Just like last year and the year before, 2010′s third annual charitable Wander up the Wandle saw Andrew Farr take to the water outside the Merton Bus Garage – along with greater numbers of flyfishers than I think we’ve ever seen at one time on the famous Savacentre stretch. 

(And no, that’s not a big yellow float bung backup plan strike indicator that got away from one of them, it’s just a balloon that came floating fortuitously past as the camera shutter clicked!)

Later that day, the river repaid Andrew’s generosity to the Wild Trout Trust’s annual fundraising auction by hooking him up with a trout on the dry, somewhere upstream.

Such trophies may still be few and far between – but that’s why, as we said recently to the National Geographic, it’s like New Zealand out there…

Rich and I were back in Slovenia for a four day fishing fest… well, at least that is how we had planned it.

Driving through the lashing rain from Venice to Most Na Soci on the night of our arrival, our hopes had been dampened by the minute. We had arrived at Villa Noblesa at 1.30am to a bottle of wine and a delicious cold meat platter, but also knowing that the rivers we had come to fish would be blown out.

This was confirmed the following drizzly morning over a sumptuous breakfast with Branco and Vlasta. Not quite doom and gloom, but as close as one would wish for. Our hosts, however, mentioned that there might be the possibility of fishing the Nadiza, as this river comes in from the Italian side of the mountains and might not have coloured up. Jumping into the car, we hardly had time to get kitted up – in fact we had flown with wading boots and jackets on, as ryanair have a very lousy luggage allowance.

Upon arrival, our hopes were lifted by the sight of a river which appeared not to have risen and was only slightly coloured. We ventured forth, but with little success – one possible reason being that Italians are rather religious in their fishing and often resort to a ‘priest’. However, as the day progressed the water began to clear and we knew that if we found a good pool there would be fish in it – and so it proved to be.

We  managed to catch a grayling and a couple of wild browns and a number of rainbows – stockies mind you, but most welcome. Our optimism grew as the day wore on and by the end, after some pizza and some cold beers, we were positively expectant.

I had never fished the upper reaches of the Baca, so the following morning we drove towards Podbrdo. On route we stopped at the hydroelectric dam, peered over the bridge and spotted a few good looking fish. Down the gorge we went and not before long Rich was rewarded for his efforts.

The Baca is a small river where Rich and I took turns to fish pools, as we worked our way upstream. Each pool one came across would produce at least one fish and these were all wild – browns, hybrids or marble (as they don’t stock above the dam). The highlight of the day was spotting a largish looking fish from above and watching it hoover up duns on the surface. Rich acted as spotter, as I slid into the river below and on the second cast hooked and landed the fish on a ‘Branco Killer’. It turned out to be a marble trout. High fives and smiles all round – this is what makes a trip memorable.

We then decided to explore the Koritnica, a tributary of the Baca, in search of wild fish. This was basically a scrambling, clambering, bruising three hour climb over boulders, falls, weirs and more boulders.

Speaking for myself, I doubt I have had a more enjoyable three hours in a long time. I’m sure Rich would agree. The small pockets of water held the odd jewel-like brown. One cast and you either spooked the pool or felt a rewarding tug… hard earned fish are always the most satisfying ones. At the end of the day we came across a road and the walk back only took half an hour! A four course Vlasta meal topped the day off.

Our trip, at last, was off to a flyer!

My first day out was on the Akatawara river (a tributary of the Hutt River) north of Wellington. My guide, Andrew Harding, met me at the hotel and we set off for an hour’s drive to the venue. When we got there I got kitted out for wet wading. This involved a pair of wading boots and polyprop leggings instead of waders as we had a 50 to 60 minute hike to get to the section of river we were going to fish.

Andrew told me that there is a low population density of trout (15 to 20 fish in a 3km stretch) but they are invariably 4lb or larger. We would be sight fishing with a cicada pattern as the cicadas were in full chirp. I found casting such a large fly on my #5 rod to be tough (I think I needed a punchier line) but gradually I managed to get a respectable line out. In fact, with cicada fishing, a splashy hit with the fly attracts the interest of the fish … which is lucky as that suits my casting style perfectly.

The first fish we saw actually resulted in a take for me but I was way too early on it and pulled the fly away from it which caused the fish to go off in a sulk. We moved on upriver and we spotted a big fish. My first cast to this fish landed 2 metres to its right and I thought I’d have to cast again but this was one hungry fish. It turned round, zoomed onto the fly and gulped it down.

A strike and I’m connected with it … a swift battle to keep it away from a sunken tree and 5 minutes later it’s in the landing net …

all 7lbs of it! A real NZ monster.

I also managed to catch a 3.5lbs hen fish, again on a cicada pattern.

This New Zealand fishing is not like fishing on a chalkstream in Hampshire. There’s a lot of hiking and scrambling around to be done.

In the South Island I had a trip on the Mataura River with Stu Tripney. Stu runs a fly fishing shop outside Queenstown, signposted as the “Stu’s World Famous Orgasmic Fly Shop”. For all the lunacy, Stu is an excellent caster and fly tier and he endeavoured to improve my casting (a hard job but I really did improve). The fish in New Zealand are tricky and wary as the water is so incredibly clear. You really need to have the fly turn over perfect. Needless to say I fell well below that level of perfection many times. During the day I managed to miss no fewer than 7 takes! Some were due to incompetence/too much slack line (take your pick) but the one that took the biscuit was at the end of the day.

We’d spent an hour trying to catch one of 4 trout cruising around underneath a willow tree on a little side stream and after missing a take (too early on the strike) we departed back to the car. Near the car were some overhanging willows where we’d seen fish earlier in the day. I had a willow grub imitation (apparently Stu’s taken eight years to perfect this fly) tied on. I cast the fly. Everything was perfect … only one or two false casts, the line shot straight, the fly had perfect turnover, a drag-free drift with no slack line to interfere, then … a take … the strike … which connected with thin air! Ever so slightly frustrating (!) but, unfortunately, just one of those days. Still I had a great time and my casting was much better than before. There’s still a lot to work on with my casting “style” but it’s getting there.

New Zealand is an incredible place and if you get the chance to get out there, don’t forget your rod (but remember to declare it all at customs or face a hefty fine!). It’s hard fishing but the rewards are amazing.

Monthly fly tying sessions take place in the upper room (so as not to frighten the locals with all those bits of dead bird, animal and errm, Alex, just what was that?)…

… whilst Committee meetings are held in the cosy downstairs bar (the drinks are closer, and the chairs feel more comfortable).  So it was only right to hold this year’s Wands’ Annual Dinner here too – and briefed by Adrian, the staff of the William Morris rose to the occasion with a menu that delighted the 20 Club Members and guests who sat down to three sumptuous courses.

John O’Brien roamed the room with his long lens, papping all and sundry mid-flow…

… until it was time for prizegiving and his presentation of the results of this year’s very first Wandle Species Hunt. 

Steve Dedman deservedly carried away the trophy with a triumphant 16 of the 17 Wandle fish species caught this year: barbel, bullhead, carp (common, crucian, koi and mirror), chub, dace, eel, gudgeon, roach, rudd, stickleback, tench, trout…

… while Tony Hutchinson won the Wands Cup for the first Wandle trout caught on a dry fly last year: a true leviathan by anyone’s standards!

Both anglers also received a copy of Caught by the River – an award which seemed to open the floodgates of prizes for all after Rich’s Clapton-soundtracked film of the Wands’ year of fishing trips.

Will had arranged a signed copy of the new Pocket Guide to Matching the Hatch by Peter Lapsley and Cyril Bennett for every Riverfly monitor…

… and our famous “Fiver in the Creel” raffle table was groaning under the weight of books and other prizes so desirable they can’t even be whispered on the internets…

… even our eminent-but-self-effacing Patron made off with a signed Gierach.

In short, for those of us who can remember it, possibly our most successful Dinner yet!

The Wandle’s coarse fishing season was rapidly running down, and only one possible endgame presented itself: to start another season entirely, back at the scene of our previous piscatorial adventures around Off Lodge in the hills north of Manchester.

Not soon enough for some, dawn broke with the clatter of kitchen crockery and the symbolic swish of Adrian’s new Sage TXL 0 weight over Delph’s junction pool.  The rest of us soon followed him out over miles of the urban upper Tame. The fishing wasn’t easy, but we all recaptured that incomparable springtime surge of wild fish on balanced light tackle…

… can there be a better feeling after a long cold winter, especially when you suspect you may just have discovered a new strain of red-tailed native trout?

After a long day’s catching and releasing, we’d earned a Sunday night meat feast of heroic proportions: another of Rich’s legendary Northern BBQs, to which we’d invited Ian Oates of the Calder and Colne Rivers Trust.

In the nicest possible way we grilled him too, whilst his years of local knowledge and river-mending experience proved once again that “tha can tell a Yorkshireman, but tha can’t tell him much”, and kept us all swapping fishy tales of derring-do well into the small hours.

Trout swam predictably through our dreams, and woke us even keener to get out onto the water again, where Monday’s fine drizzle triggered hatches of midges and large dark olives on the finest river West Yorkshire could offer…

… opening the season with wild trout on dry flies before the long wet drive home. Five men’s mission accomplished, in fact!

Leaving Slovenia, I found myself in the back of the Renault 5, laden with fishing tackle and surrounded by that all-too-familiar wet wader smell. With Rich and Duncan in the front, we were driving at breakneck speed over the foothills of the Julian Alps – essentially a series of meanders and tunnels – on a mission to cross the border into Austria and get to Obervellach in time to check into our hotel.

Our plan was to fish the Kelag waters of the River Moll, a tributary of the Drau in the Carinthia/ East Tyrol region of Austria. It holds brown, brook and rainbow trout and Danubian-strain grayling. Even though spirits were high, we were aware that there had been recent rainfall and that the rivers would probably not be in the best of shape.

Duncan’s masterful map reading ensured that we finally arrived at the Hotel Alpenhof, just in time to book in, settle in and turn in, as the following day would see us up at the crack of dawn. Obervellach, a quintissentially alpine village with all the trimmings, is nestled in a valley, surrounded by  looming mountains. It is also the kind of place where folk don’t blink at others in tight lederhosen, nor think twice about the yodeling coming from the adjacent hotel room at 1am.

After a gargantuan breakfast (including the complementary preparation of sandwiches for lunch), the following morning saw us queuing at the town hall for our ‘Fischergastkarte’ and maps of the river. Tickets in hand, we headed off for our first taste of these promising glacial waters.

Seeing that the water was high and slightly coloured we decided to fish rigs with an indicator and 3 flies: ‘all pimped up’ as Duncan put it.  We slowly worked our way upstream, methodically covering likely holding spots (quieter back eddies) which rewarded us with the odd fish.

We soon spotted a likely looking bend (where the water split into two channels) and waded downstream into action. The three of us were  soon into fish, Rich doing particularly well – including a fine example of a brook trout. Before darkness fell we spent the best part of a 3 hour purple patch on this very productive stretch, and came away with wide boyish grins on our faces. This was what we were here for!

That night saw us celebrating with good food at some bar called ‘crazy’, followed by drinks, darts and somewhere else with snakes – but that’s another story. Bed was a godsend and we emerged next morning for another impressive breakfast and large dose of Nurofen.

We settled the bill, checked out of the hotel and drove to Stall in order to purchase our day tickets for Gosnitz lake and the upper Moll – from Rakowitzen down to Gosnitz. With only a half day before we had to head back to Slovenia and then the UK, we decided to try out a couple of good looking sections. I found the fishing harder than the previous day, though still we all managed to pick up the odd fish, including our first Austrian browns (size isn’t everything!) for two of us… and I swear there was a monster in my hands a second ago!

All in all, the trip was a resounding success; good company, educational and most importantly, the lingering knowledge that we’ll need a return trip to do these rivers justice.

Anyone for lederhosen and wiener schnitzel?

… but still never knew for certain whether our schools’ farmed-strain trout had ever started spawning successfully in the Wandle.

Finally, here’s proof provided by our already-award-winning Anglers’ Riverfly Monitoring Initiative: after 80-plus years, trout have begun breeding again in South London.

Yesterday morning, Duncan and I were doing our monthly kick-sample on the Hackbridge stretch of the river, shuffling in the gravels and sweeping a net through the ranunculus just downstream from the Wandle’s first flow deflector to dislodge olive nymphs, freshwater shrimp, caddis: all important invertebrates that act as a proxy test for water quality, and tell us about the health of the river’s food web.

And when we tipped the contents of our net into a bucket of water to start sorting and counting the bugs… there was a tiny swim-up brown trout fry.

This year’s Trout in the Classroom releases aren’t scheduled to start until later this week.

So this tiny trout, carefully photographed and released, can only have been a wild fish, hatched just weeks ago from a gravel spawning redd near Shepley Mill.

(Duncan and I are both self-employed realists, out on the Wandle in all weathers, and more accustomed than most to the ups and downs of her fortunes.  But it’s only fair to say that, as the full enormity of what we’d discovered sank in, we whooped triumphantly… and then shook hands very solemnly in the middle of the river).

Within months, we hope that the older cousins of the barbel and dace stocked here last December will also use these same gravel shallows for their own spawning.

It’s a brilliant vindication of the Wandle Trust’s and Wandle Piscators’ strategy to work with the Environment Agency, the Wild Trout Trust and many other partners to improve adult and juvenile habitat for all fish species on this stretch of the Wandle – and a massive boost for our ongoing mission to improve water quality, clean gravels, and open up fish passage throughout the river.

80 years on, trout are breeding again in the Wandle.

Now we just need to make sure they can do it again, and again, and again.

Sit three club members round a pub table, ply them with beverage, and as can only be expected a fishing trip is born.

Not just any old fishing trip I should add, but one that would take three members to continental Europe and the renowned rivers of Slovenia and Austria.

The plan was to fish the rivers Sava Bohinjka, Radovna and the Upper Soca, before driving across the northern border into Austria to fish the river Moll.

Unfortunately, the weather had her say and turned our initial plan on its head. However, these three intrepid members’ resolve were not to be dampened  and after a quick phone call, Branco Gasparin confirmed our stay at Villa Noblesa, a veritable fisherman’s paradise nestled amid some of Slovenia’s best known rivers (the Soca and some of its tributaries; Idrijca, Trebuscica, Baca, Tolminka etc).

After an early wake up call, coffee, a shuttle to Stanstead, more coffee, and a 2-hour flight, Rich and I found ourselves outside the airport in Ljubljana, greeted not only by dark threatening clouds from the east and their accompanying rain, but also a beaming Duncan and his Renault 5 – a car, which on first sight raised an eyebrow or two, but went on to more than prove itself as a fishing mobile extraordinaire.

We drove west to Most-na-Soci, stopping in Idrijca for dinner and a quick look at the Upper Idrijca, which was running clear to our relief and – just to whet our appetites – where we spotted our first fish of the trip. Tempting as it was, we continued to our lodgings, which constituted a modern cabin fitted with everything a fisherman could wish for.

Upon arrival we were greeted by Branco and his wife, Vlasta and were fortunate enough to run into Marjan Fratnik – of F-Fly fame – and Lucijen Rejec – president of the Tolmin Angling Club – and chatted for a while… but that is a different story. We got our licenses for the next day and turned in for the night.

Next morning we were up early for a hearty breakfast before heading off to the Trebuscica – a tributary of the Idrijca. Technical by any standards, it is a peach of a river that throws up surprises and, more importantly, educates.

It also holds a good head of marbled trout (salmo marmoratus). We spent the morning coaxing trout and adriatic grayling (or at least trying to) out of the river’s nooks and crannies before heading off to lunch and an assault on the Lower Idrijca, where we were entertained by feisty rainbows amid breathtaking alpine scenery.

After getting up at the crack of dawn, wolfing down some much needed breakfast, we packed all our gear into the back of the Renault and sped off, along Slovenia’s narrow and winding roads, to the Upper Idrijca. The fishing was not as hard and fast as the previous day but both brown trout and grayling were caught – most to Branco’s ‘killer fly’.

Reports were coming in that many of the rivers up north were running high. Rich, who had visited Austria the year before (see related blog), was sure that there would be fishable areas, and with this reassurance, and the fact that a large brown trout had recently been caught there, it was time to head north. Austria beckoned.

The moment we arrived at Rich’s fishing retreat in the gorgeous village of Delph, our alert-level went from ‘excited’ to ‘quite seriously excited’. Any house that has rods hanging from the ceiling, waders on the coat hook, and a trout –themed kitchen clock is instantly going to make a fisherman feel at home. And this place had a dedicated beer fridge too.

After sampling Delph’s finest fish & chips on Friday evening, Saturday morning started – how else? – with a hearty breakfast, fully contained in a bap (the secret is scrambled rather than fried egg).

‘Pimped-up’ to the eyeballs with our ready-tied multi-nymph rigs and strike indicators, we then set out across the frosty moors, still heavy with snow in places, towards Halifax and the River Calder.

This was a river we could sympathise with. Once heavily milled and polluted (like our very own Wandle), it’s now in great condition and holds a good number of decent-sized trout and grayling. We spent the morning trying our luck in an urban location, and the afternoon further out in a steep valley. The skies were clear blue, the weather crisp, the sun shone, and we all had a great time exploring a new river and seeking out likely looking lies. But we didn’t catch many fish. In fact, if Adrian hadn’t managed to snare a grayling before he decided to take a swim in an unforeseen pothole, we’d have notched up a team blank.

By the time we finished up, we were pretty seriously cold (not as cold as Adrian, obviously) and looking forward to some sustenance and warmth. Heating cranked up to the max, we drove back to Saddleworth via some stunning views in time to whip John’s melt-in-the-mouth slow-cooked lamb out of the oven, stick the boots in front of the woodburner, explode custard in the microwave, and tie up some flies for the next day. We also found time for a hotly competed pool tournament down the local pub where OB-John Kanobi proved he’s not just a great cook, but a bit of a hustler too.

Sunday morning dawned much the same as Saturday. But today as the fishermen bit into their breakfast baps, there was a certain glint of steely determination to be detected in every eye. Yesterday we’d let the fish of the Calder have an easy time of it. Today was the River Holme, and we had some serious catching to do.

The Holme, a tributary of the Colne, is smaller than the Calder. Adrian and I had recce’d it on Friday evening and managed a quick couple of grayling – so we knew it held fish. But we weren’t quite ready for the 180-degree turnaround on the day before. Within a couple of casts we were catching fish – half-pound or so grayling, almost all going for size 16 pheasant tail patterns. The usually deadly Pink Panther was spurned (these were proper northern fish, and weren’t interested in any of this poncey pink rubbish). They were gorgeous fish -  not huge, but feisty in the extreme. There were of a couple of big ones that got away, plus JOB and Rich both had an out-of-season trout. And Theo’s camouflage fleece helped him get on top of a couple of crackers.

The Holme was a lovely river to fish – part fast and sinuous riffles, part sedentary pools, and all held fish. Between the five of us we must have managed around 80.

We called it a day with time in hand to return to Delph for fish & chips (or ‘baby’s head’ in Adrian’s case). It was with great reluctance that we shut the door on ‘Off Lodge’, but we returned to London on Sunday night five very satisfied fishermen, itching to return to see what future adventures could be had in Yorkshire.

Here’s the full text of our press release, complete with all the details:

Fishermen from a South London angling club, the Wandle Piscators, will be helping the Environment Agency to monitor salmon and sea trout in the River Wandle during the 2010 salmon and sea trout season.

The Thames Region salmon and sea trout fishing season does not start officially until 1^st April, and runs until 30^th September. 

But following accounts of migratory fish being captured in the Wandle in early 2009, Wandle Piscators coarse anglers who brave the winter weather are being asked to take scale samples of any sea trout or salmon that turn up accidentally in their catch, using special sampling kits provided by the Environment Agency.

The fish will then be carefully released to continue their journey, and hopefully spawn.  When the scale samples are examined, scientists will be able to determine how old the fish are, how long they have spent at sea and in fresh water, how far they are able to swim up the river past weirs and other obstructions, and even (by DNA analysis) where they or their parental stock originated.

As part of this important monitoring project, the Wandle Piscators and the Environment Agency are also very keen to hear from other local coarse fishermen who accidentally catch out-of-season Wandle salmon or sea trout – and photographs and measurements of any fish caught would be very helpful.

During the Middle Ages, the River Wandle was as famous for its trout as the Thames was well-known for its salmon.  As a tributary of the Thames, the Wandle is likely to have supported a population of salmon, and provided spawning areas for Thames fish, until weirs constructed for milling blocked their migratory route, and the Thames itself became too polluted.

Efforts have been made since 1979 to restore a self-sustaining population of salmon in the Thames, and many juvenile fish were stocked into Thames tributaries by the Thames Salmon Trust (now the Thames Rivers Restoration Trust).

In spring 2005 the Wandle Trust also stocked one of its Trout in the Classroom tanks with salmon eggs, and around 20 little salmon fry were released into the Wandle at Hackbridge in May 2005.

Despite a serious pollution incident in September 2007, the Wandle is recovering from its polluted industrial history, and is already a well-known mixed urban chalkstream fishery, with good numbers of chub, dace, roach, and barbel boosted by Environment Agency stockings every year.  The Wandle is also a major stronghold for southern England’s declining population of eels.

If the Wandle Piscators are successful in catching salmon and sea trout, and collecting data, this will help local conservationists secure additional funding and make even more improvements to the River Wandle, as part of the 5-year Living Wandle project sponsored by Thames Water.  In turn, this will directly benefit all species of fish in the river, as well as birds, animals and insects.

Local Environment Agency Fisheries Officer Tanya Houston commented:

“Reports of recent salmon and sea trout caught in the Wandle are very interesting.  One of the photos that I was sent in early 2009 year looked just like a salmon kelt (a salmon which has already spawned).  There is a very good chance that salmon and sea trout are using the Wandle: if we can show this to be true, it will be another fantastic sign of improvement. ”

Salmon and trout caught as a by-catch from coarse fishing are of interest to the Wandle Piscators and the Environment Agency, but anglers should not be deliberately targeting these fish until the salmon and trout close season ends on 31^st March.

Local anglers who catch salmon from the Wandle are asked to contact the Environment Agency on 0208 3054806 so that scales and vital details can be taken to help this important study.  Photographs of any salmon, sea trout or large trout caught are also very helpful. 

For more information or to request a scale sampling kit, please contact William Tall on 07710 322 800 or the Environment Agency as above.