March on Avon Springs

 

 The balmy, bright spring morning was punctuated by barrages of rifle fire somewhere nearby on Salisbury Plain, probably extra training in response to what’s going on in eastern Europe. Heavy ordnance chipped in from time to time, while various helicopters put in the odd appearance passing overhead, some pretty sinister looking. Bri and I chose Avon Springs because we haven’t fished it together for what must be ten years, and I was last here in 2015. It’s too good a fishery for that, and still reasonable VFM at 4 for £50. Why should Wiltshire generally be cheaper than Hampshire? The young Avon alongside is run by Fishing Breaks now, so we had Club ‘Lake’, 5 acres, and Spring ‘Lake’, 2.5 acres, at our disposal.

 We both set up intermediate outfits, received wisdom suggesting it’s still time for lures until the spring advances a bit more. Last day of the coarse fishing season, BTW. Not wishing to incur any bad luck by going widdershins, we set off down the left hand bank of Club. There were some fish moving and the odd rise out in the centre, occasionally getting closer to us, but all we managed in the first hour was one take: B caught a jack Pike on one of my ‘Pink Panthers’.

We kept leapfrogging swims, towards the far end. Two old boys came up, finished for the day, and suggested black and green was the way to go. This was contrary to the catch returns for the previous day when BFDs, Emergers, and PTNs had done the biz .Go figure. When we got to the end, I carried on to prospect all around Spring, while B fished its first bay. I spotted one trout, moving slowly out of my sight, then espied a small shoal of little Perch, one of which nipped at the tail of my fly, but was too small to engulf it. Circuit completed I returned to find B fishing the end of Club again, a beatific look upon his face. “Got one?” I enquired, “Yeah” quoth he “I think it might be a PB!”: an absolutely belter of a Brown Trout safely nestled in his bass bag. We toasted it, as is our wont. He had also had two savage takes which he didn’t hook, fishing a ‘Kicking Kennick Killer’; [the Kicking bit comes from the added rubber legs].

 At that, I changed my fly, tying on a green/black ‘Wild Thing’. We fished that end, casting into the slight wind, no more than twenty feet apart, which allowed us to cover most of the water in front as the ‘lake’ is narrower here. B caught a second fish, a Rainbow, whilst casually seated on a bench.

I took some pictures of him playing the fish in such a relaxed way, then cast out the WT, slow retrieve and Wallop! I was into one at last! The fish really do fight here, I had forgotten just how hard. Time for lunch.

 We ate in the warm sunshine, at the oversize picnic table, watching the river flow by. The world was still a good place, this fishery one of the better parts. Another chap had jumped into our spot with alacrity when we walked up, and we noticed he had a couple of fish while we lunched and talked. The fish were definitely following the wind today.

 When we headed back towards the far end, the chap vacated the spot, heading up the right-hand bank towards the stew ponds behind the hedge. The KKK produced another scrapper for Bri, and the WT conjured my second. Next, B had a few casts at the top of Spring, but re-joined me before too long. I gave him a WT, the same as the one I used, while I changed to a fly I’ve never used previously, which is a smaller, skinnier WT derivative with a 2.5mm bright green tungsten bead-head. I was a tad unsure about this pattern, but it produced another ultra-feisty fish first throw. Was that a fluke? B hooked into his fourth fish, grinning with satisfaction, once again the fish did all it could to avoid him, but futilely. No, it wasn’t a fluke, the WT deviant was snaffled again, and we were bagged up. Nice.

 We packed the gear away at the cars, and went into the weigh room to fill out the returns. The staffer on duty made us some coffee, and wanted a picture of B with the Brown. Well, seeing as you are interested, I’ll tell you: the Brown Trout went eight pounds!, while I had the best Rainbow at four-four.

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit, the two guys in charge had made us very welcome, with plenty of interesting chat, and we both set off for the drive home more than satisfied. B and his trout will appear on the internet on the fishery's Facebook page at some point soon, possibly in their gallery, if there is one.

Putting some back!