Mid-Summer Fishing on English Chalk Streams with Go Fishing UK

By Keith Mathews

     Two previous reports in October 2005 (Article ID 1776) and August 2004 (Article ID 1652) covered my experiences on English chalk streams in late May 2005 and early May 2004 respectively with Dave Martin of Go Fly Fishing UK (Tel. 011-44-1252-851397. E-mail: dave@goflyfishinguk.com. Web: www.goflyfishinguk.com). This year Dave guided me in mid-July, and I thought that readers might be interested in how trout and grayling fishing holds up in very hot weather on these streams. As I noted in my previous articles this fishing is done when my wife visits her relatives. This year an eighteenth birthday and graduation party dictated that we go for two weeks in July.

     Although English summers are typically cooler and wetter than our summers here in the southern tier of New York State, this year the summer weather in England was hotter than at home with daytime highs over 90 degrees. And it never rained until the night before I left to come home. All-time records were broken in and around London in mid-July. The days I fished, July 18, 19, and 20th, were among the hottest days of the year in England, and July went down in the records as the hottest ever. When Dave called me on July 17 about fishing the next three days, I told him I wasn’t expecting the fishing to be very good with the hot weather. He was surprisingly optimistic and told me that his last client on the previous Thursday had taken four nice trout and a number of grayling from the Wylye, the stream I had booked for the 19th.

     On the first day we fished the Denford carriers, which are fed by the River Kennet near Hungerford in Berkshire. I described this water in some detail in the October 2005 article. We started at 2 PM because we intended to stay until late evening. The water was somewhat lower than normal, but not extremely low, and the fish we could see, both trout and grayling, were casually feeding, but not rising. The fly Dave selected was a lead head dark hare’s ear nymph, but the fishing techniques used to take two 17-inch rainbows were a bit unorthodox. Instead of fishing the nymph dead drift through a pod of fish, we positioned ourselves upstream and used a method Dave called drop and draw. Casting across stream I watched the strike indicator drift downstream and when the fly fish was in amongst the fish I drew it back slowly and then let it drop back to the depth at which it was drifting. Eventually a rainbow took on the draw. Dave explained that although the fish were a bit sluggish, the movement stimulated them to take.

     The second fish was caught by doing a drop and draw on a trout that Dave had spotted by peering through tall grass along the side of the stream. It was tight against the bank on just the other side of the grass I was behind. The fishing technique was a drop and draw that was just done on a short line in front of the trout with the rod held high over the grass. The trout took and I caught a second 17-inch rainbow. We kept these two fish because my wife’s sister-in-law had requested trout for a meal, and Dave doesn’t mind a client keeping rainbows, which he refers to as American trout, but he prefers to release brown trout, which are native to England.

     I had an opportunity to catch a third trout this way when I did the drop-and-draw from a bridge fishing downstream on a short line to fish I could not see along a brush covered bank. When the fish took, it immediately dashed under the brush and I panicked and failed to raise the rod tip and give line. As a result, the tippet broke. The hoped for evening hatch did not materialize, so we left about 9:30 PM. We decided that in spite of the heat it was better to fish earlier in the day when it was easier to spot fish to cast to.

     The next day Dave showed up about 9:30 AM, and we drove out to Wiltshire, which took about an hour and a half, to the Wylye, a tributary of the Avon, itself a notable chalk stream in Southern England. This is a delightful, small chalk stream that flows through an estate that owns the beat I was to fish. The owner of the property, Sharon, lives in a large house built from cut stone some time in the 1500s. There is also a mill that she was renting to Americans on the property, and a hatch pool that was quite large and was home to some large brown trout that are very difficult to catch. A hatch is an adjustable water gate that when closed will back up the water and flood the surrounding fields. It was used to fertilize the fields in the winter by distributing the lime in the water to them. The large pool, however, was downstream of the hatch and was apparently a large plunge pool formed by the water pouring out of the hatch.

     As usual on small streams the fishing is done from one bank only. The lower end of the beat on the Wyle where we started about 11:30 AM has a nice gravel bottom for wading in the fishing bank side. Dave loaned me a pair of hip boots so I could wade up the gravel edge and cast to numerous grayling that were rising out over the weed beds in the main channel and also over the gravel edge upstream from me. I was using a small Klinkhammer emerger and the grayling rose quickly and were very hard to hook. Dave told me he started off there to tune up my reflexes so I would do better on the trout later. Eventually I managed to catch and release a few. Grayling are beautiful fish with a sail-like dorsal fin and generally prefer even colder water than trout, so their activity was a good sign.

     As we moved upstream we came to “Kite’s Corner” where the stream makes a sharp right turn and the outside of the curve is almost square. It was here that Oliver Kite, a well-known angler in England during the 30s and 40s loved to fish. He is best remembered for his development of the Kite’s Imperial fly. I caught several fish in Kite’s Corner, some more grayling and a 13-inch brown trout. This part of the stream seemed to be full of fish.

     The next pool was the hatch pool. Dave stationed me at the tail and had me cast a #8 Grey Wulff up into the pool. After about an hour of this with no success and now very uncomfortable from wet pants (I had earlier waded over the top of the left boot) I pleaded with Dave to move on and find some action. The rest of the beat was bank fishing so I could get out of the boots and get into some dry clothes. I also had to use the toilet in the fishing hut, so while I was gone Dave, who rarely fishes when he has a client, put a weighted damsel fly nymph on one of the rods and I came back just in time to see him hook and land a brown of well over two pounds from the hatch pool. I guess he had to show me that they really could be caught. It was the largest trout caught that day. However, for me the nicest part of the day was still coming.

     As we moved upstream we saw rising trout. Dave picked one out under a tree limb near the opposite bank. He took on the first cast that I put over him a #16 Adams. It was a beautiful 14-inch brown trout. This was soon followed by a trout that was rising between some weeds and the near bank. A different cast, but I was successful, and it proved to be a 15-inch brown. Meanwhile, Sharon had come down with her Jack Russell terrier to watch us. Then she invited us to a complete English tea with cream tea cakes and fruit cake on the patio. What elegance, all this and trout too! I found out that she skies in Switzerland each winter and she has a son who works for a large bank in New York City. We promised her a trout if we caught another. Alas, it was not to be, whatever was hatching stopped, and we left about 6:00 PM.

     The final day of fishing was on the famous River Test. Dave picked me up about 9 AM, and we drove to the Chilbolton beat between Wherwell and Chilbolton in Hampshire. This rather short stretch of a few hundred yards has a good population for both trout and grayling and can keep you busy all day. I had fished it last year during the height of the mayfly (ephemera danica) hatch and took six beautiful browns all 15 to 17 inches, plus one grayling. This year I did better with the grayling.

     When we arrived a little after 10:30 AM there were grayling rising all over the stream, but we didn’t see any trout rising. The test is one of the few larger chalk streams where you may use waders, and after getting suited up I started fishing about 11 AM, using a small emerger pattern for grayling. In the next two hours I caught four or five up to about 12 inches. The beat is a half beat, meaning that you cannot wade past the middle of the stream (although you may cast into the other half of the stream if you do not disturb an angler from the opposite bank). About 1:15 PM we spotted a definite trout rise again and a dry fly drew no response. Dave switched me to a lead head dark hare’s ear with indicator and eventually I was able to put it on target and the fish took, it was a very nice 15-inch brown, which was photographed and released before we went ashore and had lunch at a table and chairs provided by the fishing hut.

     It was mostly a grayling afternoon with a couple at about 14 inches, but the best part of the day was still ahead. About 4:30 PM we saw a good-sized trout jump clear out of the water for a mayfly in the shade of the opposite bank. I suggested to Dave that we give him something to make it worth his while to come up again, Dave put on a #8 Grey Wulff. One cast to get the range and one cast on target, and he took. This fish fought harder than the first trout and turned out to be an 18-inch brown of about two pounds. Since we were pretty much at the end of the beat, we called it a day. Two very good trout from the Test on a 90 degree day was truly more than I expected.

     Why were the trout and grayling still active in such hot weather? At home I would never go trout fishing in such weather during midday. I think the answer is that the chalk streams depend on springs for their water. Their water levels change very little with rainfall and they clear quickly. Their spring water sources maintain a good level during a lack of rain and also provide cool water. We didn’t take the water temperature, but it felt like it was definitely in the 60’s. In any event, summer fishing while not as productive as spring fishing is still interesting on chalk streams and, by the way, we never saw another angler during the three days I fished.

     Although I didn’t catch as many trout as I did in the past two years in May, considering that the weather was the hottest on record, Dave did a great job of getting me into two or three trout each day, he is also a very pleasant companion. I especially enjoyed the Wylye for its charming surroundings and being able to fish dry flies all day. Dave informed me by e-mail last week that he is now an Orvis-endorsed guide by their invitation. He was very proud that he didn’t have to solicit them or pay them to achieve this status. My total cost for the three days was 650 pounds. This included some extra costs for beats, and is still very reasonable since gas is now up to about $7 a gallon over there and there was some significant fuel cost incurred.

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