National News & Information >July 2008 Features

The idle thoughts of an idle editor by Jerry Flay

Back from the UK. I did not get as much fishing as planned – some great golf courses, and a hitherto unsuspected desire to play with the children whilst Lady Voldemort went shopping kept me away from the riverbank and lakeside more than I had originally intended.

But there were a few expeditions. I managed a day at some delightful spring fed lakes in the charming New Forest, south west of London. It cost £15 +£5 for a daily rod licence (rod licence???). It’s a bit different to what we get in NZ. The lakes are smallish and crystal clear. You can see all the fish, and they can see you. This makes for some great duels, starting with ‘can I catch this fish’ and ending with ‘can I hit this annoying fish on the head with my largest bomb as the bloody thing has been ignoring my beautifully presented selection of flies for the last hour’. It is a fully managed and stocked fishery, so wherever you go, you walk past release ponds teaming with trout. The temptation is enormous.

England has a structured society, so this fishery would be somewhere near the lower end, although of course to go trout fishing, rather than coarse fishing, you need to be somewhere near the top end, so in summary it was the bottom end of the top end of society. This poses a number of tricky questions for visitors keen to fit in; to drop aitches or not? To swear loudly when a good’un busts you off, or to chortle, draw in ones chin and bray “Oh I say, what rotten luck”. To fish in jeans or plus fours? Luckily my host was the second son of the third cousin of a Duke, so he was well versed in protocol, and advised me to say nothing and keep a low profile.

As far as catching fish went, I took his advice. This I found somewhat frustrating as all around me, men with some of the worst casting actions I have ever seen were banking them with monotonous regularity. When I finally did get into one, it was by local standards something of a monster, at just over 2lbs, and drew gasps of admiration from those around me. I just about managed to avoid telling them about fish back home!

The other trip I managed to get was again with my semi-noble pal, but this time very much to the other end of the scale – the most blue chip of English trout waters, the River Test. A meandering chalk stream on the edge of the Hampshire Downs, the Test is undeniably a thing of beauty. It also houses some decent fish, with many 10lbs+ trout landed each year.

The way it works is this; The Test is divided up into beats. Each beat is privately owned, and runs for about 400 metres. Should a beat ever change hands, it does so for slightly more than your average 30 bedroom castle. Each beat has it’s own keeper, employed by the owners, and should an unfortunate angler stray into a neighbouring beat, they are more than likely to be shot on site. To purchase the use of a beat for a day costs thousands of pounds. God knows what my mate had paid for us - enough to buy the Tongariro, I guess.

My instructions began 3 days before we went. Clothing, tackle etc, all had to be exact in order to fit in. No smoking on the riverbank. No drinking on the riverbank. No talking on the riverbank. No crying on the riverbank.

When we arrived, we were met by the keeper. “Look after Jerry”, my pal said, “he’s from New Zealand”.

“Hmph”, said the keeper, a dour and grizzled Scotsman of about 250 years old.

He led me to a likely looking stretch. I decided to wetline it.

“Nae wetlining here”, he told me. I changed to the nymph.

“Nae weighted flies either”, he grunted, “and ye can take that wee indicator away as well”

“Dry fly?”, I asked hopefully.

“Nae use today, sir”, he mumbled, investing the ‘sir’ with the absolute minimum of respect.

I felt my options were becoming quite limited. “So what should I do?”

He thought for a moment, scratched his tattered old cap, grabbed my rod and busied himself for a few moments with an old fly box he had fetched from the nether regions of his old tweed suit.

“Just cast that at the far bank and let it drift”, he said. I did as I was told. It worked; cast 2 produced a fine fish, over 5 pounds, and of great fighting quality.

“Lucky sod”, I thought I heard him mumble. He did not speak to me again all day, and so unsurprisingly I caught no more fish. I slipped him a tenner and slunk away. 

A number of the beats had clubbed together and built a clubhouse with a cosy bar. We walked into to a wall of tweed clad anglers yacking about their day. I was the only one who’s surname did not begin with three small f’s. I was introduced as a visitor from NZ, which had the effect of momentarily silencing the entire room. I became the object of curiosity of the random assortment of Earls, Lords and minor members of the royal family who populated the bar.

“Got many sheep?”, enquire one who had been at the malt.

Actually, once the novelty had worn off, they couldn’t have been nicer, and I felt able to forgive them their entrenched belief that NZ was part of Australia, and the muttered sniggers about the rugby world cup.

I drank far too much malt whisky and became new best friends with at least 50% of Burke’s Peerage. I also received invites to at least a million pounds worth of trout fishing should I be in the country again. I should have got that in writing.

So it was an interesting trip. A bit different to what I am used to. A bit more expensive, as well.

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