Sussex Diary: 18 April 2022

A diary of my visits to my club's section of river, somewhere in deepest, darkest Sussex.

My first visit to the river this year was on a warm Easter Monday. Having moved to a new house over the winter, I had to pinch myself when my satnav showed that the river and its trout were only a 12 mile drive away. I've written before about the scarcity of trout water in Sussex, and the novelty hasn't worn off even as I begin my second year with the club.

A young couple were swimming their dogs in the pool below the bridge. One of the dogs seemed to need training because they shouted at it incessantly. They were trespassing but I left them to it, walking upriver to the Stables beat and out of earshot. 

An alder fly seen in the river's margin

The field beside the river had recently been ploughed and was starkly bare. A grey partridge scrambled away from me over the rich soil, whilst a pheasant hen and cock seemed less concerned by my presence. The grass on the high bank was a verdant green, but noticeably devoid of wildflowers, brambles and nettles. The lack of riverside growth meant that I could see into the water easily from my vantage point, and I spied a large trout immediately. It was holding in three feet of water in a pool which I had not fished before. I scurried down the steep bank and slid into the water as quietly as I could, and then crawled towards the trout on my knees along the riverbed, wincing at the bow waves I sent upriver. I tied a small Hare's nymph beneath a Klinkhåmer, expecting the nymph to do the work, and that seemed right when at the end of a drift I hooked what looked to be a small perch from the riverbed. I saw a flash of orange and black just as the fish broke the surface and threw the hook. 

I sent the duo of flies into the water again and a large swirl of water showed upstream of the dry fly, as if a fish had gone for the dry fly but turned away at the last second. I snipped off the nymph, cast again and watched as a trout casually took the fly. I remembered to pause before striking and held my breath until the trout was enveloped by my net. It came as a relief to catch a first trout of the season from the club's water and I was happy it came so soon into the day. It was one of the trout stocked by the club last month.   

In the next pool I hooked and played a trout for a fleeting time before the nymph came free. I moved slowly around a bend in the river and viewed the final pool of the Stables beat, witnessing a trout rise against the right bank. I inched into range through a logjam of flotsam and scum and three casts later struck perfectly when one of the river's daintier wild trout took my fly. Unlike the stocked trout with their olive backs and uniformly black spots, the wild trout of this river are typically a gunmetal grey with black spots vying for prominence with red. I know which I prefer.

At the very top of the same pool where the water spills over a weir I caught another stockie with a nymph. I was on a roll. It struck me that I had never caught more than two trout on any single visit to this river before, so today was a record catch.

I climbed up the bank and passed into the Huts beat, at first thinking that I'd walk the rest of the beat and take in the changes brought about by winter. When I next stopped to peer into the water I spotted a trout lying beneath a young beech tree growing from the opposite bank. As I watched, it opened its mouth and consumed something. The opportunity was too enticing to pass up so I slid back down the bank and promptly caught the trout with a nymph. It was a third stockie, the most lethargic of the fish I had yet caught and it came to my net easily. In the net it was a different animal and it fled from my grasp just as I removed the hook from its lip.

A heron flew over the river and I wondered if it was the same bird I had seen on every visit last year. It probably was, and I pondered the success it must enjoy against these naïve hatchery reared fish. This was certainly the easiest I had found this river. My visits last year had all been in the summer and autumn when there were far fewer stocked trout in the water. To prove the point a trout rose upstream which I summarily caught with a Klinkhåmer.

I clambered out the water again and followed the river's sweeping bends along the bank top, revelling in the awakening Sussex countryside. The water was as clear as I have ever seen it and when I was watching a race of water beneath a weir I saw the tell tale flash of a nymphing trout. For the final time I shimmied down the bank and snuck into casting range, and then caught the trout with a #20 Pheasant tail nymph. Six trout in three hours!

The stocked trout this year won't win any beauty contests

The fishing almost felt a little too easy but I put that thought aside (especially given that just last week I failed to catch a trout from the Avon at all). It was a foreign feeling given my past experiences of this little river. As the number of stocked trout thins and those that remain become a little more worldly wise, the contest will become more even. The trout fishing season has now definitely arrived!