My mate Rob is 50 this year and it was decided that a group of us should visit ‘somewhere special’ to celebrate. The Royalty on the Hampshire Avon was the choice and since we were down there we should also try the Throop fisheries on the Dorset Stour. Reports were that neither fishery is what it was but the sense of history was impossible to resist so, in February, arrangements were made for mid-September: we booked a house close to the Royalty in Christchurch, a day on the Parlour Pool and waited in keen anticipation.
The long distance travellers arrived mid-afternoon and after unloading we walked over to the Parlour Pool to have a look. Tony had been there previously so knew what to expect, but both Rob and I were surprised at the small scale of the pool. Three guys were fishing and had caught nothing but it was a hot sunny afternoon and surely the ‘bills’ would come on as darkness gathered! (we heard later that they didn’t) We walked the path downstream past a reassuring sign that read ‘Beware of Adders’ and found Kenny at the interestingly named ‘Piles’, a deep pool on a wide bend which was sporting leaping salmon but little else in the afternoon sunshine. It was too late for the rest of us to consider fishing for unfortunately you have to be off the water by an hour after sunset and tonight that meant 8pm. So we adjourned to a pub where we had a few drinks and planned for the next day when three of us were booked on the Parlour and Kenny was not going to fish the ‘Piles’! Whilst we did that Rob bought us a meal in celebration of his maturity. DAY ONE: Davis’ Tackle opens at 7.30 to sell tickets and since we couldn’t go on the water until that time Rob and I had decided to get fresh maggots in the morning. Our approach was going to be sit and wait, baiting up with hemp and maggot feeder at the top end of the pool.
As quickly as we could we were in place at the Parlour. Tony was fishing downstream amongst the streamer weed where there were obvious clear patches where the occasional bream appeared. The morning brought just one fish, a dace that attached itself to my size 12 hook. After lunch I tried a likely looking spot on a side-stream below the weir that carries the main river past the Parlour. I had looked at it during a mid-morning break and thought it looked ideal for trotting tactics but by the time I got there a strong wind, up and across stream, made it impossible to present the float on a straight line. Disappointed, I returned to my swim on the main pool and realised that I had become the lucky (and allergic) recipient of around a dozen mozzie bites on my arms and legs. To a chorus of wolf whistles I applied antihistamine cream to my previously hidden bits and followed that with Jungle Formula to reduce the chance of further pain. FISH AT LAST! Around 2 o’clock Rob was suddenly into a fish that gave the slightest of bites. At 8lb 15oz it was not as big a barbel as we had hoped for but was still a personal best, a good start! Within ten minutes I was into another gently biting barbel only this was much smaller, in fact I have never seen one smaller, it was an absolute baby at no more than 4 inches long! A couple of hours later Rob briefly had another fish on and around 5 o’clock I cast in and immediately had a slamming bite that proved to be a fish of exactly 7lbs. Things were looking up.
A late night Chinese takeaway followed and then off to bed for another 7.30am start elsewhere on the Royalty. DAY TWO: Wednesday dawned with the promise of another fine day. My anticipation was dulled by the fact that my mozzie bites were now all egg-size and extremely painful, plus my elbow was aching from using an oversized bait dropper! Rob and Tony and I headed for the famous ‘Pipes’ but I couldn’t see a swim I felt comfortable fishing (I needed comfort today!) so I left them and headed for the ‘Piles’. I was surprised how deep the pool was and the trotting I had intended proved to be difficult, so out came the feeder again and with caster I built up a fair bag of small dace and chub whilst baiting another line in the hope of some bigger fish (bream, chub, barbel or carp were all possible I had been told). But that line never produced and 8pm arrived to end another disappointing day, during the course of which I had discovered that all the photos I had taken at the parlour (including Rob’s PB) would never see the light of day: for some reason the film sprocket had failed to engage and not one photo had actually been taken.
DAY THREE: Same weather as before and we set off for the Throop fishery on the Stour more in hope than expectation. The day proved to be duller with a few windy spells but the sun still shone strongly for a couple of hours in the afternoon. I settled in at the tail end of a small weir but though I had numerous bites I only managed to hit two half pound chub, one on corn and one on freelined worm. Rob also had a couple of a similar size but also managed to winkle out a 4lb-plus chub. Kenny blanked and Tony, despite a titanic struggle with a barbel around six and a half pounds, also blanked. The fish in question weeded itself and Tony had to go into the water to free it, then at the net the hookhold gave. Tony’s only consolation was that had he not seen it he would forever have had the anguish of thinking he had lost a double-figure fish. DAY FOUR: Friday dawned just like the rest of the week with omens of a good (to non-anglers) day. The penultimate day had been, generally, disappointing, but we had also been given a little hope and a few ideas for catching on the last day. Tony and Rob spent an hour gathering slugs for an assault on the chub. I decided I was going to adopt Kenny’s approach and sit it out for the barbel, baiting up a single likely swim and fishing pellet. Sadly, for both of us, the sit-it-out method didn’t work. Kenny blanked again and my only fish were three 8 to 12 oz chub (I also lost three up to 1lb 8oz) and all of these came whilst ‘resting’ the baited area and dropping in on likely chub swims with freelined worm. Tony, on pellet, broke his duck handsomely with a 5lb 7oz chub whilst Rob, who must have walked around 4 miles, really earned a red letter day in which he netted six chub weighing from 3lb 8oz and including two bigger than his previous PB. The best went 6lb 4oz and all were on slug. He also had a small pike on cheesepaste! REFLECTIONS: Analysing the week afterwards we could all think of things we might have done differently. We had enjoyed the break and the experience of rivers the likes of which we do not have in the north west, but the returns were unexceptional apart from Rob’s last day. The weather was definitely against us as, although we heard of one or two really large fish being caught, the overall impression was of most anglers struggling to catch. The Royalty was extremely busy, far busier than we are used to on the Ribble and Severn, in fact I have fished quieter ‘muddy-holes’. Throop also was quite busy but it was a stretch we really took to and would like to try again. The potential of these rivers is well known and without doubt they provide excellent sport but there is still a need for the right conditions and perhaps more watercraft than I currently possess. Thankfully we had not set our hearts on the trip so much that failure was a problem. The remarkable thing about the whole episode lies in events afterwards. Whilst we had hoped for some new personal bests: (barbel, chub and perhaps roach) and whilst Rob achieved two of those plus the sea trout, in the two and a half weeks following he raised his PB barbel three times on the old faithful Ribble Which perhaps goes to prove: there really is no place like home! |
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