River Avon at Salterton

Bjorn's invitation to fish as his guest on a private beat of the River Avon at Salterton, just upstream of the city of Salisbury, was gratefully accepted. When he sent through the literature about the beat, I noted that the rules only permitted the use of dry flies until July, in keeping with the tradition of many of the chalkstream beats. I knew that arousing the interest of trout in the cold beginnings of the season would be hit and miss because April is a mercurial month. The last two weeks have been especially cold, so I lowered my expectations for a hatch of any strength. With my flybox stocked with the usual April suspects of hawthorn, grannom and olives, I took a Friday off work, and set off for the chalk hills of Wiltshire at 6.45am.

The beat has an island where the Avon divides. A hut is sited on the island and we made it our base for the day. I watched the main river flow sedately past the western edge of the island, whilst a livelier carrier stream bordered the eastern shore. A spitting rain briefly fell from the leaden clouds as we scouted the nearby water, marking interesting water for later.

Footbridge at the downstream limit of the beat

We lingered on a footbridge at the very bottom of the beat, on the lookout for fly life and rising fish. The air was devoid of life at first but the sighting of a miniscule caddis, no larger than a third of a match head, caused a stir, and just after 11am a fish rose in the water ahead. Bjorn kindly offered the water to me. I tied on a #20 F fly and covered the water reasonably well (I thought) but the fish displayed no interest in my fly. Between a change of fly I saw the trout rise once more, revealing its substantial size, but that was the last time it showed and my fly went ignored through several more changes of pattern.

Where the livelier carrier joins the Avon

An hour later we began to spot a small number of olive upwing flies on the water. Bjorn caught two grayling from the true right bank with a parachute Adams. The fish came from a fast flowing run just below the island. I was on the opposite bank when I saw a fish rise in the carrier stream and I caught it with a parachute Adams, a grayling of 10 inches which I returned to the water in a flash as they are presently out of season.

Bjorn casts during the 'hatch'

The peak of the upwing 'hatch' (and I use that term loosely because it was sparse) occurred at 1pm when Bjorn and I were fishing the main river on the sunnier western edge of the island. We had just discussed how the olives were floating downriver unmolested - and how demoralising that fact was - when a fish rose and took one. That set in motion a brief spell when perhaps three or four fish in a 50m stretch of water half-heartedly snatched at an olive or two. I managed to hook one of them, a trout, but lost it after a few moments of excited commotion. Just as quickly as it had begun, the hatch ended and the intermittent rises ceased completely. In a game of very fine margins I had missed my best chance.

Bjorn generously supplied lunch - a roll filled with ham, cheese and tomato chutney and a bottle of cider kept chilled by the air - to which I contributed a pork pie. We didn't linger at the hut, knowing that the middle of the day offered the best moment to find a rising trout. We walked slowly up to the top of the beat, where the Avon is fairly wide and in places very deep, more reminiscent of a canal. There were some charming houses on the opposite bank, none more so than a redbrick mill house, but I couldn't help but think that being so near to the river their insurance premiums must be exorbitant. It started to rain again and the wind picked up, the cold piercing my coat. We spotted one or two fish on the bed of the slightly cloudy river, where they appeared to feed contentedly without any need to venture to the danger of the surface. 

Buildings insurance premiums must be considerable!

Near the top of the beat a fish rose unexpectedly against the reeds on the far bank, a splashy rise, where Bjorn had been drifting a D.D.D. only a few minutes before (the Duckworth's Dargle Delight is a famous South African deer hair fly pattern intended to represent a terrestrial, but I joked with Bjorn that it can also resemble a pellet!). In a last throw of the dice I tied on a Robjents Daddy but even this great catcher of chalkstream trout (according to legend) failed to bring the one-time riser up a second time.

Bjorn on a final pass of the better water at the bottom of the beat

Until 6pm in the evening Bjorn and I walked the better bottom half of the beat again, searching fruitlessly for rising trout, ever hopeful, casting speculatively without success. It was a tough day - not a day for the dry fly. We ran into the riverkeeper who provided some much needed perspective: "At least it's better than a day at work." And he was right about that even if at times in the day I had yearned for the freedom to use a nymph, debating internally the Victorian era arguments of Frederic Halford and George Skues and siding firmly with the latter! 

Evening light bathed the carrier whilst we readied to leave 

The keeper finished with a lesson for anyone of weaker resolve. The person who fished this beat the day before, when the weather had been even more dire, had reported catching 5 trout with a dry fly. Upon hearing this my initial thought was that he must be a master angler, but with a twinkle in his eye the keeper mentioned that a villager had witnessed said angler casting a streamer downstream. When confronted the angler confessed that a streamer had taken his haul and his membership was summarily revoked. It explained the gaudy streamer we had found attached to a riverside willow tree, a rather jarring sight on this hallowed dry fly water! The story made Bjorn and I feel a little better for abiding by the beat's rules and giving the dry fly a real crack.

In a month's time, when the temperature has warmed and the trees have fully taken leaf, the fishing will be magical, and I will appreciate it more after a day like today.