When Time Stood Still

(This story originally appeared as one of the fishing blogs on FishingRecreation.com)

There are certain places in every city and town where if you stand and look around what you see is what you could have seen many years ago. Old buildings that have escaped development and old tree's that have avoided the chainsaw shield many a little oasis from the modern world. For me in my once quiet but now over developed little town, the spot where time stands still is on a treasured section of riverbank which is shielded on one side by the ruins of a sixteenth century castle and on the other by a line of ancient beech tree's. The little river runs along almost under the wall of the old castle and here the stream quietens and slows until a pool is formed, a famous pool, favored by both anglers and seatrout. I have fished this pool at night for seatrout for forty two years, my father fished here for sixty years and my grandfather first fished this pool in 1890. Standing on the bank of this pool, nothing has changed over all that time..the view I see from here is virtually identical to what my grandfather and father saw when they fished here and thats not the only similarity. For as I followed in the footsteps of my father and grandfather so the generations of seatrout have also returned year after year. Most years they are very plentiful and by late June fresh trout are coming in on every tide, however the seatrout of this river are restless and some return to sea after a few days only to come and go several times during the summer until the arrival of Autumn compels them to run upriver, through the ancient oakwood and up to the fast gravelly streams of the boggy upland. There are also years when fish are scarce and as their lives in the river are well known, this scarcity is almost certainly the result of some calamity at sea..This season just gone 2009 was thankfully a year of plenty when the fish returned in force lead by some heavy specimens which would test the tackle and expertise of any angler. One night in particular from July 2009 stands out from all the others. After many weeks of rain all the bigger rivers were much too high for night fishing but our little stream which is less than eight miles in length and on average twelve feet wide drops rapidly after a flood and four days of dry weather is all that is needed for the water to fine down enough for night fishing. Such a night came last July. The moon was in it's final quarter and while even this much light would affect the fishing on some rivers, the shade of the castle and the tree's on the river bank completely blotted out any light. The rod I choose was a extra lightweight twelve ft. three piece and the fly, a single teal, blue and silver with some added local color. After about twenty minutes of casting something became very obvious...the pool was alive with seatrout!....I remember as a child my father lifted me onto the wall of the bridge near the castle and pointed out a shoal of white trout which covered the whole area inside the bridge, and as far downriver as I could see seatrout of all sizes were lined up side by side like soldiers waiting for the order to advance, and in a way they were. For this was a wet Autumn day after a dry summer and as we waited the first signs of an approaching flood began to appear. Leaves, thousands of leaves which were barely clinging to weeds and overhanging branches were instantly released with the first few inches of flood water and came floating down the quickening steam in huge numbers. The seatrout too were starting to move. After a summer of waiting all they wanted to do was to get upriver as fast as fast as possible. We were just able to see the "leader" of the seatrout move under the bridge and head upriver before the rising floodwater obscured them completely....when the flood cleared after a few days every one had gone....Every cast, or so it seemed brought a response from a seatrout, but as sometimes happens, although the trout were active, they were missing the fly for some reason, most were coming up short and others were very lightly hooked. After an hour and half of exciting but frustrating fishing all I had to show was two seatrout of one and half pounds each. The forecast was for more rain so it was tonight or nothing, Every river no matter how small has it's own local fishing methods and what I decided to try next has been used on this river for countless years. Mind you I have used it on many rivers with some success and it was initially passed on to me by an old angler during my early days. I removed the fly and replaced it with a bare size twelve hook. On this I put a small worm about two inches in length and using no weight I began to fish the worm in almost exactly the same manner as I would a fly. Except that is, I drew the worm along the surface of the water around two feet at a time. The seatrout were just as active as before but this time they took that little bit more positively and sport was pretty hectic. I lost many after a second or two but I brought thirteen to the bank, the biggest was seven pounds, the smallest one and half. I kept two and returned the rest. I must explain that fishing the worm in this fashion does not always work but when the seatrout are in a taking mood but coming short to the fly it can be deadly. Also the worm is meant to simulate an elver(tiny eel) which skitter across the surface of the water usually of warm still nights. Seatrout will often take these elvers, give them a few bites and drop them again. This method is also deadly for big brown trout who have a great liking for elvers....This was the only nights seatrout fishing I had this year due to the constant high water, but at the moment many big seatrout can be seen showing near the castle as the evening draws in. It will be interesting to observe them spawning during early-mid November and most will have returned to sea before the salmon arrive to spawn during early December.