I had not been river fishing for a while so jumped at the chance to fish the Hampshire Avon in a charity event to support the Avon Roach Project and the Barbel Society.
The day started by the Somerley Estate where we were allocated places to fish and I was paired up with my friend Ted Andrews, the excellent artist who illustrates many of the River Reads Press titles with his humorous cartoons. Ted and I had been talking of fishing together for a while and we were both suprised to see each other there.
We were also paired up with Mark Everard, another friend famed for his roach catches in Wiltshire and his plethera of books on many species, and Carl Forbes, a friend of Teds who is the son of David Carl Forbes who Ted knew well and fished with on many occasions.
This happy band were allocated a field just above Ibsley Bridge. Mark was suffering from a leg injury ans so we helped him to his chosen swim where he was going to trot with bread. Ted was next down legering with cheese paste and bread, and I trotted at the lower end with worm and maggot. Carl decided he was going to fly fish and so roved around the area.
We were hampered by the river being up significantly from the previous day which added a nice colour to the water, however, the extra flow brought down rafts of ranunculus. This made feeder fishing impossible and despite Ted sacrificing his day by single-handedly trying to clear the river of all this greenery (he thinks the weight was about 5 tons, one bit even rushing downstream breaking his line) it proved very difficult to fish.
I packed up at 5pm to get cleaned up and collect Sandy from a local hotel and the sum of our catches was a small dace for Mark - not suprising as he has just written a book on the species.
Upon reaching the gala dinner, Mark was all smiles having added a 5lb chub to the dace having decided to heavily feed with mashed bread in a make or break final session.
Although the sport was a little thin, there IS more to fishing than catching fish and spending time in such enjoyable company made it a thoroughly pleasant days sport aided by the sunshine.
The dinner was arranged at a hotel just outside Ringwood and gave everyone a chance to refine their excuses for not catching over dinner before the charity auction started. I was strictly sober and was very controlled with my bidding, purchasing a days barbel fishing with Pete Reading next year and a couple of books. However, as ever, Sandy went to town unable to resist the call of another of Chris Yates' fishing hats; this time the one he wore when filming the secret carp video. She also purchased the storm kettle that once belong to our friend Fred J Taylor which brough back fond memories. Her other purchases were a days fishing on the Golden Scale Club water for me for Xmas and a brothel token!!! This was from Dodge City and was marked 10 cents lookie, 20 cents feelie and 30 cents dooie - I have to question if this was planned or if the wine was winning at that stage.
It was all in a good cause and the atmosphere of kindred spirits sharing dinner who all care about the natural world and fishing in particular was fabulous. The evening ended with Bob Gibbs (who tried to drown me on the Windrush once - see previous diary entry for details) reciting us his poetry in the bar.
Not the normal evening out, but we have already put our names down for next year as this is an event we always look forward too.