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I have never particularly enjoyed
traveling long distances to go fishing. Having grown up in the Lake District coarse fishing opportunities were thin on the ground to say the least, although I am happy to report that this is changing. This meant that at the time the options for the budding coarse angler were to plan trips a long time in advance, prepare thoroughly, pack a mountain of gear, get up at the crack of dawn and drive for what seemed like an age; or make the best of the fishing you could find locally.
I basically learned to drive on the way from my south Cumbria home to winter league matches on rivers such as the Eden, Ribble, Ure and Swale. I learned a lot from taking part in these competitions; grayling will feed even when the air is cold enough to freeze your breath to your balaclava; what a Barbel looked like in the flesh; that it is virtually impossible to win a winter league match with a hole in your keepnet and that roving matches tend to favour those individuals with the best knowledge of the venue. Most of all, however, I learned that a great deal of pleasure can be gained from catching the most fish, or the largest fish, from waters close to home. This latest lesson has lived with me ever since and I rarely travel far from home to fish these days. To my mind, there is no greater merit in catching a British record Barbel from the Great Ouse, than there is in catching a river record Barbel from your local venue – driving a long distance does not add to ones angling skill, and you can only catch the fish that are in front of you.
When my studies and career brought me to the south I was extremely fortunate to have high quality fishing literally on the doorstep. My first port of call was the Institute of Freshwater Ecology’s River Laboratory (now the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology) on the banks of the Dorset Frome. Living on site meant that I had the East Stoke Millstream within 20m of the back door and the main River Frome only a short stroll away. Sea marks such as Kimmeridge and Lulworth Cove were also only a short drive away. During my time at the River Lab. large pike (to 27:12), grayling (2.15.08), trout (4+), dace (14 oz), roach (2.09) and eels (to 3lb) graced my landing net and I was also lucky to be shown how to catch bass and mullet by an angling legend, Dr Mike Ladle.
As you can imagine, leaving the River Lab was a wrench, both professionally and personally, and I will always have fond memories of the place and the people. I never imagined I would ever find somewhere to live with such good fishing so close at hand – how wrong can you be. My next residence was in fact even closer to a river than the cottage at the River Lab!. This time the property overlooked the Bickerley Millstream, a tributary of the Hampshire Avon – so close in fact that I could have trotted a float out of the window with a bolognese style rod. I knew straight away that I would be in my element when on the day of moving in I took a break from unpacking boxes and photographed an angler with several 2lb + roach caught from what was effectively the end of my new garden – heaven. As with all millstreams the main river is never far away, and a short walk lead me to the famous Severals fishery on the Hampshire Avon. Here I was lucky enough to catch loads of chub and Barbel of a very high average size, and on another stretch caught a Barbel that was within one once of the Avon record (14:11).
In the next installment I’ll tell you how my next move, to the Waterside area, initially felt like a backwards step on the fishing front, but ultimately resulted in me catching a number of new personal bests all within a few minutes of home.
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