The stretch
below the Mill to the end of the cricket field belonged to Salisbury and
District Angling Club. The little stretch was only about 100 yards in length at
that time. Years later they would negotiate the fishing rights to more than a
mile of the river down through to Britford, but for now we were restricted to
this short length. In the winter, when the weed beds had died down and there
was a bit more depth to the water, large shoals of dace would make their way up
river from Britford.
They would be
harassed by many pike who would tend to hunt in packs and herd the dace
upstream to the last bit of slightly deeper water before the shallower straight
bit alongside the island just below the Mill. There is a double bend about 80
yards downstream of the Mill and just past the little island. It bends first to
the right and then to the left. Where it begins to turn to the left the rush of
the water off the bend has scoured into the bank causing a deeper hole and this
is the area that the dace shoals are herded into by the pike.
One
particular day in January I was fortunate to witness the herding of the dace by
quite a few pike. It was to become a memorable session for me. It became the
easiest fishing I have ever had. Where I was sat the current pushed over to me
from the far bank. I began loose feeding at the very end of my 12ft rod. The
float would trot along only about 10ft to my right and would bury itself every
time. In fact the dace were taking my bait only a foot past the end of my rod
after about an hour. There must have been hundreds of dace down there. I only
fished for just over 2 hours and I put 48lb of dace into my keep net. During
the session I also landed 2 pike over the 10lb mark. They grabbed the dace as I
was trying to land them.
The whole
situation started to get out of hand as I ran the gauntlet with the pike every
time I hooked a dace and had to get my fish out as quickly as possible. Then
after about 2 hours the pike started to attack my keep net. I became very
worried that my net would tear and all my fish would escape, so, reluctantly, I
decided to finish my short session.
A club
committee member witnessed what had happened and helped me to weigh my catch. I
sent the particulars of my catch to the Anglers Mail, witnessed by this other
club member and later I won a fishing rod in their weekly competition for my
exploits.
The swim was
taken every weekend until the end of the season after that. I don’t know how
other anglers faired in the swim or indeed if the phenomena took place at other
times. I suppose somebody, somewhere knows. I often wonder how the swim fishes
these days, almost 40 years later, but I am scared of what I might find if I
return to the stretch. Will it be a shadow of its former? When I think of it, I would like to remember
it as it was, a wonderful experience. I have always been disappointed when
returning to my old fishing grounds around Salisbury since the rivers demise. I couldn't bear to see how they have been decimated so I will leave it.
There was a
slightly funny happening regarding the fishing rod that I won. When it arrived
through the post, I unpacked it and decided to go out into my garden to
assemble it. It was a very windy day and as I went out of my back door the wind
caught it and the door crushed the end of the second section. I was mortified.
I hadn't even had the chance to fish with it and it was destroyed. There was a
happy ending though. The Anglers Mail agreed to send me another rod, which they
did. They told me that I needn't send it back and that they would claim on
their insurance to cover the cost.
I took the
rod to a mate of mine at work and he used a form of resin to repair the damaged
rod. A mate of mine bought it from me for £20, so I was well pleased with the
outcome.
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