Lady of the Stream, Hampshire Avon Amesbury.

[Greenheart]

After a lot of thought, I eventually decided to fish the Hampshire Avon at Amesbury today to try for a grayling for the species hunt. Bought a day ticket. £3 from Hills Bikes & Tackle in Amesbury (Bargain). The Hampshire Avon is one of the UKs finest chalkstreams, with scenic banks & crystal clear water. It has a good head of Grayling, Brown Trout & the occasional Salmom + the usual coarse species. Walked along the bank to look for a good spot & met another angler. A novice to coarse fishing, who has just joined the Forum. (Welcome Mithrandir) Had a bit of a chat, then set up in a nice swim near to the A303 bridge with a fast flowing glide between the streamer weed. A really fishy looking spot.

Downstream View


Upstream view

Set up a 12' rod with a 2 No.4 shot Avon stickfloat 3lb hooklength & size 18 hook, baited with a single maggot. Loosefed a few maggots & soon started catching some of these.

Grayling

I also picked up a couple of very good Brown Trout.

Kept the loose feed going in & amassed quite a nice little net of fish.

Then I decided to walk the bank & try a bit of stalking. Found another good swim & spotted some good fish. Fed a few maggots & managed to attract the fish close into the bank. Got my camera out & by hiding behind some reeds, I managed to get these pictures of feeding Grayling.

Caught & released a few more, then walked back to my origional swim. Looked at the gravel bed where I had been feeding some maggots & saw that there were some very large eels feeding on the remaining maggots. One fish was extremely large 4-5lb & looked like a Bloody Conger.
The grayling had been getting hookshy, so I got out my feeder rod & set up a ledger rig with 8lb line straight through to a size 10 forged hook. Put on 6 maggots & cast out to try for an Eel.
The tip of my rod pulled straight round & I thought i'd hooked an Eel. Wrong!!!, I pulled in my biggest Grayling of the day. So much for hookshy!!!
1lb 9oz

The Eels were proving extremely hard to catch. I sat & watched them for two hours without a bite. They picked up every maggot except the ones with the hook in. I even resorted to pulling up lumps of turf to try & find some worms. Even these did'nt work. Then just as I was about to give up & go home, I saw a nice eel in the water right beneath my feet. I fed him a few maggots, then dropped a bunch of small worms on his nose. RESULT!!!!

A nice hard fighting Eel of about 2lb & another 1 1/2 points.
And so ended another perfect day.

[fishypaul]

a wonderful read and pictures,well done mate

its a long time since i last caught a grayling,they really are beautiful fish

[Fishing Forum Admin]

WHat a cracking read and pics mate - now that the way to spend a day

[baitmaster]

fantastic ian
i enjoyed that read and some fantstic pic too


tightlines
kevin

[pingu]

cravcking read ian
got me all enthused
i wantb one
trout or grayling !!!!!!!!!!!

[Norfolkboy]

Brilliant Ian! Reminds me of my trout and grayling session last year, and can't wait to try again at some point.

Would it be possible in the future for a small forum meet (6 max perhaps) there?

[Greenheart]

Originally Posted by Norfolkboy

Brilliant Ian! Reminds me of my trout and grayling session last year, and can't wait to try again at some point.

Would it be possible in the future for a small forum meet (6 max perhaps) there?

At the moment Dan, that would be difficult. It's a fairly short stretch of river & absolutly full of streamer weed. This means that there are not many swims where you could sit & fish that many people all day. The Grayling is a very shy fish & roving / stalking tactics work better. However it may be possible in late Setember or October when the weed dies back. I shall have to investigate some of the other Salisbury Angling club day ticket waters too.

[BaggieRich]

Great report there Ian. Another target crossed off the list as well.......

Nice one!



Rich.