The Lady of the River Itchen - Richard Howland

This entry was posted on 17th January, 2017

With the bookings taken over the phone for four of us a few days before, it was 4.20am on the 21st of December and I was trying my best not to make a noise as I got dressed in the dark. The good lady had work later that day and is not best pleased at being woken at this time of the night! I managed to make it out of the bedroom without too much fuss, but I had the next obstacle to over come. Muskett knew something was going on last night when I was loading the van but now he knew for sure, as I came down the stairs in my fishing clothes. However, the problem I faced was that the rule for the fishery is: NO DOGS. As Muskett normally comes with me on my fishing trips, he was sitting by the door waiting. Now, for those of you that do not own a dog, you will not know what this is like, but there I was trying to reason with him to move back from the door, that I wasn't going fishing, and that I promise to take him next time!!

We had arranged to meet outside the Sittingbourne AD shop at 5am, but before that I had to meet Paul Robinson at his house, as he had kindly offered to drive. After a quick chat with Simon Impett, and Ali Olteanu, who were driving in the other car, we were on our way. We were hoping that the traffic wasn't too heavy, as – fingers crossed – people had finished work for Christmas and the M3 was clear.



Over two hours later we were there, it was still dark but we didn't mind as it gave us time to have a bite to eat and drink in the local service station, which was just past the entrance to the fishery, and to talk through the ways we were going to fish for grayling on the river. Once it was light enough, we were through the gates and driving along side the river. Having never seen it before, I didn't know what to expect, only what friends had told me.

It's a small intimate river that is very picturesque, with little bridges here and there and loads of bends and eddies. Everywhere looked very fishy. We drove to the top of the section where you are allowed to float fish, which must have been a mile, and beyond that it's fly fishing only. I had been told by a friend that this was a good starting point, so Paul and I parked the car whilst Ali and Simon drove back down a short way to a couple of spots that looked good.

The river was low due to the fact that we hadn't had any rain for ages – until today! It was raining that fine rain; the one that gets you soaked without you knowing it. On went the waterproof trousers, the warm coat, and my newly acquired waterproof hat that I found whilst clearing out some things from my mother's house a couple of weeks ago. Out came my 13ft Drennan Acolyte float rod, the Advanta Centrepin loaded with 4.2lb line, a 4BB stick float, and 3.6lb hook links with a size 16 hook and a size 20 swivel, which a friend put me on to a while back.



Few people think about line twist as your rig trundles down the river but, if you are using two maggots, they are twisting all the time in the current. By putting a small swivel above your hook link, it can turn and twist as much as it likes. I never river fish without one these days, even when fishing with other baits.

With Paul still setting up, I decided to start in the very last swim of this section of river, right next to the sign saying: FLY FISHING ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT. As always, like everyone else, I couldn't wait to get fishing and watch the float glide down the beautiful river. I think I was too excited, as the very first cast was a complete mess up! As I flicked the float out to where I hoped the grayling were laying, the line went the wrong way round the reel and inside, wrapping itself around the central bar before I knew what was happening. Whilst looking down at the mess in the reel, I managed to put the tip of the rod into the branches of the tree above me. I now had a float hanging in mid air, line and rod tip in the branches, and a reel that I was never going to get any line from. What a great start!



Knowing that this was the only centrepin I had with me, I had to get the line out. Another word of advice I give to customers when buying this type of reel for the first time is to always take a screwdriver with them, because the only way of getting the line out from inside is to take the reel apart. The only way of taking it apart is with a screwdriver. There really isn't a lot to a centrepin reel, so it's not difficult to do, as long as you don't drop the screw in the grass... So now I'm standing very still, not wanting to move my feet, bent down, rod tip still in the tree, half a reel on the rod, the other half in my hand, looking for the screw in the mud and grass, thinking this couldn't have started any worse. Luckily for me, Paul couldn't see me from where he stood; otherwise, I would have had to explain the whole mess to him while he no doubt would have had a good laugh at me.

Retrieving the screw from the floor, putting the reel back together, and managing to untangle the rod from the tree, I was back in the game and ready to start for the second time that day. I had been trickling maggots in all the time I had been grubbing about on the floor and now, as the float trotted down stream, the fish were waiting. As I watched, the float dipped once then sunk under the surface, and I was into my first river Itchen fish. It may not have been the biggest fish in the river but it was a grayling and once in the net I was over the moon! Like all fishermen chasing one species from a river, I had been a little worried that I wouldn't catch one.

Having hooked and lost a grayling at the net on the river Wye a couple years back, it had been on my wanted list for a long time. Laying in my net was the Lady of the river in all her glory. As I've said, it wasn't the biggest fish but I didn't care, IT WAS MY FIRST GRAYLING.



One of the things that nobody told me is that they will not stop moving! My God, trying to get a photo of one is a complete nightmare! With the photos done (just) and the fish recovered in the net before releasing, it was time to see if any more were lurking in swim. Trotting a float down a river is one of the best forms of fishing there is and knowing that a grayling or a hungry trout is there waiting for your bait is a complete buzz. The next couple of fish were brown trout and my God did they put up a fight on my light gear.

By this time, Paul was fishing just along from me and catching a few fish. They weren't very big, so I asked him if he wanted to swap as there seemed to be a bigger stamp of fish where I was and, like me, he wanted to get that first proper grayling under his belt. The rain was easing up, too, so I decided to have a little walk along the beautiful river to try and catch more grayling. With so much to explore, and likely looking runs everywhere, I never even got down as far as Simon and Ali, who were fishing down stream catching fish after fish (as far as I could tell from the amount of photos they were sending me on WhatsApp).



A couple of hundred yards from where Paul was fishing, I stopped and took time out to watch a buzzard that was sitting in the top of a rotten old tree really close to the other bank. He didn't seem to mind me standing there watching him hunt for food.

On my way back to a little bridge that I had caught underneath earlier, I met another fisherman walking the opposite direction to me. During our chat he suggested I try sweetcorn, saying that I’d get fewer bites but bigger fish. Taking this new information on board I walked up to see how Paul was doing, putting a few maggots into the bridge swim on my way pass.
Before I had got to him, he was calling down the river that this was by far the best day’s river fishing he'd had this year, and I couldn't disagree!



On cue, he was into another decent fish, this time a lovely brown trout slipped over the net core and into the safety of the net. With a few photos taken, it was time to get back to my swim armed this time with a bigger hook and a can of sweetcorn. After a few trots down without a bite I was starting to question this information that I had been given but then, just as the float came out of the rough water and I was bent down watching it going under the bridge, the float disappeared from the surface and I struck into a decent fish.

After the fish put up a good account of itself in the fast water, I landed my biggest grayling of the trip: 1lb 10oz. If I had seen the fisherman again I would have thanked him, because I caught a better stamp of fish after I swapped over to corn, but he never passed my way again that day. After a bite to eat and a nice hot cup of tomato soup, I thought about a change of tactics. I was catching well enough but wanted to try the feeder rod out. I had put it in the car just in case something happened to my other rod, but now out it came with a heavy semi fixed maggot feeder on and a 15 inch hooklink. On went the sweetcorn, and out went the rig. I didn't have long to wait before the tip bent over and I was into something that took off down stream at a rate of knots. There was nothing I could do to stop it. The fish had gone way down stream, as I watched helplessly, until the inevitable happened: the hooklink broke and I was left standing there wondering what the hell had just happened. Talking to the bailiff later that day, he said it could have been a sea trout or a salmon, as the river holds them, too.



I caught a few more fish on the feeder before deciding that I missed watching the float go under the bridge, so the rest of the day was spend back on the centrepin, catching hard fighting trout and grayling, feeding maggots but fishing with corn. All too soon, the daylight started to fade and we knew we had to be off by dark and hit the rush hour traffic on the motorway. Ali walked up to find us and find out what time we were packing up. Like us, he had stayed in the same place most of the day, having found a snag not far out that was a like a magnet to the fish and had picked them off one by one. All he kept saying was: when are we coming back?!

Simon had fished down from Ali and like me had a walk about looking for different spots, but ended up back where he had started, catching good size fish including a trout weighing 4lb to 5lb. All the fish were put back in the river to fight another day.

We packed up as darkness fell and met up with Simon and Ali on the way out to reflect on what a fantastic day’s fishing we had all had. We’ll be back!

For more details visit... http://www.itchen-fishing.co.uk/