Don't go into the water

This is not going to be about pollution. That subject makes me mad, and I don’t want to get angry in front of friends,

When I was young and starting out with fly fishing, all I had available to me was a few reservoirs and lakes. I longed to fish rivers, but that was for the rich and geographically advantaged, Suffolk isn’t exactly awash with trout streams. The most notable exception to this rule is the River Lark, which ran past the trout fishery I used to fish regularly in my teens. It is because of all this Stillwater fishing is that I never had need of a pair of waders, and so they attained a sort of mythical status in my mind.

My first proper trout river was the Wharfe, which runs over limestone and between Grassington and Bolton Abbey is quite something to behold. I used to fish the Burnsall club water on a day ticket, back when that was still possible, and occasionally would book a beat on the Bolton abbey stretch, but it is many years since I have had the time to re visit that old friend.

River fishing is difficult, according to my father, so it took a while before I managed to persuade him that I should be able to take a days fishing during the annual family holiday to the Dales. My parents were both teachers, my dad had a degree in geology, my mother was a geography teacher, so the Yorkshire Dales had a big attraction for both of them. In truth, our family holidays were really used to plan the following years school journeys and geography classes, but nobody was any the worse for it, and it definitely beat the flat Suffolk countryside.

On this particular trip, my parents had rented Grassington Mill cottage, it had private fishing , about 35 yards of it, which you had to fish from the top of a 12 ft wall or wade and I had no waders. I remember looking down on the water for the first time and counting the trout and grayling, there were dozens of them, or at least that is how I remember it. At night I could close my eyes in bed and see the gravel with the fish hanging in the current, but they were impossible to cover in both my dreams and reality. In an effort to solve the wader problem, I stuffed my feet into two dustbin bags and tied them up with string, but these barely made it over my knees and proved to be thoroughly ineffective. Im sure the great and good of Yorkshire’s rich fly fishing heritage would have all had a thing or two to say about the spectacle, but I was ultimately forced to retreat with wet socks for which I received a thick ear from mum.

Eventually dad took me for an evening on the Bolton Abbey water, and just below Water’s Meet, I caught my first river trout, first brown trout and first trout on dry fly. All from the bank, with my feet bone dry. The fly was one of my creations which loosely resembled a March Brown, dressed bit like a green drake, but using pheasant tail for the body and English partridge for the wings. It worked like charm and caught three in that pool, I then picked up a fourth on a Tupp’s Indispensable, just below the bridge. That was one of those evenings you never forget.

After that I became more or less a river fisherman who fished lakes when he had to, which was still most of the time, but whenever I could head north I would. I still didn’t own any waders though.

Shortly before I moved to Devon, which would be about 19 years ago, I finally decided that waders were necessary, I had grown tired of ‘wet wading’ and finally had a little money floating about spare, so off I popped to Orvis and got set of breathable waders and their ‘Brogues’. I still use the brogues and although they are on their third set of soles, I don’t see them giving up the ghost just yet, but every now and then I do threaten to replace them. Anyway, once I was installed in Devon, with rivers everywhere and trout in pretty much all of them, I set about my fishing with a renewed enthusiasm.

I blanked, and I blanked a lot. The lower Dart is nothing like the Wharfe, the upper Dart like nothing I had ever encountered anywhere and I was struggling to find fish, cover them and hook them. There is surprisingly little written about catching trout in these upland streams, I suppose it lacks the romance of the chalk streams and limestone rivers, but it is very difficult to get ahead of the game without some sort of guidance.

I learned one transferrable thing fishing the Wharfe from a gentleman who introduced himself as James Hartley, who had watched me struggle up a pool on a hot day, he simply said fish the broken water. The trout feel exposed and need oxygen, so they will be taking cover in well oxygenated water which obscures their outlines. I caught five fish that afternoon and that advice has always done me well ever since.

The other bit of advice was given to me by Ian McGreggor, former fishery manager at Larkwood, where I spent much of my youth. I had put my frustration to him regarding the challenges of Dartmoor and his words were as follows. “Stay out of the bloody water!”. Ian grew up fishing the Scottish spate streams, and so he knows a bit about wild upland trout and the best ways of catching them.

Wading is, at times, absolutely necessary. Most of the River Harbourne for instance, which I fish regularly because its a ten minute drive and free, requires wading if you hope to cast a fly. It is so overgrown, that unless you are in the water and most often on your knees, covering any fish would be impossible. The rewards are great, but it is very easy to spoil a pool before you have even begun, one false step and you might as well move to the next spot. On the moorland rivers however, staying out of the water is to be encouraged wherever possible. The trouble with the wild brown trout is that it is a very flighty creature, evolved to survive in some very tough conditions, it is both brilliantly camouflaged and extremely shy of predators. The upshot of all this being that a great big boot appearing the water tends to send the little ones charging about a pool and that puts the bigger fish down, effectively ruining the whole thing. In most cases you won’t know there is a fish until it has shot away from you in a panic, and they lie in some very unlikely spots. Its almost worth spending a day just splashing about and learning that they are never quite where you would expect.
Ian’s advice was simple enough though, unless you have to get into the water, don’t. Most of the water can be covered perfectly well from the bank, keeping low and back from the edge are the oder of the day and regularly I will lay as much line on the bank as in the water. It really works, and for anybody who wants to visit the moors for a spot of fishing this is the most useful bit of advice I can give. You will still need waders, some spots simply have to be waded, but on the whole you will do far better if you don’t go in the water.