In terms of fly fishing, it’s a good compromise between a small, well-stocked fishery and the places where wild trout live – lean and wiry browns and rainbows.
Amazingly, I had left my house in south-east London only an hour earlier. Usually, these Saturday morning fishing excursions take me to somewhere far more prosaic – a pond maybe, a canal, a river. But this …. I can’t really believe I am here. The transition from suburb to wilderness has been too sudden, as if I have been thrust into a dream.
There was one other person fishing the damn, at the far end, she told me. She sold me some lures, minkies and a fluorescent blob (I don’t think she was really an expert) and I set off. Christ, this was a proper walk! At first I stuck to the top of the dam, where there was a narrow, level path. About halfway across, I could make out a tiny human figure on the far side of the lake. After that, I struck down diagonally across the sloping concrete shelf. He, or she, didn’t seem to be casting. Was it the fisherman? (Trout hunters are predominantly male.)
His name was Will. Same as me. This seemed a good omen. He had been fishing a good couple of hours and caught nothing. He was a beginner, like me. This was only his third time out. There is a stony beach here and the edge of the lake is touched by Chingley Wood – a mixed patch of ancient oak, beech and birch woodland. If this was a less regulated country, you could camp in the wood, come down to the bank at dawn to fish and light a small fire to keep you warm. But you can’t. This is England. Every square inch of land is owned by some officious busy-body, who is probably watching you even now, just waiting to jump out and start waiving their fist.
There was just me and Will and two or three boats out on the lake. It was an empty, misty world, faintly tinged with woodsmoke. And silent. Weirdly silent. This was the mini-wilderness that I had yearned of, sitting behind my office desk or buying colourful, exotic flies at the Orvis fishing shop in Regent Street. Now it had been strangely delivered to me, as if I was a character in a Raymond Carver short story.
The few boats on the lake were on this side. That could mean something. Will had tried every conceivable fly and lure. Nothing. You could see from his occasional disconsolate casts, that he had become discouraged. I knew the feeling. You start out confidently, then slowly, cast by cast, you begin to give up. You need to have people around you who know more about the local water and the habits of the fish than you do. That’s how you learn.
I set off a little way down the bank so that we would not be two beginners together – anyway, there is a bank etiquette about how far you should be from the next fisherman. It’s a quick set up. Assemble the rod (in this case a 6/7 Airflo), attach reel to handle, thread line through rings, attach leader to line (a delicate length of fluorocarbon), tie fly, or lure, to the leader. Cast. That’s it. If you are lucky, or knowledgeable and well-equipped, you will get a take in the first few casts. Often, the trout will follow your fly through the water and it will bite just as you are about to lift the line. Bites (there is no float – you must watch the line where it enters the water) can be subtle to the point of near invisibility, except to a practised eye.
The is no messy ground bait or bulky gear to carry around, like clanking medieval armour, no maggots. Nothing electric requiring batteries. You only need one bag and a vest with pockets – at minimum, flies, a spool of leader, a zinger with your line clipper and some forceps. That’s why fly fishing appeals to me.
Aware of the slouched figure of Will in my peripheral vision I fished for a couple of hours. As the morning progressed it became colder and more wilderness-like. Will left. Nothing was happening. I tried cat’s whiskers, the bright orange blob, dull-looking nymphs (imitating just-hatched flies, rising through the water) … No bites. This was what they call ‘hard fishing’. From the damn wall, the water was dark and viscous, like oil. Its surface was eerily calm. There were a couple of boats nearby. One was hugging the conning tower that juts out of the lake near the dam, like a giant concrete lollipop. In it were two Polish guys. They were spinning for rainbows and it had worked for them. Two fish caught.
I did not know, but the water level was extremely low, following a thirsty summer in south-east England, making catching from the bank unlikely and the lake had not been re-stocked since October. Also, I was using the wrong tactics.
Rob told me. At one o’clock, I trudged miserably back across the damn to the fishing lodge. Here, wet, cold, fed up and splattered with mud, I fortunately bumped into him. Based at Bewl, Rob Barden is a registered fly casting coach and an authority on catching trout by this method. He had taught me the basics of casting (which is really difficult to master) on this very lake in the summer.
He’s a patient and painstaking soul, but not a pedant. A perfect teacher. Rob took me back across the lake in his boat, to the spot where I should have been. It was on the other side of Chingley wood, where a spur of water juts down into the Weald, like a dragon’s claw. The trout would be on the shoulder of the bank, Rob said, just there. Try for twenty minutes, then move down. Use dark lures. The trout will see them as silhouettes against the winter sky. However, he said that the chances of a bank catch were not high. There is always a reason why the fish aren’t biting. The water is too cold, or too hot. It’s the wrong time of year. It’s always the wrong time of year. Of course, the day before you turned up, the fish will have been virtually jumping onto the bank and they will be the day after. Also, each friendly expert will give you different advice on why your cast is wrong and say, definitively, that what you have just read in a book is rubbish.
But Rob knows what he is talking about. He has been living on and around this lake since the day that it opened for business. At least, now, I knew that what I was doing approximately right and why I was failing. That made all the difference, although I did not, that day, bag a specimen of Oncorhynchus mykiss, the prized rainbow trout. The record for Bewl water is 18 lb.
Three hours later, dusk was falling. I had used up all of my dark lures (woolly buggers and black minkies) snagged or stuck in vegetation. I had tried fishing from a huge, slippery tree trunk that jutted out of the water like a prop from King Lear. Big mistake. It was time to jack it in – always a difficult calculation for the fisherman, balancing optimism versus expediency. To trudge back around the lake would take at least an hour …. uh oh. I remembered the time, also trout fishing, that I had got lost in a wood in the London borough of Bromley. Fishing is obsessive and obsession can lead to errors of judgement. I had phoned my housemate almost crying with laughter, because it was so ridiculous. Hello, is that mountain rescue?
I heard a chugging sound. I looked up. The bow of Rob’s fibreglass boat rode high, as it was propelled by a powerful outboard motor across the lake. Rob took me back to where we had started – the wooden jetty in front of the lodge. Fishing and hunting places are always called lodges. I was happy now. I am still learning the basics and, today, I had learnt some stuff – nuggets of wisdom that might make me more likely to catch a fish next time.
