…Of Gods and Devils and strange signs.

Flocks of ‘Gits’ on scrambler motorcross bikes with their whiny little engines are unofficially drawn to this public bridle path every Sunday. Middle aged men revving themselves back to a juvenile oblivion. These premature ejaculation drivers carve up that track, scare the dog walkers, and jar the teeth and set the jaws, of all who hear and bare witness.  

How often I’d heard there distant approach and created instantly in my imagination, murderous thoughts of deep bear pits dug with sharp hidden spikes, or carefully planning to stretch ropes across the track from the trees, garrotting their progress, leaving just the un-revved tick over of those tinny little engines, a lonesome revolving wheel running out of momentum, and then sweet stillness and birdsong returning to our blessed valley. Then, with the nemesis successfully murdered in my imagination I could banish them to the back of my mind and continue forward in bliss and quiet contemplation while wading midstream amongst the loveliness.

Before the end of this track, for us fishermen, just as you pull out of the tunnel of the trees into the open skies, the hump of the pack horse bridge rises in front of you blocking the view ahead (the hump beloved of those sperm of Satan motocross boys).

So it is not until I was climbing the hump that I saw a car parked ahead. “ Bugger! That Bloody Barry's got here first……again”!.

Knowing that this damned creature of habit  was in the Groynes and heading quickly up to the Culvert after the ‘lunkers’…. Which, incidentally had also been my plan. So I donned my waders and set off downstream in consolation, to go down half a mile, and then start working my way back upstream with the hour or so of light that was left to play with.

Round the first bend I noticed down in the distance the Doc’s son on the bank moving upstream before dipping back into the Brook. A deeper pool safely dodged for him, and so obviously, no fishing down there either for me. “Bloody hell, it’s like flipping rush hour down here tonight!”.

Oh well, all three of us on the same campaign to swell those catch numbers, but, at this moment, it feels like a race, and I’m at the back of the field, or being prevented from even getting on the track.

You’ve come here picturing the eventual, longed for, relaxed wind down after a noisy hectic day, and suddenly everything becomes a rush again to achieve that goal.

Fumble for keys; too many pockets, Sigh; Rod and net chucked back in car; turning manoeuvre, avoiding ditches; slow drive down churned up and pitted track (cursing those sperm of Satan riders from hell, at every jolt and scrape that they’d created in this once lovely trail, ”God I hate those guys!). Gates, forward; gates; drive; dirt track; junction. Quick decision time. Decide.

“Upstream to the sewage works beat my man, so turn right.. and don’t jolly well spare the horses!!”

Drive like a loon, pray no one else has same plan; reach side street; turn in; and, find there’s no other cars parked by the gate!

“Mine all Mine” and a loud “Hallelujah” called out as my internal monologue escapes into the evening air ….. an embarrassed look around to see if there was anyone nearby to have heard me. The coast is reassuringly clear. Alone at last. 

Phew, Stress drops, shoulders relax and sag a little as ‘Unwind option’ is now engaged, notice sweet breeze and appreciate the birdsong again. Set off on the 5 mins walk to the stream trying not to hurry too much. And, try to shed off a little of that stress, and leave it lying on the path with each footfall, gradually lessening that onerous burden, that’s been eating me up to now. 

Soon, I’m standing on the wooden footbridge feeling calm, relieved, and grateful for my lot in this world again as now I’m in fishing mode at last. Looking down the beat for clues, watching for fly or fish activity. I study the spiders webs, lots of small flies, never too sure are these Reed Smut or Simuliidae? No matter, If that’s what’s on the menu then I have a small black number with cdc wings just waiting in the corner of the heavily stocked fly box.

Fly boxes used to mysteriously breed in my bags, pockets, and studio, they just multiplied. Out of control, there appeared boxes of fly patterns for every option and they bred like rabbits.  Still, when faced by the water and conditions of the moment there was never the fly that I needed and felt confidently was right, and more boxes were born out of this dilemma, stocked with even more flies. Then I rebelled.

I’d got rid of the surplus silly patterns of the learning days and with the help of a clever design from the Japanese and a huge ruthless streak, I had a wonderful single box now with lots of copies of at least 50 essential options for a season of matching the hatches on the Brook. What didn’t get used in a season was considered and either kept, or chucked to make space for a new pattern. All that I needed, carefully jammed into one box… so liberating!....I thought. 

A caddis crashes past and lands on the wooden railing of the bridge, “Clumsy caddis usually crash on the surface and get munched” I sagely considered. So, I have a second option worked out and I reach for the fly box…and that’s when I realise it’s by the fly tying bench still at home. Feel sick.

Lesson of the night;

My rod had been’ lined-up’ and left in the car since my last trip, and it still had an old grey pattern that I called the “Whingeing Pom” tied on, for the last few fish that I had caught the previous session. This one tied on a long 14 was way too big, nor would it do for the caddis, nor for riding high, clear, on the faster riffles in this beat. This was usually a Groynes fly, and one of those, “I’ve tried everything and this is my last hope, kind of fly”. A distant option away from that tiny size 20 Reed Smut that I considered the essential choice just then.

“Bugger it!” ….I briefly consider driving home and back, but I’d be left with about 15 mins of fishing. So I set off downstream a bit, to work back up with the only, and singular example, of the wrong choice of fly. “Great”!

First fish looks like its gently smutting surface food, but amazingly smashes at the passing Pom! The second fish does the same but as I repair the fly I notice most of the tail is now gone. “Oh flipping  heck, that’s just what I needed.” 

After the third Trout the tail had now completely gone. Yet a few more fish mocked my over-elaborate fly tying and showed they didn’t care for the lack of tail, and I noticed the small orange foam bib under the fly that held the hackle flat, now snapped open and hanging down. “They didn’t even care if it looked like a fly for goodness sakes!”

No bother,  the next Trout’s struggle, opens up the hackle wrap completely and it starts to hang lose a little. Soon the hackle becomes nothing but a short twisted appendage, like a scarf, loosely attached to a bare fly, I worry its effecting the drift, so off that comes, and on the line, another Trout. I’m on a rare old roll now!. 

If I was refused by a fish in this session, unable to change the fly,  I’d look closely at what else I could adjust instead, the angle in; at the drift management; different presentation; cast mends, the tippet length; degreasing tippet. You name it, I tried it.  Reassessing the careful drying and re dressing of what little was left on the hook. My fly was taking on the behaviour of a burlesque stripper and shedding a little more modesty with each fish caught.

By the time the light finally goes, I am left with a hook with a small patchy body of grey dubbed fur and a small stub of orange foam and nothing else, which, with a little dressing, still floats in the surface and still catches fish. Not just the dumb, inquisitive little parr, hellbent on testing out Darwin’s odds of survival while stuck in a losing streak. But the last of the day, a larger and supposedly wiser fish, fell to a smidgen of grey fur on a 14 hook wrapped in ridiculously bright orange thread..

The walk back to the car and the drive home that night was full of questions;

“Why do I need 50 patterns or more, and why the hell do I need to battle with such elaborate additions in the fly tying, it all seems superfluous.?”

Most of those flies, I’d invest so much time and care into making, slavishly following complex patterns, that I hated losing them and cursed getting snagged.

I cursed an awful lot at that time!

A perfectly good evening could be ruined by losing half a dozen precious flies, and the more elaborate and tricky the tying, increased the consequential grief that I suffered, and the worsened language then delivered to those river Gods with my moan.

Losing four, size 16 Royal Wulffs, with their immaculately balanced white calf fur wings to stop them spinning in the air, complex threading of reinforced Peacock herl, and just enough bright red silk band, and then, the double  wraps of expensive best grade hackle, all crammed around, desperately leaving just enough space for a clean whip finish. These were quite an awful loss that felt a monumental disaster at that moment.

I don’t remember what I caught that night, I just remember losing the last Wulff and considering the only two options left available to me. Go home and get the chain saw and take down that bloody tree. Or, go home and get a rope, and then sling yourself up next to the last of those flies. I tended towards the suicide option at the time, it was after all, a really nice tree, and it was not its fault.

They shouldn’t matter, flies; and if they do, they are not fit for purpose.

“If I just kept them simple.” I thought, as these fish seemed to accept them, “And almost think of them as cheap and disposable, I’d no doubt take more risky shots near the brambles and banksides, and care less, when a careless back cast, catches in a tree”.  

(Years later, I notice now, I actively resist getting upset when I snag a fly in the bankside or an overhead tree. In the old ‘Upset’ days it would be curtains, lost fly and stretched curly tippet under a dark localised cloud of depression. Now in my new shiny zen like calmness I gently pull, and often they just come easily away. I reckon I lost less than half a dozen flies all last season).

8 or 9 fish in an hour with no let-up making a mockery of the “ Matching the Hatch” ritual that evening. ”Do the Trout care about matching the hatch and good realistic imitations… or is it just naturally drifting, food looking stuff, coming down stream to a confident and un-spooked fish?”

“Surely, rather than tying on more patterns and trying to guess what they’re eating, I should be questioning why they are not accepting my offering as natural  food, and seeing if it could be better presented!”

I was never the same fisherman that visited that river again after that evening, and over time that fly box gradually lost most of its variety and complexity in favour of simplicity and quality materials, and I gave up slavishly following other people’s recipes in magazines and books.

And then that year, a strange character or creature, appeared on the Brook.

The Wild Trout Trust had a yearly fund raising auction of donated lots, equipment, experiences, and fishing. Since they had done the advisory visit and taken us under their wing, we offered a day’s fishing on Willowbrook for a pair of rods every year, it wasn’t exactly a day on the Test or the Itchen;  which was also on there, and made enormous sums; but we usually raised £150-250 each year for a pair of anglers, which considering the yearly membership is £90.00 was nuts!

I’d get asked to go and meet the winning bids, check they were ok and give them a few pointers if necessary.

If I found them fishing already I would shadow them a little and see how they were doing, I figured some people just preferred to get on with it, others wanted to know a bit more about the water and the fishing. I’d try and assess which they were likely to be from a distance and how tuned in they were to the fishing.

With the ones met before starting, you could soon see by how quickly they got there waders on, whether they were chatters, or loners. The latter didn’t relish the chatting, as, if they were like me, it could distract them from packing the net, fly box; spare tippet; or car keys; never a good start for that planned for day at the water , and if like me they didn’t relish fishing in front of others and just wanted to experience it alone, I soon left them to it, after first warning them of the deep drop off up the groynes and how to avoid it.

This year I was told the winner was fishing alone and starting at the Nassington Road bridge. His car was already parked up when I arrived, so I decided to wander up stream to find him.

I climbed over the old farm gate under the shadow of the trees, the gate had the sign on it that had got me involved in the club originally; an old painted wooden sign, scroll written, with the words; The Willow Brook Flyfishers. And a simple line picture of a caddis fly in flight. The message on the sign was pitched just right for me. You would never stop determined poachers with a sign. It was just about clearing up confusion.

Anyone looking over the bridge knew it was private fishing once they got to the gate, anyone of the local coarse fishermen from the River Nene knew it was flyfishing only, and for people like me, newly arrived in the area and desperate to avoid the large still waters of stocked slobs around this area , it read as, “Sanctuary, and like-minded people here.” This got me asking around to find out how I could apply to join.

If you’re trying to stop Poachers, then PRIVATE FISHING:KEEP OUT is a magnetic attraction and a challenge to have a go. It is also just so unfriendly to everyone else, the ramblers, dog walkers and locals from the village. I guess passive-aggressive would be the modern term, it’s a dividing line that sets you up as the opposition to them..

I loved that old hand painted sign, it was perfect. It made me smile and feel welcomed whenever I pulled up there. It may as well have read; “There’s no Place like Home”  for this stressed out fly fishermen, seeking comfort. Your waders became  your slippers at the door, and the fire side, that warm glow of sunset, reflected on the oily surface film of the waters in the evening rise.

Pic: the warm glow of sunset reflected on the oily surface film on the way up to the groynes.

That sign was my ‘welcome’ mat, that I’d always mischievously been tempted to ‘nick’ and have hanging over the mantel piece for bleak winter nights.

Dense Mayfly clouds were dancing on the banks , there was a little breeze drafting upstream, it couldn’t be better for him, the Brook was not just crystal clear and sparkling, it looked positively enchanting.. “the lucky bugger,” just at that moment I’d have paid the extra hundred quid to get in that water and fish.

As usual I moved up stream to watch from a distance for a while, and see how he was doing and try not to disturb him, if I thought I should approach, I would wait until he was out on the bank . For some reason Max had bought both tickets but only he was fishing.

It wasn’t hard to find Max, a drunken water buffalo would have made less impact on the environment. He thrashed his way, constantly false casting as he bow waved his way up stream from one pool to the next. Stopping regularly as he lost yet another fly in the trees and the Blackberries. By the effort on display,  as he attempted to yank them free, it appeared he was using a hell of a tippet strength. I was worried for some of our branches from the yanking  and shaking, and even from the back  it was clear that the man looked furious!

I was really naughty, I couldn’t stop watching for 20 mins of this, it was mesmerising while comically tragic. At one stage he went flailing forward after tripping over an obvious flow deflector, and attempted to come back and kick it in retaliation in two feet of water, and soaked himself. A few times I was actually biting into my fist to supress the involuntary laughter and give myself away, I thought I’d draw blood from supressing the hysterics. Half of the time was spent tying on new flies as he ploughed quickly upstream through what would have been an entire evening’s fishing for the rest of us. He didn’t even seem to be looking for, or targeting fish, not that I expected any to stick around for long. This guy and his furious demeanour would have dislodged a herd of Hippopotamus and sent them crashing up stream, desperately seeking asylum in the upper reaches.  It didn’t look like it was the best time to make an approach, he was not having a good day!

I decided I’d go upstream and meet him at the Packhorse bridge to offer him a few pointers. So I backed off and left him to continue dangling what must have been at least half the contents of his fly boxes,  decoratively from the canopy over the Brook, transforming  our little stream it into a bejewelled grotto lined with ridiculously huge still water flies, while frightening the bejeezus out of any living creature in that valley… including me.

The man certainly had a presence!

When I pulled up at the Packhorse bridge, miraculously, I didn’t have much time to wait. Birds breaking cover in alarm from the trees marked his progress. As he pulled up on the bank, I waited and let him walk to the bridge and see me ahead. Giving him a period of composure. As he got close I smiled, held out my hand, and said “ Hi Max, I’m Chris From Willowbrook Fly Fishers , they asked me to come and see if you’re getting on OK and if you need anything”.

I wasn’t sure what I’d get back, from his manner in the stream I kind of expected and was ready to be told the Brook was a “bag of shite”, and that there was no fish in it.

“Who the fuck are you?” he growled at me.

As I’d just introduced myself, this made searching for a next line rather challenging. I asked him how it was fishing. Lacking an olive branch at this moment I held out  a bottle of water and added there was sandwiches and a flask of coffee in my car if he needed anything.

“No, I don’t fucking need anything from you”, he sneered dismissively, ignoring my enquiry about the fishing.

“No wonder you’re fishing on your lonesome ownsome” I thought….but kept smiling as he continued to scowl and stare me down ..

This was getting awkward so I tried to get back on track,.. bad mistake!

“ Look, would you like me to fish with you a little way up stream above the bridge, I can put you over a few fish, show you the flies we use and how we approach them”

“What?  You?? ….You think you can teach me something about fly fishing?. You arrogant little ‘Tosser’! I‘ve just caught loads of Brown and Rainbow Trout down there. Theres nothing at all that you can show me!”

( he actually quoted the numbers, something like 7 Browns and 4 Rainbows)

Now, I may have been guilty of being clumsy with my wording or my manner, I have no idea. But I had never come across such abrasive arrogance, aggression and bullshit on the bankside before…and it really was Bullshit!

For a kick off we hadn’t stocked rainbows for 10 years or more and there was no way he had even foul hooked a fish down there. He would have cleared the stream and had them cowering under the banks or skurrying up stream out of the fishery desperate for refuge. (and probably heading all the way to Corby, seeking the safe haven of the choking toxic waters of the old steel works, rather than being in the vicinity of this idiotic Buffoon).

So I left him to bow wave his sad and sorry butt, up stream through the rest of the fishery, hoping he’d find the sudden deep pool I was going to warn him about, but decided now, he could discover it for himself, hopefully the hard way.  The consolation was I looked forward to his lies on his catch return to add to our numbers this year and sincerely hoped I’d seen the last of him in this lifetime, and in the next.

( He never did send in a catch return as was part of the agreement).

Max was relatively local it turned out, and had known about Willowbrook from its stocking days, he’d fished it in the past as a guest in the upper beats and had been on the waiting list for years. Which made his behaviour on the bankside towards someone your expecting to become a fellow member of the same club, both intriguing and appalling.

Luck would have it, he got his membership at the end of the next year. Fate would have it he was at the AGM when the secretary left and no one wanted to take his role, and before I realised what had happened Max volunteered himself and became the next club secretary and aspiring dictator, and got on with taking matters into his own hands.

His first action that I was painfully aware of, was carried out without any discussion to the rest of the club. Armed with a photocopier and embossing machine, he improvised dozens of signs and turned up at the stream armed with a hammer and nails and a staple gun.

The first thing I noticed was the beautiful old painted sign that welcomed me to an evening of stress free pleasure had been ripped off the gate and replaced with a piece of wood bolted on, and stuck to it in huge letters in stark black and white; PRIVATE FISHING: KEEP OUT.

This was a jarring introduction to my evening and the season ahead. Then as I waded up stream every 30 yards or at the next convenient beautiful old tree trunk, was hammered on or madly stapled, for all the world to see, that stark message, PRIVATE FISHING: KEEP OUT.  

I no longer noticed the wild flowers and the gentle passage of the seasons, my progress up stream was metered by the next aggressive signage. He had transformed a beautiful brook into an unwelcome fortress and my hatred grew a little with each sign that I passed, and I passed many.

The lovely old bridges we shared with the dog walkers and local ramblers all developed this aggressive manner too. Virtually overnight we became unfriendly and ugly to all the people whom, for so long, I had tried to include as mutual friends and community of the Brook.

It was one action that summed up the man perfectly. Sadly a few members including the old secretary thought this a good idea, and didn’t care for the ugliness and bad feeling and division it created.

Max soon targeted key members as allies, and organised an evening’s fishing on a local still water and an evening in the pub, to ingratiate himself into the club and discuss his plans to improve the fishery. From what I heard through the club gossip he either paid for, or used club funds to pay for this “Social Gathering.” Ironically, to spend on an evening catching stocked fish.

To my relief, I was not invited nor communicated with. The habitat group stopped, everything was put through Max and I was again back on the fringes doing it solo, which suited me fine. 

Interestingly when later in that season I found the first of the year’s travellers poaching the Brook, I asked them “did you not realise it was private fishing? Did you not see all those signs?”

“No, We never saw any signs. what signs are you talking about, there’s no fucking signs”

They must have passed six, and it didn’t matter how many signs, they could no longer play the innocent misunderstanding. This placed us firmly in the realm of, they knew that I knew, that they were  lying to my face, and challenging me…and therefore any diplomatic niceties had been bypassed and we were straight into aggressive confrontation.

As a deterrent against poachers it was proving useless, and we seemed to get more of them with the signs up and they were becoming more aggressive and confrontational to deal with. From then on I started peeling the signs off those lovely trunks and gradually taking the vast majority of them down on the far bank where the public couldn’t reach.

The public had been taking them down regularly too on the bridges. Max tried having commercially made ones, bolted on permanently, and I rejoiced when after a few short weeks they been levered off too. As replacement signs went up, me and the public joined forces in a campaign to take them back down.

But I’m getting a head of myself, Max as secretary was a few years off, this year was about convincing the members of a club to finally stop stocking for good, by getting the best catch return we could achieve between us.

After Max had the best day of Mayfly I’d seen to that date on the Brook, and squandered it. Instantly the weather packed up. It was like he’d unleashed a curse on us from the river Gods, and the stream levels raised and for long periods of this crucial year, the Brook became unfishable.

It seemed we were not going to be forgiven so easily for introducing this devil incarnate, the monstrous Max, to sully our gentle Brook, by those mystical powers that be, and ,whom grant us the serenity of those blissful waters within its banksides. They administered their wrathful vengeance upon us!

And I can’t say that I blamed the old buggers, I’d be pissed off too!.

Hope this all finds you well. If anyone of you, out in Sexyloops land, has any sunshine to spare, We are desperate back in Old Blighty, sat under a constant cloud as we are. I’ve been found wandering under streetlights to check if I still have a shadow. Sad isn’t it?!

All the best,  Chris Avery