Breaking the rules, English Chalkstream fishing, thank you FishUSA

Hi Gents,

I'll apologize in advance for the shortage of pictures. I was there to catch fish, not take pictures. And when I have a fish caught, I don't keep them out of the water long enough for well composed, nice pics. Quick snap and back in. If you want to see pics of the place, you can see their website.

I'm lucky enough to have a local Chalkstream. It isn't a world reknown water like the Test, Itchen, or the various streams in the Dales, but it has a lot of very clean, clear water and plenty of fish, both wild and stocked.

3' below the surface with 2' of water under him:



It isn't cheap fishing at £60 for a day ticket and £30 for an evening, but the place is well kept and it is MUCH cheaper than a lot of places of similar quality.

In terms of fish, there are plenty of trout with some wild fish and a bunch of 'stocked'. I use that term loosely because they are born and raised in the hatchery downstream and moved upstream as needed. They are captive bred, but wild raised and they fish every bit as tough as any wild trout (and harder than most wild trout) anywhere. More than a few are couple year holdovers (almost 100% C&R). They also have plenty of natural predators to contend with:



Last time I got an evening ticket, it was about this time in June. You get about 6 hours of fishing light (until about 10:30 or so) on an evening ticket, so plenty of opportunity in prime time. All day Sunday was really windy so I decided to pack heavy- 5 and 7 wt rods. I know that sounds heavy and normally would be. I usually fish a 10' 3 wt and a 4/5 wt backup on trout here in the UK. But I had a plan for the night and heavier rods were called for.

I arrived on stream to find that the wind died 100%. None. Not a breeze. The water was like glass in the pools. There were a few bugs and sporadic, random rises. Nothing consistent, and there never really was for the night. I started on a dry (#16 light olive) and caught one quickly, but the smooth water, lack of hatch, and bunches of nymphs drifting through (and fish feeding on them) meant dries were not the order of the day. I wasn't in the mood to fish nymphs since I didn't have my light nymph rod (and the brush made a shorter 8'6" rod tough) so it was time to get dirty.

Rewind 2 years. Last time I fished an evening tickete was miserable. Similar amount of hatch, but it was drizzly to pouring all night. the trout weren't interested so around 8 PM I started fishing for toothy critters with big streamers. I lost one big one (40"+), but more interestingly I caught 12 trout and 6 greyling, almost entirely on big streamers. They were hungry for meat.

Now you see why I planned for the 7 wt.

About 2 weeks ago I came across the slumpbuster tutorial and I knew it would be a winner there.

http://forums.fishusa.com/SlumpBuster/m_288722/tm.htm

I didn't have any guinnea or crosscut rabbit, so instead I made a fur collar with a dubbing loop. I tied up three- black with natural collar, olive barred with a black collar, and white with a red throat and white collar. Cone color to match (gold, black, and silver respectively). They were tied on #6 partridge spey fly hooks. Sorry, no pictures and I don't have any of them left. Thanks Steely34 for the inspiration.

Since the wind died, I stuck to the 5, but swapped to a polyleader and 2' of 2X (8 lb) and a cone head bunny leech. Almost immediately I had fish coming in on it. It took all of 4 casts and I had this guy:



He inhaled the fly to the back of his tongue, but didn't bite me off. He measured around 28" and would have pushed about 5-6 lb. I found his friend later, but was promptly bitten off. No big pike seen, but these guys were fun.

I proceeded to fish the rest of the pools with some bunny strip concoctions, sometimes with a small muddler or bugger dropper. I connected on a dozen and a half fish, but landed 8. As a note for future reference, long bunny leeches grab a lot of attention, but if you don't have a hook point in the last inch of the fly, you'll get a lot of short strikes. Next time I'll make the tails a little longer and use an extended hook in the tail on a wire or string.

All of the trout were over 15", and these two were the bigger ones at 19-20" and about 2.5-3lb.





It was a fun night and I'd do it again. I just need to tie some more slumpbusters...

Thanks,
Rick

What?   No, upstream only with a dry fly to visibily rising fish or known lies?  Are you trying to get thrown out of the country?
 
Great story and great photos Rick!
 
Now post the photos of a driven grouse and pheasant shoot.

Great post...thanks for sharin it with us.