A Day On The Test

Catfish Virgin (Still!) · #1 10-11-2009, 07:34 PM

I've been a bit addicted to trout of late so what better place to visit than the hallowed River Test near Romsey. The fabled chalkstream that, in some places, even shedloads of money can't buy you "a rod" - such honours are only handed down in Wills and via corporate chairmanships!

So I arrived at Timsbury just as dawn was breaking through on Saturday morning, lush mown grass and the mist rising off the water muffled every sound except the occassional splosh of rising trout and the cry of several startled pheasant:

The only other sound echoing around the valley was my 6AAA balsa float and "traditional" three red maggots on a #16, landing in a heap as I tried to remember how to work my centrepin:

You see, for the price of a day ticket (£18) you can now (from 1st Oct) fish this excellent stretch of the Test on a coarse ticket and chase the grayling! You may well get attached to some of the more famous residents as you attempt to find those grayling and it's great fun!

Second trot down and I hooked a lively brownie of about 1lb+, then followed that with a similar sized grayling. Travelling light and remaining very mobile is the key here and I tend to walk miles! In total the fishery consists of about 2 miles of main river and a mile or so of carrier, both are home to just about every species of river fish there is!

During the day I had a number of small perch, roach and dace and quite a few grayling to just over 1lb. Of course there were also the trout which tended to liven up the day (and temporarily ruin the swim). With browns, rainbows and seatrout already landed, I had a cance to complete the "Grand Slam" of game fish! I hooked into a much bigger fish, on trotted breadflake, that turned out to be an old "red" cock salmon of about 12lbs/15lbs! It didn't do much but just kept nodding away and at no stage did I have a hope in hell of landing it on a #14 to 3lb hooklength! It eventually decided it had had enough of these games and headed off upstream in top gear and that was that!

A good day to be out on the river!