Re: Trout In The Staines Colne
Mick, there are certainly whispers of trout in the Colne, but even if it takes you a few seasons to start running into them, you'll probably have a lot of fun with the chub and dace in the meantime.
The Colne was known as a trout river in the past... in fact it inspired Bernard Venables' account of suburban trout fishing in 1949 (hat tip to the Wild Trout Trust website where I found this piece quite a few years ago, extracted from BV's "Fisherman's Testament")
-------------
Suburban Trout - by Bernard Venables
I suppose no fish more than the trout conjures in the mind of the fisherman thoughts of remoteness and peace. It is as much as any, a fish of quiet places. The scenes it recalls are placid, or if not, boisterous only with nature’s pleasant racket. A keystone of our creed is that this is a large part of our joy in trout fishing. But put to the test, the city-tied fisherman finds that he may make some sacrifice of this purely pastoral pleasure and still find happiness in his fishing. Not perhaps the utter forgetfulness that he would otherwise expect, but still something vastly better than having no fishing at all.
If, as is now the case with so many of us, we must spend the greater part of our lives in town, we must take this lesser diluted pleasure, and be thankful for it. To one tied to his work through the best of the fly-fishing season, a day of this sort can be an inestimable boon. There is even a fascination in the mere idea of catching a trout, as it were, on London’s doorstep. It has something of the same shock of pleased surprise that comes when, walking in a dreary district of London there suddenly appears a Georgian house, well kept and with a pleasant garden.
London is less well situated than many big towns for making its own trout fishing. Its urbanising mantle is thrown so far. Places that until a few years ago were small villages, rural and remote-seeming, now have their multiple stores, their super-cinemas and their rows of little pink houses. No longer remote, they are part of Greater London. Dusty by-roads have become shining main roads; chromium shop fronts have replaced the horse chestnuts. It seems impossible that the trout could survive this onrush of the town, and certainly from many waters it has disappeared. But in a few places it remains, kept from extinction by the constant care and effort of angling clubs and syndicates.
Only fourteen miles from the centre of London there is such a stream. You must go as many miles again really to be out of London. Yet there is this little river winding through fields which if not exactly rural are at least green. It is in one of those districts where the country is still fighting its losing fight with the town. At the lower end of the water, where it is crossed by a great arterial road, it is obvious that London’s ascendancy is growing; but going upstream its grip lessens until at the upper end of the water it is almost completely rural. But there is no point throughout the length of the fishery where the main road is out of earshot. Nor is this the only intrusive noise. The country here is filled with gravel pits - several right beside the water. In these, gargantuan machines with huge groans and crashes, scoop the gravel from the pit beds. Then along the further bank of one pit is a long, unlovely erection of sheds where gravel is used in the making of concrete objects.
But between all these discordant things are stretches of farm land, and in the meadows you can still hear the cry of the peewit, as yet unquenched by the mechanical sounds. Indeed, once away from the main road there is much wildlife still to be seen and heard. Howell, the keeper, who is a keen naturalist, never tires of pointing out the nest of this or that bird or the emergence of some fresh flower. But above all there is a very good head of trout and plenty of fly life to interest them in the dry fly. This stream owes much to the care that has been lavished upon it by the club members, but it could never have been so good but for the loving and unceasing attention that has been given it by that all too rare of men - a really good keeper. Howell comes from the Test Valley, and a love of nature seems to have been bred in him by that fecund soil. Though the river and its fishermen are his business day in and day out, in and out of season, his keenness never grows blunted. To the visiting fisherman with perhaps but one day stolen from work, his helpfulness and kindliness are boundless.
The water is approached at its lower limit; and here it has a look almost of the Fen country. A straight canal-like stretch leads from the bottom to the road bridge, and is bounded on the one side by a field that is at points below water level. But this part, though so close to a roaring arterial road, is full of trout. On a good day they may be seen all the way up, rising under the further bank. It is at the bridge, however, that the water is to me as paradoxically fascinating as anywhere. Here, right under this great road, trout rise freely. Usually good ones, too, owing, I suppose, to the difficulty of approaching them. It is possible to go right under the bridge, but only by bending double and crawling along concrete about three feet wide. Each arch is just wide enough to wave a short rod, though with care and restraint. Thus these bridge fish enjoy comparative security. Those at the upstream side are sometimes taken by drifting down, but this is at best uncertain. The approach from below is perhaps not less uncertain, so difficult is the casting. But once get your fly fairly over the fish and he will have it.
On my last visit I crawled under the bridge from the downstream side. A fish was rising about a foot under the bridge on the upstream side. With infinite care and bruising of knees on rough concrete, I worked to within about six yards of him. But there I found difficulties crowded upon me. Casting was possible only by crouching very low and well back against the wall. Yet even so, at my first cast, my rod top scraped on the roof in a way that made me fear for it. Then my line, rebounding from the roof, hit the water resoundingly. But the trout, accustomed to noise, continued to rise. It was necessary that the fly should fall not more than six inches out from the side, but this was far from easy. At length, after several harrowing bungles, the fly dropped onto the overhanging sedges, just beyond the bridge, and from thence softly on the water, to float over the fish. Up he came and took it with the most satisfying verve and confidence. Now there emerged another difficulty. The roof of the arch was too low to allow of the rod being held upright to bring the fish to net. Eventually he did reach the net, but I do not know quite how this was brought about. He weighed almost a pound, which on this water is quite a good fish. But it was less this that pleased me than the idea of catching a trout under the main road and almost in London.
Once above the bridge the little stream becomes rather more successful in its efforts to disassociate itself from London. Its banks become more verdant and less constrained, its course not so straight and severe, more given to little runnells and small pools. But still on its further bank it is oppressed by the presence of many grey huts and clanking machines. Compensation for these flaws of landscape is there, however. Trout rise freely in this stretch.
Having passed the huts the stream begins to gain confidence. It goes into sportive twists and turns, swinging this way and that. Small copses spring about its banks; birdsong becomes more noticeable, road noises less so. The wild flowers too seem more certain of themselves, and grow with more abandon. It is still the merest shadow of what you would expect to see beside a chalk stream, but it has become far more of an acceptable substitute.
Continuing upstream, improvement continues till presently a real farm is reached and almost full rural status is achieved. Though, as I said, this little river cannot be regarded as the real thing in the sense that the streams of Hampshire, Wiltshire and Berkshire are, for myself I have found that a day snatched from London and spent on its banks leaves no sense of diluted pleasure. I enjoy it utterly.
--------------
__________________
theopike.com
wandletrust.org
urbantrout.net
|
, I used to fish a side-stream of the Buckinghamshire Colne at the Uxbridge end of Iver village. The coarse fishing was reasonable; roach, perch, chub and a few bream. I believe there's barbel in there now as well. With fair water quality and shallows for spawning, there's no reason at all why there should not be the odd trout in there.
Linear Mode
