Avon Springs

Today Phil, Seaumas and I travelled into Wiltshire to Grayling fish on what I call the Hampshire Avon at a fishery called Avon Springs. There are a couple of lakes with a mile of the river running alongside. It is a lovely chalk stream although it was running a bit heavy and had a bit of colour in water.

We spread our selves out and I had the walk and started fishing on the weir. I started on a bead head and a french leader but with the wind blowing in my face and the water pushing through it was not long before I got naffed and a fly was in three. With that I changed to a floating line and a shorter leader. I often think that when the water is pushing through it disturbs some of the larger food items from the bottom so I put on my chunky peeping caddis as a treat for them. Fishing up stream, mending and letting it trot down stream looked great and after only a few minutes I increased my depth and I was straight into Grayling. Only a little one but a great start.

I took another few Grayling of about 10ozs as I kept fishing and walking and casting across the the far bank with a few overhanging trees. As I turned the bend the river it widened a little and I saw a fish rose, I cast over the back of it and trotted down and it took straight away. It nearly jolted the rod out of my arm as it went upstream. It was a short spurt but then wallowed around for a while and I was relieved at a 2lb plus brownie, great colours and full tailed - brilliant! It had been a lovely morning so I turned my attention to a bit of kick sampling and some lunch and let Phil take over in the swim. He didn't dissapoint andhad a good number of fish on the peeping caddis too. I did another spell in the afternoon and had a few more grayling all around about 8/10ozs which were great sport on my 4 weight. Another really enjoyable day.