Anything goes on the Calder

I hadn't been to Yorkshire over Christmas for two years so it was good to get some Grayling fishing on the River Calder near Sowerby Bridge during the break.

Drew Short, a good fishing friend, wanted to introduce me to the finer points of Czech nymphing. But we took along some maggots just in case.

This is an "anything goes" river, so while we were putting up our fly rods it was no surprise to see a couple of chaps with their spinning rods. Twenty years ago this stretch of water was exclusively course fishing but as it cleaned itself up over the years after industrial decline the river began to attract good stocks of trout and grayling.

The game fishing took a big hit two years ago when stocks were reduced in a pollution incident. The fish population is building again but there are too many small fish. A little while back you could catch grayling here up to 2 lbs, but not now.

I can't say I enjoyed the Czech nymphing - ledgering with a heavy nymph and an indicator on a short line - and the fish were scarce. So I swapped to a float, trotting maggots for an hour in the afternoon. I still like to see a float plunging under when a fish takes. You could say the same happens with the indicator but often you find you are simply catching the bottom.

The water was cold but I felt snug in my thermals and with a nice bit of pork pie, oxtail soup and Christmas cake for fuel, we had enough to get us through the day. I took some spare clothes too although didn't take a tumble this time. We didn't catch a lot of fish but it was better than pulling Christmas crackers.

One Fly, one dace

I took part in the One Fly competition on the River Test the other week. I plan to have a report in my fishing section soon when the FT gets round to publishing it.

For my own part I found it a little disappointing hauling out(not many)rainbow trout stockies from cloudy water on a fast retrieved nymph. It's not the way I like to fish a chalk stream.

The weather was warm yesterday so I popped down to the River Wey near Elstead only to find that it too was cloudy, like thin cocoa. There was nothing doing but on my way back to the car I saw a fish taking insects from the surface. It was a peculiar swirling rise, not like that you get from a trout or even a grayling.

Anyway I stuck a little black fly on, had it taken, and there was a dace. Just one little fish but it made the trip worthwhile somehow.

Fish art

It was great to see trout in Madeira's levadas last week. These are narrow channels used to transport spring water for irrigation all over the island. The channels are not more than two feet wide and the water rarely more than a foot deep so the fish don't grow very big, but there are plenty of them.

In one of the plunge pools at the foot of a water fall we saw trout to about a pound. They were breeding too.

The week away was bad timing for grayling fishing since last week was settled weather in Surrey where I live, whereas this week the rains are back, muddying up the river.

So I've taken out my fly boxes for something to do and tonight we'll probably have a tying session. Yippee, says Gill. Just now I'm sorting out some salmon flies for trips to Scotland in the spring.

Black Frances

Last year (when the water was unseasonably low) I did well with a tungsten-headed Black Frances (you can read how this classic Icelandic fly got its name here). The yellow paint on the tungsten head very quickly rubs off but the fly sinks quickly, allowing it to present well in the stream straight after the cast.

I will probably do most of my fishing with the Frances again this spring, alternating with something brighter such as a cascade tube or a temple dog, trying various weights and sizes depending on the conditions.

I plan to stick with an intermediate line on the Dee and Tay with maybe a fast sinking tip in the deepest Tay pools.

Fishing lust

The other thing that has aroused my fishing lust today is a copy of Beneath the Surface, The Wildlife Art of David Miller that arrived in the post today. David's paintings are superb. Check him out at his website here. I reviewed his book here.

I have just been in touch with another of my favourite marine artists, Malcolm Cheape who lives in Perthshire. His pictures are very much a narrative, containing all kinds of imagery, drawings and sometimes notes relating to the subject. It's clear from our conversation, not to mention his art, that he has a strong interest in history.

Malcolm told me about the Gask Ridge, a string of Roman forts in Scotland, one of which I notice was Inchtuthil. I mentioned this site near Spittalfields in a column about freshwater mussels. I wonder if these forts had a role in helping the Romans exploit and protect pearl fishing interests?

Carping about the Poles

I've just had a call from Mark Anderson, or "Zimbo" as he sometimes calls himself. He was walking the banks of the River Wandle not far from Croydon the other day and found brown trout spawning on a stretch above the site of the pollution incident in the autumn.

"What a phenomenal sight. There were five cocks and three hens," he says.

This is good news after the river has suffered such a tough time. The Wandle is just one of those rivers wrecked by pollution and neglect in the industrial revolution, that are coming back to health. The Tyne today can justly claim to be England's finest salmon river, while in West Yorkshire, rivers such as the Calder and the Holme are reporting growing stocks of trout and grayling in their upper reaches.

One of my fishing friends, Drew Short, had 15 grayling in a morning on the Holme just outside the centre of Huddersfield the other day.I'm itching to get at the grayling but work is keeping me tied to the office just now. I mentioned it to someone in the Orvis shop in Stockbridge just before Christmas. "So you're a fair weather fisherman then," he said and promptly lost his sale.

I love cold weather. If the snow keeps coming down as it is at the moment, I'll be reaching for the sledge instead of the fishing rod and heading for Box Hill at Dorking. But I have digressed.

Mark is seeking to promote a more enlightened code of fishing among Eastern Europeans who have been attracting censure in the British press for eating some of their catch. The removal of two fish a day is within the law if you have a coarse fishing licence. It's just that coarse anglers generally don't kill the fish they catch.

Carp anglers, in fact, get quite emotional about their biggest fish and give them names. So it can be rather aggrieving to find that "Scaly Sally", your favourite lake carp, has provided a feast for Polish plumbers.

Mark will have his work cut out but he's the right man for the job. He brings a common sense approach to river management. I have written before about his argument that the role of the Pike, as a leading predator, is important in maintaining healthy fish populations. You won't convince river keepers on the Test but they, after all, have created a cossetted environment for a single species. More farm than wild river? It's debatable given the amount of stocking that takes place.

If you ever want to learn the secrets of hunting Pike on the fly, Mark is your man. You can find him here at xstreamflyfishing.com, or use the link in the right-hand column.