Here’s a guide to help you flick your fly in the right places and catch some of the prettiest brownies. Charles Rangeley Wilson selects the UK’s and Ireland’s best trout rivers for fly fishing
Charles Rangeley Wilson has selected the top ten trout rivers of the UK and Ireland. The top 10 trout rivers are from the Lyon, in Perthshire to the Piddle, in Dorset or the Suir, in Ireland. Also, we’ll show you the best trout flies.
The Field offers a variety of recipes to help you cook your catch. The shakshuka recipe with trout, asparagus and saffron is a versatile dish that can be served for brunch, lunch, or a light supper. Try Malaysian styled trout in a spicy sambul-style sauce.
Top 10 Trout Rivers
EAST LYN
The East Lyn was my first choice when I lived the South West. In March and early April, the Lyn’s sheltered gorge off Exmoor is a great place to catch an early hatch. There’s no hurry to fishing here in spring: start late and fish on through till tea. The Lyn’s fizzy little trout will attack them like rattlesnakes. You will need a lightweight rod and be able to view a fish of 12oz as a specimen. There’s a great pub in Rockford for somewhere to stay, eat, drink and buy permits: The Rockford Inn.
It is a good idea to use the following:
This is one of the best rivers for all-round game in England. It has record-breaking graylings, sea-trouts, brown trouts, and if not record-breaking salmon, at least bloody large ones. The story (“A Dry Fly Record”, Fishing Gazette, 11 September 1907) of Filleul’s monster 13lb brownie landed in the dark in a clothes basket on the outskirts of Dorchester sums up this river’s ability to surprise. But for plain old sublime dry fl y-fi shing, for big hatches and game, free-rising wild trout, head upstream to the fat of the river between Dorchester and Maiden Newton on the 30th of May – give or take a fortnight. Richard Slocock provides permits for Maiden Newton, Frampton Grimstone, and Wrackleford beats: Visit Go Fly Fishing.
PIDDLE
The Frome’s neighbour and also inclined to throw up the odd surprise – such as a 200lb sturgeon back in the day. The Wessex streams are scruffy, unpretentious, and I like that. There is a lushness in the Dorset water-meadows that is reflected in their fat fish. There aren’t many rivers that can breed bruisers like the Piddle: solid fish that will spin your reel handle into your knuckles. Before you even bother telling anyone, a trout must weigh 4lbs. This is an early river – it’s all over by late June. Mid-May is the best time to fish. Richard Slocock, the gatekeeper of beats in Warren Lane, Culeaze Throop Briantspuddle, Tolpuddle, Go Fly Fishing, is Richard Slocock.
The River Piddle in Dorset is a small river that starts near Alton Pancras.
ITCHEN
I love chalkstreams: constant, cool, fertile – they make the best of trout rivers. Or they would do if we hadn’t sacrificed them to cheap food and easy water. Few rivers flow as they should. But the Itchen tops the list. This is true in that the Itchen is the epitome of a chalk-river: the most clear water, the largest hatches, and the pickiest fish. In the few miles that separate the Worthys from Alresford, it’s as perfect as you can get in this blousy valley with its boggy, snipey fields. It fishes well all season long, trout rise on the upper river all the time – it is phenomenal. And up here it isn’t stocked either. There is no easy way to access this river, but you can keep your eye on the Wild Trout Trust’s auction for days.
USK
A river I used to fish all the time but hadn’t been back to for years until last April, when I reminded myself all over again how fab it is. The Usk is a river that rises from red sandstone, but also flows over limestone. It’s a fertile, large river that has big fish and big hatches. I’m not sure I have ever fished the Usk without catching a trout that nudged 2lb. Spring is the best time to visit, as march browns and dark olives hatch and trout are active like disco balls. It used to be difficult to access the river, but a new passport system has made it easy to access large tracts with a day ticket: Wye Usk Foundation.
DERBYSHIRE DERBYSHIRE
Auden wrote a poetry Limestone – A Stone Worth Praise The End When I try to imagine an unfailing love/Or a life to come, I hear the murmur/Of underground rivers, and I see a limestone landscape. It’s like saying a limestone landscape on Earth is heaven. It is. It is. “Mark these rounded slopes/With their surface fragrance of thyme and, beneath,/A secret system of caves and conduits; hear the springs/That spurt out everywhere with a chuckle,/Each filling a private pool for its fish and carving/Its own little ravine whose cliffs entertain/The butterfly and the lizard.” Last summer I fished for a day through a landscape like this and if I had one day left or an eternity of days just the same, I’d choose it again. If you haven’t fished the Derbyshire Wye you haven’t fished. Access is available through Cressbrook & Litton Fly Fishers, and The Peacock in Rowsley.
TAY
When the Tay shines it will allow you to fish for trout in a new dimension. I’ve cast size 22 gnats to 7lb trout in a river 50yd wide. I’ve caught two dozen fish in a non-stop June evening, none of which weighed less than a pound and one of which dragged me 200yd downriver. I’ve hooked fish I swore were boulders but for the fact they were swimming. The Tay is an inscrutable trout stream all right, but when it smiles – wow! My favorite spots are Dunkeld (tickets available at the Spar Shop in Birnam (perthshire), tel. 01350 727395), and Kenmore (tickets purchased from the Post Office on The Square in Kenmore, Perthshire (tel. 01887 830200).
LYON
Like its downstream cousin the Lyon is moody. In fact, the Lyon is bipolar. There are days when you’ll swear there is nothing in it. There are also days when the water boils up like porridge. The Lyon has miles of nothing with pockets of trout and runs. Or a big trout. The Lyon must be winklepicked. And you have to cover a large area, choosing where to invest your time. You’ll learn it by being there when it lights up, by seeing the fish where you thought there were none. There are some big fish in that glen. Did I also mention that this is the most beautiful spot in Scotand. Permits can be obtained at the Post Office in Glen Lyon (Bridge of Balgie), tel. 01887 866221.
SOUSCRIRE
It was thirteen years ago that I saw the River Suir in June at noon, on an unbearably hot day. There were only a few small fish on the far bank of a wide river, and they moved just once. The place looked underwhelming and I might have left but Andy Ryan told me to hang about, mentioning – in that take-it-or-leave-it manner which in Ireland signifies a pearler – that the bluewinged olives might get along a bit before long. It was the first time I had ever seen such a fall or hatch. A plague from the Bible. A sky that is darkening. And later, as the real dark fell, the river like fly soup, and trout rising in it – spotty whales gorging on krill. Fly Fishing Ireland has access.
AWBEG
I had six days here the same year I found the Suir and can’t think why I’ve not been back, but for the fear it might not be as good. It flowed through meadows of wild orchids, with only an occasional cow. It flowed quickly between green beards and curled up in the deeper parts like a serpent. Then it dropped into a cold, deep wood. It was stuffed to the brim with trout. They weren’t massive, though they were fat. Nowhere else has the match the hatch crossword puzzle been presented in such a cryptic manner. It’s like nibbling on your tippet until it is numb. Prepare yourself to change your fly 50 times within one evening. Fly Fishing Ireland is the place to go for access.
Original selection in May 2009.
Best Trout Fishing Flies
As for the top five flies you’ll need to fish these heavenly spots… you won’t go far wrong with these.
Keep a Parachute Adams with you at all times. Carry it in all sizes, 12 through to 20 and you’ll do a decent job of matching most hatches, mayfly through to teeny olives.
Elk Hair Caddis can take on a significant portion of the aquatic insect kingdom. Sizes 12 to 20 are available again.
Going underwater one fly will catch fish no matter what: a Hare’s Ear Nymph. You can either tie them yourself, or you can order them with black beads. Make sure that they are not too fat, nor overdressed. In all honesty, you won’t really need another nymph.
The Hawthorne is a long-legged creature that’s blown onto rivers in the early part of the season. The pattern also looks like many other flies with gangly legs, such as midges, beetles, or ants. Trout will jump all season on these insects.
You can also get Sherry Spinners in different sizes. You won’t need it often but when you do, on late summer evenings, nothing else will suffice.
The Ones That Got Away
My top 10 list will spark a debate with those who disagree (almost everyone), and in particular, those whose favorite haunt isn’t on it. I could have written about so many others: in the South West the Dart and the Barle – both fabulous moorland streams like the Lyn. I left out the rivers of the Chalk Country, such as the Wylye or the Ebble. They run into the Wiltshire Avon. In the north, I have left out the Eden, the Swale and the Ure. How could I have missed the Don or Tweed in Scotland? It is my personal top 10. The list is made of rivers I’m familiar with and where you can fish too. If I had to confine my efforts from here on in to 10 only – well, I’d stick to these.
