about a certain insect - For now we'll refer to her as a Ms D. Anica. She turns up once the winter clothes have been shed, she flits about for a day or two, flashing off her lithe body, freshly exposed to the spring weather and then she's gone. Like a chance encounter with a woman that makes your heart stop in a busy city street. Trout and angler alike are patently unable to resist her charms, and she knows it the dirty tease, bobbing back to the waters surface to lay her eggs, playing chicken with the spotty behemoths lurking beneath the surface.

All I know is that once she arrives our little rivers go crazy. Crazy in that fish are smashing into any artificial that resembles Ms D. Anica, and crazy in that every angler sneaks days off and heads for the Avon. The only time that you'll see car parks full and river banks busy throughout the whole year.

Deliberately heading away from the Amesbury circus I headed down the valley towards the Woodfords yesterday evening and fished a nice quiet hatch pool and some shallow, riffly water that is sheltered from the wind. Just a couple of yellow insect teases floating about, but not enough for the fish to be taking any notice of their blatant provocation. But, to my surprise, fish were busy feeding everywhere and in the 2 hours before I had to head back home I brought 10 fish to hand, from 9" through to about 15". A thoroughly relaxing evening and it just reminds me that if you avoid the circus and just fish away from the crowds you can have a carnival all of your own.











~ malcolm

The last 2 weeks have seen something of an explosion of activity in the countryside around here. After the long dreary colourless months of winter this sudden change comes as nothing short of an assault on your senses; Millions of shades of green abound in the woodlands, supported by a bright carpet of magnificent bluebells. Cherry blossom litters the streets like leftovers from Notting Hill carnival, just without the McD's wrappers and beer bottles. Someone appears to have stitched yellow patches onto the countryside. Rape seed, artificial in it's brightness dot's across the Wiltshire fields. Roadside verges with their greens darkening as the weather warms are now dotted with white from the cow parsley, daisies and a huge variety of other flowers (the council haven't come out on their roadside flowers massacre yet).

All in, as you drive round Wiltshire at the moment you can almost drink in the heady aroma, almost see the pulsing heart of the country growing in front of your eyes.

And the fishing? Well, if you're sat in your office in London, my advice is take the day off...

So, utilising what apparently is a mostly British word, I came, I saw, I winkled!

After a fairly hectic week dashing from place to place with work (although, undeniably they are lovely places!) I snuck off for an hours fishing this afternoon. The heavy downpours mid week have rendered the Nadder and Avon chocolate coloured, well OK, the Avon is more a minestrone soup as you can just about see through to the river bed. Anyway, uhmm, I was saying, oh yes, the rivers are mostly yucky so in a flash of uncharacteristic inspiration I figured out that e does indeed equal mc squared, that the answer to most of life's questions appears to be 42 and perhaps most importantly that the upper Wylye, Bourne and Ebble would be totally clear as they run clear through almost everything that the rain gods could throw at them.

Given that I only wanted a quick dash out from home I plumped for the Ebble and accepting that this may well mean that I do nothing more energetic than drown some cdc feathers off I trotted.

The weather was warm, and bright sunshine only interrupted by the odd cloud made me smile somewhat inanely as I scooted along the Chalke Valley towards Broadchalke. Singing at the top of your voice in the car can only be called cool if noone else actually sees you. I must report that I'm not sure the three girls in the car in front of me thought I was particularly cool as I succumbed to the violent femmes and belted out blister in the sun as loud as I could.

A strong breeze smacked me in the face when I got out of the car but undeterred I slowly made my way along the weed strewn stretch by the road. My small nymph spent more time being blown onto the weed rafts than actually drifting down the channels but the casts where either the wind didn't blow, or the wind blew and corrected my sloppy casts resulted in 4 lovely 9" wild fish. Bars of gold, bedecked with stars of fiery red and orange; Truly magnificent beasties to hold, even for a few seconds.

Fishing above the barbed wire fence as the river turns away from the road rewarded me with another two fish, the biggest some 13" or so.

Six fish from such a wonderful wild piece of water is enough for me, so rather than fish to the end of the beat I chose to turn around and wander back through last years reeds, detritus from the winter floods and the lush new nettles, just beginning to show their thorny crowns. It took me a whole season to get my first fish from the Ebble when I started fishing Salisbury's waters, so six in an hour just seemed magical. Truly a case of winkling a fish ~ next time, Deverill, you will be mine!

Half way back I spooked a lone swan who was honking mournfully about on the river some 12' from the remains of a nest. One egg remained in the middle of the nest and I found another about 20' downstream in the reeds. Neither egg was damaged, but both looked to be pretty scratched. Didn't really come to any conclusions about what could have done that to a bird as large and ferocious as a nesting swan, one thing I do know is that given it's location, human intervention is highly unlikely.









~ malcolm