Saturday 25 April 2009

Trip to the Cam on the Fly

As I had my B&D AA licence and seen that Trout fishing was available on the Cam I thought I'd give it a go. Having checked out the waters below Dunkerton I knew the brook held trout but I was put off by the inaccessibility and overhanging trees which appeared to make almost unfishable even when wading. After some Google surveillance I thought Id' try upstream. Arriving in Dunkerton I could see the stream was more open above the bridge. The stream is small with lots of fast narrow runs, sweeping bends and small pools. I was surprised to find another fisherman on the bank using trotting tackle and worm. We had a pleasant chat about different waters around Bristol and I moved on upstream. As I waded in I immediately spooked a decent Brownie of about a 1lb. It started off  frustrating. Clearly there were plenty of fish in the stream but I was not getting my fly upstream enough to reach fish that had not been disturbed. My first little Brownie came to hand after I tried a downstream nymph that was let to drift down and across a pool, twitched up as I drew it across the pool. A different technique that I had now mastered it gave me greater distance between myself and the fish on a stream where it was almost impossible to cast. Shortly after this fish I had a slight confrontation with a lady in a large house backing onto the stream. Her dog had been disturbed and was basically going hysterical and then she proceeded to tell me that they had riparian rights to both sides of the stream where it bordered her house (a stretch of about 100 metres) and I was not entitled to fish here. I didn't agree but in order to placate mainly the dog decided to move on. As I went downstream I met the landowner of the bottom fields of this section. He was totally unaware that this stretch of water was under B&D AA! and said he had bought the land off the farmer who owned all the fields upstream. I showed him my licence and explained that all fish would be returned and he was content for me to carry on. I caught two good Brownies of just under 1lb in one of the pools on this stretch fishing upstream again and just as the light was fading caught my best fish to date on the fly - a lovely 1.5lb Brownie on my way back up to the car. It was one hell of scrap and finished off a beautiful Spring day on this lovely little stream. I had also seen several big Chub in one of the deeper pools and the guy trotting had caught a Rainbow.



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