A Special Weekend

[Catfish Virgin (Still!)]

This weekend saw me joining some friends and fine anglers to celebrate the impending end of the River (Coarse) Season. Hosted by Peter, I and three others met up at Britford on the Hants Avon just below Salisbury. The main river was bank high and racing through but the various carriers looked good and very inviting. It seemed as though many others also thought the venue was a good bet as the car park was full and more people were arriving all the time. As it turned out, the fishing was very hard indeed, maybe the numbers of anglers combined with the low temperatures turned the fish off. Very few were caught although I scraped together a small roach, chub, dace and grayling, all on breadflake (maggots only produced hordes of minnows!). Despite the tough conditions we had a very social day in great company and I took the opportunity to explore the upstream areas of the venue, making mental notes for the future.

We adjourned to Peter's house, inspected his rather copious collection of antique and traditional angling equipment and eventually wandered down to the local pub, where we were also joined by Nigel, for a very welcome evening meal, beer, wine and rather too much port!

Eventually we made our way back to the house (a stones throw from the upper Avon!) where more wine and beer was disposed of. We also drooled over a collection of old Angling Magazines and Publications dating back to the 1960's and 1970's supplied by Mark. Two of our party (Graham and Ed) seemed to be in just about every edition we looked at! They were (are) prolific Angling Writers with an amazing track record of fishing achievements - truly great anglers and superb company. We eventually adjourned to bed full of great stories and memories of a time long gone.

Sunday dawned very bright and not too early! But once the "Full English" was disposed of, we headed just round the corner to Avon Springs Trout Fishery. Now, I last caught a trout on the fly about 25 years ago! So today was going to be an interesting challenge. With my newly purchased gear ready to be christened and my technique very much in ancient memory mode, we headed off to find the rainbows and browns. Within an hour the bright sunlight had given way to driving sleet and rain with very strong gusting winds, not ideal! But, suprise, suprise, a very nice rainbow of just under 6lbs took a liking to my nymph and gave a very good account of itself. A second rainbow of about 3lbs soon followed:



At this point I was the only one catching fish, the sleet/wind was getting more than a little uncomfortable, so the local pub was the obvious choice for a bit of respite (and thawing!).

Suitably refreshed we returned where upon Ed finally hooked a cracking rainbow:



Graham did the honours with the net (I wonder how many times these two have done that? They've been fishing mates for 40 years or more and were both pioneers of specimen hunting in the wilds of the north West)



Dodging the showers, Ed managed one other rainbow, as did I, but Peter and Graham remained fishless!

By about 4:30, we had all had enough of the battering from the elements and decided to call it a day. Refreshing coffee and sandwiches were on offer back at Peter's so that was a fitting end to the weekends festivities. A good choice as it turned out becaused the sleet became snow and by the time we all said our goodbyes, it was threatening to become a blizzard!

A truly great weekend in remarkable company, very entertaining and amusing, full of anecdotes from the actual creators of some angling history and a couple of good fish as well!

[Fishing Forum Admin]

Fab read mate and some lovely fish

[Norfolkboy]

Nice one Neil

[Twiddler]

Looks like a great time had by all and even a few fish were caught.

Sorry I couldn't make it, wouldn't have been good comapny under the circumstances.

I popped by PJ's house after my return, as I thought you all might have chickened out due to the weather...but my greatest respect for sticking it out and well done to the trout

[pingu]

sounded a great weekend there neil , nice one

dave

[BaggieRich]

Great report Neil. A weekend to remember. Nice one! beer