RH Fly Fishing

    Paul Roberts, who used to own Rovers Tackle in Fareham, ran another Sweepstake competition at Chiphall this year, in a very cold January. Quite what he gets out of it now he’s sold his tackle business is not clear, I expect he does it for purely benevolent reasons, perhaps philanthropy? Whatever the reason this was the first after a two year lay-off due to Covid. £50 for a four fish ticket, including a bacon butty and a hot drink (saving on the norm) plus £5 for the sweepstake. The winner is ’first past the post’ after which he pays out for ‘heaviest bag’ and ‘heaviest fish’, I think there was a fourth place prize too, not sure what, but you can only have one pay-out. The rules are straightforward: draw for starting order heading clockwise from in front of the lodge, one hundred yards apart save for those three permanent pegs, the angler must move upon catching a fish, and the first hour is strictly dry-fly only. Not much hope of catching on a dry in this weather, but it a...

    Invited Brian to be my guest for another crack at the River Itchen before the Association beats close at the end of this month, thereafter no more river fishing until the Trout season starts again in April. As last time, there was a leaden sky overhead, little wind, and it’s been cold for about ten days now, barely climbing past 5C. This was a new stretch to me, and foolishly I neglected to print off the most up to date beat map, so we didn’t know the proper access point and yomped around the water meadows for quite a while until we made it to the hut. Just as well we were properly fortified by an excellent ‘full English’ from Bean Below in nearby Twyford.   The Itchen is broad here and was running full flow but clear. There were deeper channels and shallower runs, a deep slack at the big bend; plenty to go at, but the low angle of light this time of year made it nigh impossible to spot fish unless they were moving.   We started at the bottom boundary to fish u...

    Currently isolating (no, I haven’t but there’s two in the household) leaves plenty of time on my hands, so in a more nerdy moment I thought I would provide a listing of the ‘adventures’ by fishery.   The readers of the Fly Fishing Forum’s Blogs section will not be familiar with the Prequels in the list, but readers of rhflyfishing.blogspot.com will have come across them before. To the FFF crew, I suggest you have a mosey at the other blog, which has additional material and is enhanced with photographs.   In one way the listing could be a reference work which might prove useful for someone who has not previously visited one or more of the named fisheries. In some of my blog posts I fell out of the habit of listing prior visit’s episodes, which is another reason for the list below, in alphabetical order: FISHERY                          ...

    Traditionally, at this time of year, we reflect on the one ‘ebbing’ away and look forward to the one ‘flooding’ in. Now that I am retired, I tend to concentrate my reflecting on family stuff, followed by fishing stuff. Looking back on the year inevitably brings aspirations for the one that follows. When it comes to fishing it’s nice to flick through my log and re-live some of it. After making the last log entry the final task is to calculate the stats: rod average (total number of fish divided by the number of sessions) and the average weight (total weight divided by the total number of fish).   Well, if it was good enough for F M Halford, some say the ‘daddy’, who am I to differ? I started keeping a fishing log many years ago when I was a coarse fisherman (yeah, okay) and in my competitive days the log became a very handy source of information on venues, etc.   After a lay-off (four children in the household, eventually becoming more manageable week-end wise...

    “The river still chattered on … a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the unsatiable sea.” – Kenneth Grahame   Nowadays the very-excellent Meon Springs operates on a ‘booking in advance’ basis, so if you want to follow in the footsteps of the famous Fluff Club, you know what you’ll have to do. Greg will do his utmost to accommodate you. This trout fishery featured in episodes 10, 27, 34, 40, 51, 59, and 63. Anglers weren’t the only visitors today: in addition to the usual couple of pairs of Dabchicks, some Mallards, Coots, Swans and Moorhens, were a couple of farmyard ducks, a loud mob of Greylag Geese, and a small flock of Tufted Duck; the wildfowl easily outnumbered the anglers.   Representing the Fluff Club today were the Professor, the Inspector, the Admiral, Lumberjack, and Whytee. There were at least twelve other fisherfolk, including two of the fairer sex, … Right on! (as we used...

   Being environmentally-concerned, we no longer do Christmas cards, [nor Christmas wrapping paper either] so we've used social media to wish everyone a very HAPPY CHRISTMAS !!! With sincere HOPES that 2022 will see mankind overcome this pandemic and all its evil variants. Love and Peace to all, <"}}}><

   After the Brown Trout season ends a few of the Association’s beats can still be fished for Grayling, until the end of January. By dint of using one of my guest tickets, Bri and I could spend a day chercher les dames! Upon our rendezvous we realised we had both fished here before, independently of each other and many years ago, by way of the gift of a day’s fishing bought from the Rod Box, once a major feature in fly fishing Hampshire. We recollected that back then the banks had been mown right to the edge, making the beat largely featureless. Nowadays, its nice to report, the Association’s keeper has very much ‘wilded’ the banks, carefully, so that there are some unfishable stretches and those that are fishable are from one bank or the other, not both. It’s certainly full of fish throughout , the majority being wild Brown Trout, some already plainly up to a-pound-and-a-half. There were still many of the stockers too, left from earlier in the season. During the day I walke...