Wellington's Loddon

Arthur Wellesley, the 1st Duke of Wellington, returned to England a hero after defeating Napolean at Waterloo. In recognition of his service the state gifted him a large estate in north Hampshire. Wellington personally chose the site, apparently endeared by the River Loddon which flowed through the estate and surrounding woods. I have been unable to find any evidence that the Duke had an interest in angling, but I like to imagine that he may occasionally have chanced his arm at catching a trout from the river which flowed at the bottom of the lawn of his opulent stately home, Stratfield Saye. 

Today, with the 9th Duke in residence, the estate lets a number of rods each year on over four miles of extremely well-kept river. A credit to the team of river keepers that I found the banks to be some of the most fastidiously manicured that I have encountered, including those of the hallowed River Test. The lawns were clipped to perfection and one bank had vast amounts of casting space. Just as artificially, the fishery stocks rainbow trout and is strictly put-and-take, with each member and any guest to stop fishing after catching and killing a combined number of six trout.

Bjorn and I didn't know any of this when we made our booking and paid our money, but we accepted our lot and entered the spirit of going after the river's naive temporary guests. 

As to the killing part, I grappled internally with a conflict. On the one hand, Bjorn and I religiously adhere to the rules of every beat we visit. On the other hand, I have with very few exceptions practised catch and release for three decades. Releasing trout is now second nature. I prefer it morally, and then there is the fact that in spite of some effort my household has not taken to the taste of trout. I can't blame them - I dislike the taste too.

I most recently killed a trout a couple of years ago because I wanted to take it home so that my eldest son might begin to understand that the real source of food is not an aisle in a supermarket. I gathered the family rather ceremoniously the following day to braai the trout in tinfoil with lemon and tarragon but nobody wanted to eat it. The poor thing went to waste and it wasn't something that I really wanted to repeat. "Does your family like to eat trout?" I asked Bjorn. I could live with killing the trout if they were to be put to good use by somebody else. "Not the hatchery reared, dog pellet eating kind" came the reply from a man who also seemed to be dreading the idea of going home with a car boot stuffed full of unwanted trout.

That's not to rule out the taking of fish when the circumstances call for it. I have a particularly fond memory of eating a wild brown trout caught by my angling friend Nick Moody in 2015. It was caught on the sixth and penultimate day of an epic hike, having by then covered almost 70km of spectacular South Island terrain. Chunks of trout fried in a pot with nothing but salt and pepper in the dim, musty interior of a tramping hut proved a welcome change from the usual camp fare of tuna, noodles, and cheese-powder-flavoured pasta. The meal was simple yet divine; but at that point in time I would have eaten anything which didn't originate from a tin or packet.

I fished the Loddon in its upper reaches several years ago, where the river is recognised as a chalkstream and its waters flowed as clear as an empty pint glass over fine white gravels that crunched underfoot. The estate's Loddon has left the chalk and runs with some colour over a sandy bottom. The riverkeepers have dumped tons of gravel into the river to enhance its character and over these gravelbeds shoals of chub, some of them very large, weaved and shadowed others quite animatedly. I guess their spawning time is near. We tried for them, of course, but none were interested in a fly.

I had arrived earlier than Bjorn and had the advantage of sitting beside the river with a flask of coffee for half an hour, watching the water whilst poplar cotton floated to the ground like snow. The occasional mayfly lifted from the water but nothing else had stirred and it struck me that a nymph would be called for.  

I went with a #16 pheasant tail beadhead, a flashback version which I thought might be warranted in the murky water. Without any joy for a time I began to suspect that a heavier fly was needed. The fly was not bouncing off the bottom or snagging weeds, and the mysterious depths were obviously deeper than first believed. I switched to a #12 tungsten nymph which a silver hued brown trout took within seconds of its first drift. The fish was so light in colour that Bjorn initially thought it must be a grayling but there are no grayling in the Loddon.

With the fish in my net a decision needed to made. Bjorn waited expectantly, as a member of the crowd in the Colosseum waiting for a thumbs up or down. "F*ck it" I said, as I tipped the net into the water, allowing the trout a chance to revive and escape. The Rubicon had been crossed. I was now a fishing outlaw. "Might as well go the full hog and fish with streamers now" I joked. A streamer in a chalkstream? Steady on. There is a limit!

Post edit: a reader has suggested the silvery appearance, fully formed fins, portly shape and proportionally small head of the trout are very reminiscent of a sea trout. According to the Wild Trout Trust, the Loddon receives the occasional migratory sea trout (a sterling effort indeed to make their way up the Thames and into the Loddon). If it is a sea trout, that would be a remarkable catch, and a deserved release.

In the time that I have known him, some four years now, Bjorn has being undergoing a rapidly accelerating transformation to dry fly purist. He valiantly stalked the banks with a dry fly, putting his shoulder muscle to work but receiving the same attention from the fish that pre-flight safety demonstrations do from passengers. He persisted even after the head riverkeeper and his assistant introduced themselves and said that the trout were unlikely to take a dry fly after the glut of the mayfly hatch, which had ended only the week before. He persisted even after I caught two spirited rainbow trout with nymphs. He relented only in the afternoon when, using my rod, he caught himself a rainbow trout to put aside any notion of drawing a blank.

There had been a small moment of panic when the riverkeeper approached and we had mere seconds to get our story straight under our breaths. We made terrible conspirators. Should we claim a nil return or suggest the trout I had caught was presently cooking unseen in the heat of my car boot where nobody would surely be bothered to look? We went with a nil return. The riverkeeper nodded his head sympathetically, no doubt thinking us a pair of hopeless duffers.

The riverkeeper did matter-of-factly volunteer that our assigned beat was the least popular among members. This is to unwittingly tell the man who visits a Michelin starred restaurant that the celebrity head chef has taken the day off. The price, setting and service remain the same, and the sous chef is no doubt an able replacement, but there is the lingering doubt as to what might have been lost in the culinary journey. Now I wanted to know what lay upstream and why it was considered better!

Bjorn laughed in the face of nettles by sporting a pair of shorts.

We slowed down our efforts, leaving our remaining quota of two trout for an evening rise which never came. We did eventually find a lone trout rising against the far bank with something of an irregular consistency. I urged Bjorn to have a go so that he could reach his plane of purist nirvana, but he insisted that I should take the chance. A #16 Parachute Adams was gently offered and ignored and the water went quiet. I wondered a little forlornly if the fish had been spooked. I changed the fly to a #14 black Klinkhåmer, and in that pause, whilst I tightened the clinch knot, the trout rose once more. Relief. Yet still there was no response after several invitations with the new fly, which had landed as softly as goose down. Just as I began to think the game was up the trout snatched the fly in a rise so sudden and unexpected I jumped. Bjorn was ecstatic. He said his day had just been made - as had mine! I suspect he felt vindicated in the face of the riverkeeper's earlier dry fly doom mongering! 

We enjoyed a great day, in beautiful and tranquil surroundings, where the only sounds that intruded upon our conversations and thoughts were the shrill mewings of a pair of red kites and the occasional light aircraft. Catching a trout on a dry fly finished the day on a real high.

Would I return? Probably not. Put-and-take is not my cup of tea. Perhaps my published misdeed will precede me and the option will be removed. I could live with that. "Publish and be damned" as the great Duke himself once said. In the meantime, four very alive trout swim in the waters of the Loddon, enjoying their reprieve. It may only be a short reprieve but good luck to them! Vive la truite!