Nadder and the last Mayfly on the last day of summer?

Took a days leave today and met up with my bro Rich today to fish the Nadder at Salisbury. A beautiful sunny day with some light cloud and hardly any wind. The river looked beautiful almost gin clear with sun glinting on the boils and turbulence of the riffles and runs. We both started to work our way up the beat and immediately Rich hooked into a Chub under some Willows. After a bit of struggle he'd netted a good fish of at least 2lb on the dry.


First take of the day resulted in this lovely Chub.



I hooked up with a nice Grayling on the nymph but failed to net it. After a quiet next few hundred yards I found a great little run where the river kinked around a small bend with a little Willow tree just breaking the flow. In about 30 minutes I managed to catch 3 Grayling, 3 Brownies, a 2lb Chub and a nice Dace. Some of the Grayling on the dry and all the others on the nymph. Its amazing how the feeding fish congregate in such a small area when large swathes of the river fail to produce any response.

My 2lb Chub

Ended the mid day session with some hand size Brownies near a confluence with a feeder. Rich netted a Brownie and another two lovely Chub. The last one put up one hell of scrap and took several minutes to net in the fast flow.

Rich plays another Chub to the net.

After a couple hours break to do the school run we popped back for an evening session. The dropping temperature had obviously put the fish down despite a few Mayfly still coming off! I did net one fish, my best Brownie of the day on the nymph, and Rich caught a small Brownie. Still Rich had bagged up on all the Chub earlier in the day so I didn't feel too bad. Lovely sun set whilst leaving this little Nadder oasis in Salisbury. Known as a coarse stretch this section of the Nadder can still provide excellent sport on the fly for a very reasonable day ticket price.