River Itchen - Urban Fly Fishing For Brown Trout
7.4 هزار بار بازدید -
2 سال پیش
-
Episode 2Welcome back to the
Episode 2
Welcome back to the reel… and welcome to urban fly fishing.
What is urban fly fishing, or just urban fishing? Well to me it is fishing somewhere that the fishing rights aren’t monetised, in other words free, often located nearer towns or residential areas and as a result you’re more likely to bump into people and the surroundings aren’t always welcoming.
So a lot of people might think, why? Why would you want to fish somewhere that is sometimes busy with other people, kayakers and dogs or even people that like to jump in next to where you’re fishing, or in places that have litter and graffiti here and there? Well it came about for a couple of reasons for me.
1. Reasonably priced day ticket waters aren’t always within easy reach if you want to fish a short session, and particularly as I’ve gotten older, had kids, more responsibility etc. fishing time becomes a bit harder to come by and being able to steal an hour here or there means I can fish more often. I’m also lucky that my nearest local stretch of free, urban fishing is within a couple minutes walk of my house.
2. The second reason I was intrigued by urban fishing, particularly urban fly fishing, is the opportunity to target brown trout. Round my neck of the woods my local river waters for trout are all the classic chalk streams which also come with premium day ticket fees. When I started fly fishing I couldn’t afford to shell out in excess of £100 for a days river fishing, which to be fair is still the case most of the time, and it seemed daft to spend that kind of money when my casting was questionable, which to be fair it still is.
Most of my time spent urban fishing is from May to July, there is often a decent Mayfly hatch and a couple of times I’ve enjoyed a half hour of decent fishing on the Mayfly. So I can head out at a minutes notice, as these opportunities to fish are often spontaneous, I have a bag ready with what I need and a rod set up so I can just pick it up and head out. I don’t change flies very often, if there’s not a decent amount of Mayfly around I stick to something generic like an Adams or my current favourite which is an Elk hair caddis dry. I’ve also been fishing a New Zealand style duo where I’ll tie a nymph onto the bend of the dry flies hook. That accounted for a small sea trout recently.
This was a nice little out of season grayling that slammed my dry fly, I find grayling will come from nowhere, at speed, and hit your fly hard so it’s hard to avoid catching them in the close season. I crush the barbs on my hooks so I can get them out nice and quick and slip the fish back.
So if your looking for your best chance at a local, free fishing spot, Google is your friend. I’d start on Google maps and investigate what the nearest rivers are to you and you can normally figure out if there is public access. Next thing to do is search the rivers name and free fishing and any proper, free fishing spots are normally discussed on forums or even listed on council websites. If you can’t say for sure it might be worth giving your local council a call to see if they know, better to be on the right side of the law.
I had a decent evening session on the New Zealand rig, after my first few casts and dodging the nugget box which was later relocated to the bin, the Elk Hair Caddis dry took this first fish which I’m on the fence as to whether it’s a brownie or a sea trout. I soon lost a second. A bit later on I had another which handily unhooked itself when I got it to the bank. I noticed a decent fish rising on the edge of some weeds but no luck rising that one. And then typically I had a couple of casts before going home after putting the GoPro away and this spotty little brown took the nymph.
I’m going to admit I’ve not caught anything of a decent size fly fishing this urban river, I’ve seen and cast flies to nice trout but caught the better ones in the 1-2lb region on spinners and jigs early in the season. The dream is to catch a nice brown, a pound or more, on a dry from a free stretch but the bigger fish I’ve seen hang out in areas where there is little flow and don’t rise freely.
On my way back from trying to stalk that brownie I did some sight nymphing in my favourite spot between the bridges. A grayling grabbed my beaded hares ear.
I decided on a whim to head out one morning and try the nymph again and almost left the camera at home. I got to talking to a guy who was also a fisherman and he had spotted some decent fish hanging around by the bridge, biggest was a trout about a pound and a half. He kindly helped me spot the fish as I drifted the nymph at them and eventually I hooked into a better fish and my best from this stretch on the fly.
Well, there you have it, it’s not the idyllic picture you might have in your head when you think of fly fishing but it’s a way I’ve found to get out more and keep the itch at bay, like they say the tug is the drug, anyway tight lines, and I’ll see you in the next one.
Welcome back to the reel… and welcome to urban fly fishing.
What is urban fly fishing, or just urban fishing? Well to me it is fishing somewhere that the fishing rights aren’t monetised, in other words free, often located nearer towns or residential areas and as a result you’re more likely to bump into people and the surroundings aren’t always welcoming.
So a lot of people might think, why? Why would you want to fish somewhere that is sometimes busy with other people, kayakers and dogs or even people that like to jump in next to where you’re fishing, or in places that have litter and graffiti here and there? Well it came about for a couple of reasons for me.
1. Reasonably priced day ticket waters aren’t always within easy reach if you want to fish a short session, and particularly as I’ve gotten older, had kids, more responsibility etc. fishing time becomes a bit harder to come by and being able to steal an hour here or there means I can fish more often. I’m also lucky that my nearest local stretch of free, urban fishing is within a couple minutes walk of my house.
2. The second reason I was intrigued by urban fishing, particularly urban fly fishing, is the opportunity to target brown trout. Round my neck of the woods my local river waters for trout are all the classic chalk streams which also come with premium day ticket fees. When I started fly fishing I couldn’t afford to shell out in excess of £100 for a days river fishing, which to be fair is still the case most of the time, and it seemed daft to spend that kind of money when my casting was questionable, which to be fair it still is.
Most of my time spent urban fishing is from May to July, there is often a decent Mayfly hatch and a couple of times I’ve enjoyed a half hour of decent fishing on the Mayfly. So I can head out at a minutes notice, as these opportunities to fish are often spontaneous, I have a bag ready with what I need and a rod set up so I can just pick it up and head out. I don’t change flies very often, if there’s not a decent amount of Mayfly around I stick to something generic like an Adams or my current favourite which is an Elk hair caddis dry. I’ve also been fishing a New Zealand style duo where I’ll tie a nymph onto the bend of the dry flies hook. That accounted for a small sea trout recently.
This was a nice little out of season grayling that slammed my dry fly, I find grayling will come from nowhere, at speed, and hit your fly hard so it’s hard to avoid catching them in the close season. I crush the barbs on my hooks so I can get them out nice and quick and slip the fish back.
So if your looking for your best chance at a local, free fishing spot, Google is your friend. I’d start on Google maps and investigate what the nearest rivers are to you and you can normally figure out if there is public access. Next thing to do is search the rivers name and free fishing and any proper, free fishing spots are normally discussed on forums or even listed on council websites. If you can’t say for sure it might be worth giving your local council a call to see if they know, better to be on the right side of the law.
I had a decent evening session on the New Zealand rig, after my first few casts and dodging the nugget box which was later relocated to the bin, the Elk Hair Caddis dry took this first fish which I’m on the fence as to whether it’s a brownie or a sea trout. I soon lost a second. A bit later on I had another which handily unhooked itself when I got it to the bank. I noticed a decent fish rising on the edge of some weeds but no luck rising that one. And then typically I had a couple of casts before going home after putting the GoPro away and this spotty little brown took the nymph.
I’m going to admit I’ve not caught anything of a decent size fly fishing this urban river, I’ve seen and cast flies to nice trout but caught the better ones in the 1-2lb region on spinners and jigs early in the season. The dream is to catch a nice brown, a pound or more, on a dry from a free stretch but the bigger fish I’ve seen hang out in areas where there is little flow and don’t rise freely.
On my way back from trying to stalk that brownie I did some sight nymphing in my favourite spot between the bridges. A grayling grabbed my beaded hares ear.
I decided on a whim to head out one morning and try the nymph again and almost left the camera at home. I got to talking to a guy who was also a fisherman and he had spotted some decent fish hanging around by the bridge, biggest was a trout about a pound and a half. He kindly helped me spot the fish as I drifted the nymph at them and eventually I hooked into a better fish and my best from this stretch on the fly.
Well, there you have it, it’s not the idyllic picture you might have in your head when you think of fly fishing but it’s a way I’ve found to get out more and keep the itch at bay, like they say the tug is the drug, anyway tight lines, and I’ll see you in the next one.
2 سال پیش
در تاریخ 1401/03/25 منتشر شده
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