“All good things must come to an end”, or so the old adage says and I have to say that for the most part I tend to agree. It’s not a fact that I begrudge though, after all, without the occasional negative experience would the positive ones ever be as pleasant? If all we had was the good things surely their value would become diminished and us spoiled. Perhaps these are questions for one more learned in the intricacies of philosophy than I, but I digress. In this instance that “good thing” that has come to an end is the extended run of glorious weather we have been enjoying for what feels like months. Ordinarily this inclement weather would not bother me. The parched land is desperate for rain and our aquifers are running low which can only spell trouble for our water supply later in the year if not replenished. What bothers me now is that this change in conditions has coincided with the start of a short holiday to the West Country for my family and I.
The promise of exploring rock pools at low tide and paddling in the cold Atlantic have been cruelly snatched away by gale force winds and lashings of horizontal rain sweeping in from the west. We find ourselves instead at a soft play melee, surrounded by hoards of screaming, sweaty children, waste deep in a giant ball bit. This is not the Cornish adventure we had envisaged and to top it all off, this weather, more akin to a Patagonian winter, is really hindering the evenings of fishing I had been quietly plotting.
With the exception of one Cornish still water several years ago, I had never fished the West Country, though I have long admired from afar the countless streams and rivers that criss cross this beautiful landscape. From the wide gravel strewn beds of the river Torridge to the tannin rich waters of the moors, I can’t help but feel the urge to cast a line whenever I’ve driven slowly by, often focusing more on the pristine waters than the more important road ahead. On this trip I had finally made up my mind to come prepared and carve out some time to don my waders and go exploring. With the relevant permissions acquired (not from any angling body but from my long suffering partner) I was full of excitement, as I always am when the prospect of fishing new water is close at hand.
Alas, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry” and as I woke on our first morning it was to the sound of a tempest raging outside. A relentless rain pounded heavily at the window, propelled by a howling wind, blurring the usually picturesque views of distant, rolling pastures. Holding my phone up in the only corner of the remote cottage that had reception, I waited patiently for the weather app to load. It was a disheartening read with no sign of a break predicted. I wasn’t going to let this dampen my spirits though, this was a family holiday after all and my fishing endeavours were of less importance than the time we had together. Besides, as any good Englishman knows, our weather is often fickle and difficult to predict, even meteorologists occasionally get it wrong. So with renewed optimism we set off in search of whatever sheltered activities we could find to occupy us while we waited out the storm.
In the preceding weeks I had been trolling the internet, looking at likely stretches of water that weren’t too far away from where we would be staying. With a plethora of amazing destinations it was a difficult choice to make especially as given the nature of the road networks in Devon and Cornwall, nothing ever seems to be a short drive away. It was during my research that I discovered the solution to my problems of indecision, the Fish Pass app.
Fish Pass made the whole process much easier and despite my ineptness when it comes to anything digital, I found it very easy to use. With maps and descriptions of almost forty beats in the west it helped me narrow down my search quickly and I soon found a beautiful stretch of water on the river Ottery in Canworthy Water, not ten minutes away from where we were staying. It was en route to our day of indoor adventures that I got my first brief glimpse of this wild little river and in the fleeting moments it passed through my periphery I was relieved to see that despite the still pouring rain, the water looked clean and the levels still good. Whatever the day held I decided I would brave the elements and venture down to the steep woody banks later on.
From the windowless depths of the soft play warehouse there was no telling what was happening outside and I was confident that there was no storm loud enough to be heard above the cacophony of a thousand hyper children screaming at the top of their lungs. As I chased my wobbly toddler around obstacle courses and down slides, I had visions of walking out the door to glorious sunshine beating down through parted clouds but this was far from the reality we were greeted with when we emerged from the catacombs of chaos. Still the rain poured and the wind blew, but unwilling to give up hope and emboldened at having survived the mobs of feral children, I packed my kit and headed down to the now slightly swollen river, leaving my exhausted daughter and her equally exhausted mother to get cozy in the cottage.
I parked the car in a muddy lay-by and wasted no time with my final preparations. Throwing my waders on before my clothes beneath could get too damp and piecing my rod together I set off down an overgrown footpath. Sodden foliage hung heavily over, crowding the slippery track and quickly soaking my waders. Cows sheltered in vain in the lee of a hedge, chewing their cud and looking thoroughly fed up while swallows whirled low over the field struggling to maintain stability. Keeping the pace while being buffeted by strong gusts, I was soon at the head of the beat and after scanning the QR code tucked away at the base of an ash tree, I was ready to fish.
The first pool I came to to was in a sorry state. A raft of flotsam and jetsam swirled on the surface of the quickly rising water. It was already plainly evident that today would not be a day for fishing dry flies so after a quick rummage through the fly box I tied on a bead head pheasant tail nymph. Forging my way onwards through waist high foliage I came to the next pool which, to my relief, was all but free of floating detritus. With heavy cold drops falling from the branches above and finding their way down the back of my neck, I cast the heavy little nymph into the coloured water, its tiny splash masked by the thousands of drops of water splashing around it. As it trotted quickly through the deep pool I retrieved the line carefully trying not to lose its position in the rippling water.
A knock on the line and a flash of colour from below the surface caught me by surprise and I lifted the rod tip sharply in panic. I hadn’t held out much hope in any fish showing interest today, much less on my first cast and in my shocked haste I had missed the subtle take. I couldn’t hear my own lamentations over the wind and rain but hopeful that I hadn’t spooked the fish with my clumsiness I recast and focused, ready for what I hoped was a second chance. With cold wet fingers I gently inched the the line through the dripping eyes on the rod and had almost come to the end of the drift when there it was again. I was not going to make the same mistake again and lifted the rod tip firmly, holding the line tight. Barely detectable head shakes vibrating up the line told me the fish was on. I would love now to write about a hard and frantic fight as I struggled to reign in a wild brown trout of epic proportions, determined to free itself from the end of my line. Unfortunately there is no amount of embellishment that could change the size of this brave little fish. At about the same length as my middle finger and with a weight measurable only in grams rather than pounds or ounces, the fish was in the net in the blink of the eye.
It may not have been a trophy by any means but what it lacked in size it more than made up for in its delicate beauty. Big eyes, almost too big for its skinny body, stared back at me from net, the fly had freed itself so there was no need for me to handle its tiny frame. It needed no time for recovery after the brief scrap so I took one or two pictures and directed it carefully out of the net, watching happily as he swam off quickly to do some lonely reconciliation in the safety of the deep pool. I find it encouraging when I catch small fish like this. To me it is a sign that there are still rivers and streams that are doing well and healthy enough to support the reproduction of these fragile salmonids. With so much controversy surrounding the mismanagement of our water ways perhaps these little gems are trophies in their own right, a sign that nature can prevail despite man’s often best efforts at disruption.
With my weather beaten morale now improved somewhat I decided to head further along river, stopping to throw a cast wherever I could along the leafy banks. A cuckoo’s call could be heard above the swaying of the trees and tapping of the rain, blown across a wind swept field from the shelter of a thick hedge. He’s left his departure South late and I suspect he is now regretting his decision. Wishing instead to be bathing in the warm light of the sun in some far off equatorial forest in Africa. Traipsing on eyes down, as I picked my way through the thick growth, I took note of the usually vibrant petals of the ranunculus, germander speedwell and red campions that splashed the verdant green banks with colour. Even they seemed dulled by the adverse weather, unlike the hawthorns dotted along the banks, with their clouds of snow white blossoms hanging over the murky water, littering the surface with petals with the relentless gusts.
As I rounded a sharp bend, knee deep in the fast flowing water, I stumbled on the slippery gravel below the surface losing my footing. Cold water spilled over the top of my waders making me gasp loudly before I scrambled to my feet again. Filling my waders could see me in some serious trouble out here on my own so, torn between my personal safety and my desire to catch one more fish I decided that one last cast would suffice before I called it a day. Uncomfortable now in my wet clothes I cast the nymph into the dark water once more, mending the line as it washed down in front of me. As it neared the end of the pool I twitched the line sharply and watched the rod tip bend and rattle as a fish engulfed it.
Compared to the first trout this was a behemoth. At well under a pound it was a fitting end to this uncomfortable foray along the banks of the river Ottery. It isn’t often that I’m eager to get back to the car and head back to reality after spending time on the river but I moved quickly today, not wasting any time. Those two tiny fish had saved me from blanking on a day of far from favorable conditions. As I drove down the narrow, winding Cornish lanes excited for a warm bath and a cozy evening with my girls I was reminded of something I’d heard said before, probably on a similarly damp and dreary day and that is… “if you don’t go you won’t know.” This little gem of wisdom rings true today. Given the miserable weather it would have been an easy decision to hunker down in the warm and dry cottage, watching the storm unfold through rain splattered windows. Had I done that I would never have walked those wild banks or caught those wild fish and while they will never go down in the river Ottery record books they will always be fondly remembered in my own.
Two days later and after a scenic drive over the rugged heights of Dartmoor, I find myself waist deep in the cool water of the river Torridge where it meanders it’s way around the town of Torrington in North Devon. The weather is in stark contrast to the previous days and I count my blessings as I scan the wide river under a cerulean sky, patiently waiting for some sign of feeding fish. I found this beat at Rothern Bridge thanks, once again, to the fish pass app. It is vastly different to the rivers I am most accustomed to fishing in Sussex. The low banks separated by a broad water flowing quickly over gravel and small boulders, reminds me more of my first fresh water excursion down the Flathead River in Montana, than it does the rivers of home.
I see several small fish rising under irratic clouds of gnats but after running through my arsenal of flies I have no luck in tempting them. Wading clumsily through the fast water I spook a handful of fish. Being unaccustomed to rivers of this nature I’m looking in the wrong places and trip and stumble across the stony bottom, right into the shallow riffles they are residing in. With time running out and my frustration building I decide to take a minute on the shady bank to reassess my plan of attack. Above me, in the leafy heights of an ivy covered oak tree, an irate male black bird chases a hungry jay through the branches. The blue winged jay has clearly got too close to the songbird’s nest and from the raucous noise it’s clear that neither bird is happy with the situation. As the brave little black bird chases the sharp eyed invader down river I decide to abandon my efforts with the dry flies and turn instead to something with which I can probe the deeper pockets of shaded water.
A hot head flash damsel always seems a bit like cheating to me. They appear to be irresistible to trout wether you strip them in quickly like a fleeing bait fish or twitch them gently like the larval form of damsel flies they are meant to imitate. For the fly fishing purist it could be argued that they take much of the challenge out of fly fishing but with my time and options quickly running out I can’t afford to let this bother me and I tie one on before wading back across the river to the edge of a pool, shielded from the sun by overhanging branches. The fast water against the bank has carved out an overhang among a tangle of roots and fallen branches and I decide that if I can tempt a trout from anywhere it will be here. The brightly coloured tungsten headed fly lands with small splash in the head of the pool quickly disappearing out of sight. As it is carried down river I twitch it periodically before slowly retrieving it back up the through the slower water. Crossing a line of foam and bubbles I feel a pull on the line, but I’m too slow with the set and miss the fish. Quickly stripping the last of the line in, I recast and repeat the process exactly as before, hoping the fish hasn’t wised up to this fluorescent headed snack.
A few short, sharp retrieves through the line of foam is all it takes to regain the hungry trout’s attention and with a firm hook set the fish is on! The lively fish fights well in strong current, it’s wild shaking causing the rod tip quiver and from deep in clouded water, flashes of its pale belly betray its position. Unclipping my net from my pack I guide the fish in and can breath again when I scoop it up. With plenty of fight left, it splashes around in the net, throwing the barbless hook now the tension had gone from the line. A fat belly tells me it has been feeding well, perhaps that is why all my earlier attempts had proven fruitless. With stomachs full these fish could afford to be more picky with their meals.
As I watch the trout swim off quickly back through the shallow water I take stock of this west country adventure. While it didn’t go as I had planned, as they often don’t when best laid, I cannot be despondent. Despite the British weather’s best efforts to thwart my quest I have managed to cast a line in new water and come away with memories of wild fish that I won’t forget. The fleeting sparks of success that I’ve had are enough to light the fire and make me want to come back in search of bigger and better adventures out here in the west country and getting one last look of the river Torridge from high up on the Rothern bridge, I am content, but for now and until next time, this adventure has ended.
The Wayward Sun Blog 