Week 55

Week 55

A wet and windy week, Gales at the start although no tree damage to speak off, the river rose a few inches and coloured up considerably. We now have “spare water that I can send down the millstream by opening the hatch by the mill house a notch at a time. The current Cast Iron hatch and winding gear was installed in the mid nineteenth century by an Andover company and still works perfectly. Along with a set of manually inserted boards in a hatch at the top of the millstream it allows water to be diverted down the main river or the millstream. It is possible to completely drain the millstream, or reduce the river to a series of still pools depending upon how you have the boards. A good sign at this time of the year is to have to open the hatch by the millstream by one or two notches a week. This indicates that the rain we have had has been steady and a lot of it has got down through the soil to the aquifer. Heavy rain and fast run off and the hatch is opened half a dozen notches and closed by as many a day or two later as the rain runs off straight into the river. At the moment the river is about where I would expect for this time of the year.
With perfect weather conditions we had another crack at the Ducks, but the numbers were disappointing. The pond was frozen for a week, and many may have found other places to feed and overnight. We did see a few Teal that dropped like bombs onto the pond, but most Mallard were paired up. Otis retrieved his first Duck in the dark, a challenging drake Mallard that had become trapped in the stopper wave of a small weir. Zebo and I were most impressed although Otis appeared a little nonplussed.
I have held off starting the tinning this week because of the rise in water and will look to start next week. The fencing around the stew ponds is now complete bar a couple of doors and grills. I may also stretch some wires over the top of the whole area to further deter Herons and Cormorants.
Twice this week while driving up the road I have disturbed the Merlin who visits this parish every winter. Flushing him from the ground or low in the hedge he hugs the road in a dipping flight ten yards in front of the truck for a short while before veering off through a gap in the hedge, sometimes it seems that he is waiting for a car to race to demonstrate his flying prowess.
Next week we have our last shoot of the season, the morning routine will change, no more treks up to the two game cover strips. The Maize still has many cobs on so I will roll the whole lot flat to feed the remaining pheasants and also provide some pigeon shooting through February, all of the outlying pheasant feeders will be brought down into the wood to encourage a few hens to hang around and lay.
I have often wondered why cows in a field, sheep on a hill, deer in a wood will take the same indiscriminate path across an open space; A daily plod from A to B declining to take a straight route but meandering like a slow moving river. At this time of the year with the grass dormant and frosts rampant I can see that I do precisely the same. Crossing an open paddock on my morning feed round taking the same wandering path from one side to the other when a straight line would have saved a few steps and seconds, subconsciously content in the route that I know.

Week 54

Week 54

The weather warmed up this week, a difference of twenty degrees from last weeks nighttime low of minus twelve to a daytime highest temperature this week of plus eight. We have also had several welcome spells of prolonged rain, colouring the river up and lifting it a few inches. On the warmer days there was a hatch of fly early in the afternoon, mostly small stuff with the odd Olive, but enough to get some of the Grayling feeding on the surface. The odd Brown Trout in the river is showing signs of fungal infection, although the fish in the stew ponds are clear. The fish in the hatchery are feeding well now; losses to gas bubble diseased caused by a dearth of dissolved oxygen in the spring water have been minimal this year.
I have moved the fry from the hatching trough into a much bigger eight foot by four-foot tank. It is easier to keep clean and the fish have plenty of room so don’t pick up fin deformities early in their life. If you want nice natural looking stockfish then space, low stocking densities and good water flow are key. I t may make less economic sense to put fewer fish in a pond to grow on but it is really a choice between quality and quantity.
Several years ago an artist friend of my employer came for the day to take some photographs of Trout for reference with an underwater camera. We got several freshly killed fish from a variety of sources and spent a morning sewing fine fishing line into parts of their body so that they could be held like puppets in a particular pose underwater. The toned and firm muscled fish that had spent much of its life in fast flowing water with only a few friends for company struck any pose you threw at him. The flaccid fleshed fish from a densely stocked pond struggled to hold any pose at all no matter how many strings were pulled.

We have more and more Little Egrets in the area at the moment, along with the Geese that have turned up in the meadow upstream from us. We also have a huge number of Pigeons on the fields around us with the farm putting out several gas guns to boom away and keep them on the move. A Peregrine is also in the area, his presence possibly having something to do with the high density of pigeons. Several years ago a friend of mine was pigeon shooting near the top game cover and had already shot a few, that he subsequently arranged as decoys held with wings out four feet from the ground on long bouncy sticks. A few minutes later looking to the sky for his next shot he could see a small dot growing bigger at a remarkable rate. Hurtling towards him at an incredible speed a young Peregrine was stooping on one of the dead pigeons he had just placed out as a decoy. The Peregrine hitting the Pigeon Decoy at a million miles an hour, taking it onto the ground in a cloud off feathers before taking off with the decoy.

An invitation fell through the door this week, to attend an Institute of Fishery Management meeting where we are to be told “The Facts” about the stocking policy for Brown Trout. Many keepers I have spoken to are going, a very big noise is coming to relay these facts and explain the science on which these strategies have been determined.

This week my son turned fourteen. He wanted his own fly rod having shown interest in it for the first time this past season. He and his mate are keen coarse fishermen and had already been having a go at fly-fishing for Carp. For the river here an eight-foot rod with a four-weight line is ideal, with the emphasis on presentation rather than powerful casting. Several qualified instructors I know have recommended starting juniors on bigger rods with a seven-weight line, although I am in two minds. Powerful casting on this little river can often have an adverse effect, presentation rather than distance is key and the cast must show a little more refinement and settle on the water with the minimum of fuss. Fishing on bigger rivers and lakes requires the angler to feed in the power and go for distance. To use a cricketing analogy, a boy who uses a lighter blade is more able to develop his range of strokes and can then add power to these strokes as he gets bigger and develops and is able to use a bigger and heavier bat.
The Friendly local Trout Fishery up the road kindly agreed to allow my son and his mate to try their new rods on the lakes, living the “Dever Dream” they managed to haul out a nice looking Rainbow of Five pounds on a very sparkly fly with plenty of bling. The wind got up so we all came back aqnd shot a couple of brace of Duck before a Howling gale and heavy rain bought the day to an end.

Week 53

Week 53

I had only intended to do this for one year, but as the last twelve months have been exceptional in terms of weather and one of the poorest fishing seasons for many years I will try and do another year to see how it compares.

On some days of the year I will be carrying out exactly the same tasks as in previous years. For example weed cutting is carried out during the same weeks year in year out, I will always be tinning in January and February. The eggs laid down in the hatchery around bonfire night, Pheasants in the pen last week of July/first week of August, Hawthorn fishing in early May, Mayfly fishing the second half of May into early June with Trout fishing ending in the first week of October.

This week has been the coldest of the year so far, which it would have been whatever the weather it being the opening week of the New Year. Spectacularly cold with three nights of minus double figures degrees centigrade; two nights of minus ten followed by a minus twelve. After a thirty-six hour period of temperatures marginally above freezing the frost still hung in the ground.

The river is crystal clear and has dropped a little over the week. There is very little spare water pulling down the Millstream and we will need some steady rain in the months before the Trout season opens. The Pond completely froze over during the week, Otis ran around on the ice every day this week and on one day the ice was thick enough to take my substantial weight. The fish in the pond just shut down when temperatures get this low, choosing not to feed and lying hard on the bottom waiting for the sun to shine. The Ducks have been overnighting on the river and its banks all week it being the only water free of ice on the place. There are increasing numbers of Snipe around, I almost trod on one in my employers garden that sprang up vertically right in front of my face before skittering off up the water meadows, with their quick jagging flight it takes a fair shot to hit a flushed Snipe. A far better shot than I, who struggles to hit the most ponderous of pheasants flying in a straight line not very high over my head.

The few rows of Maize that I rolled flat last week have been hammered by all and sundry, so I have repeated the exercise this week. Feeding the chickens in the morning this week I have been surveyed by a covey of French Partridge numbering twenty or more and fifty odd Siskins chattering away in a big Field Maple, all rushing down to join the Chickens as soon as my back is turned to gobble up the corn. Another hungry bird: a Robin who joins me to feed the fish each morning, following me from pond to pond, over bridges and up the river in the hope that I will spill some of the pellets.

The fish in the hatchery are looking to the surface and are on the cusp of starting to take food. Only a few pinches to start with, a little and often by hand so as not to induce gill problems and to maintain water quality.

After taking down my employer’s Christmas tree, the remainder of the week was spent on the stew ponds. Cutting trees down and burning up the branches in order to make way for the new fence, picking up the eight foot posts from the fencing supplies place in town, ferrying them up the river in the truck. Before carrying them by hand the final fifty or so yards over to the stew ponds. The end of the week was spent hammering them into the frozen earth by hand with the mother of all post bumpers.

I have smelt a fox in one of the drives this week. Dog foxes start to roam a little in the early part of the year in search of Vixen to mate with, although I would have thought the cold weather would have put the kibosh on that kind of caper alfresco – Get a room!

Week 52

Week 52


Another broken week with New Year’s Day slap bang in the middle and a marked change in the weather. Our reasonably accurate thermometer in the garden showing minus eight degrees on three consecutive nights, the ground remained frozen for much of the week putting the fish in the stew ponds and river right off the feed.

The last few days of the old year were spent removing the old netting and fencing from the stew ponds, some of it I can use again some if it is in the bin. The plan is to fence off the whole stew pond area with a six foot deer fence dug into the ground with a secure gate and wires stretched across the whole area to deter not only the Otter, but Herons and Cormorants as well as making it reasonably poacher proof.

The fish in the hatchery are all hatched out, the egg shells and unhatched eggs have all been hovered out with a siphon and the alevins lay on the bottom of the tank slowly absorbing their yolk sacs. All of these fish are destined to be stocked in this stretch of river, The National Trout and Grayling Strategy deeming them unsuitable to be stocked into waters that we have previously supplied for several years. As a result we will have a stew pond spare and in these credit-crunching times it is important that we replace the income lost from previous orders with new orders. This will mean stocking the pond with either Rainbow Trout (non indigenous) Triploid Brown Trout (a man made sterile, all female creation) or Carp (an alien species to this stretch of chalk stream) I have written it before and No doubt I will write it again, but for this river the National Trout and Grayling Strategy does not work!

The two strips of maize that act as game cover still have a lot of full cobs on them and to provide some food for the fauna of the parish in frozen times, I rolled down several rows of standing Maize. It may also entice some of our Pheasants back from neighbouring land where they have taken up residence since our last shoot. In the hard weather all manner of animals will munch up the corncobs, Roe deer, Badgers, Hares along with all the Pheasants and Partridge; for several weeks I will find munched cobs in unexpected places through the wood and along the river.

This week has seen a proliferation of moles in the water meadows, managing to push their hills up through several inches of frozen ground. I, or should I say the dogs, have also found several dead moles on the surface. A few years ago, while strimming the fringe I saw what I initially thought was a vole move slowly out from the riverbank, after a few seconds it registered that this creature was not the most accomplished of swimmers and was a mole. It made the far bank, not in record time and about twenty yards downstream from where it set off, but get there it did.

An New Years Day afternoon, my wife and I set off with the dogs across the Common, a Marsh Harrier lolloped his way about and something put up twenty to thirty tufted Duck off the main river. A friend and his wife who had been present at the previous night’s exertions rang as we approached home. In a croaky karaoke affected voice he explained that they were standing on the road bridge in Bransbury and beneath them was a fish that they were struggling to identify, an experienced fisherman he thought it may be a Barbel. We arrived and looked down at the fish that was difficult to see in the sun’s late afternoon glare. Eventually the fish dropped down a yard into two feet of water and it’s oversized dorsal fin became visible. Not a Barbel but a Grayling that was well over three pounds in weight, the biggest Grayling I have seen in this river, fat as a butterball and in tiptop condition. It was there the next day too. The bridge in question houses the flow monitoring equipment for the River Dever, two electro magnetic coils that are set in the river bed and measure the flow of the river’s flow at regular intervals. The whole schemozzle was installed at vast expense (seven figures) and vast inconvenience around twelve years ago. The whole bridge and its base rebuilt, the river diverted and the road closed for several months. Six months after installation I had a visit from a particularly big noise in the Water Resources department. They had repeated spikes in their hydrographs for the Dever, they had inspected their equipment and it seemed to be ok, had I any ideas? Initially I didn’t but after a while it dawned that every time I opened the hatch/sluice on the Mill to let weed through during the weed cut water would surge down the river and put a spike on the graph. The location of a Mill that had been in position for a thousand years or more had not been taken into account when deciding upon the location of the million pound plus River Flow monitoring station, although the magnetic fields produced below the bridge now seemed to be producing supersize Grayling.

This is not meant to turn into a “grumpy old man” rail against authority, but this week has also highlighted another flaw in the government authorities that are currently dictating fishery management policy in this country. The friend who questioned whether the fish he could see from the bridge was a Barbel was not a crank, drunk or attention seeker. The river is not known to have a population of Barbel, but there has been so much stocking of the southern chalk streams carried out “off radar” over the past years that it is not inconceivable that some have found there way into the river. While registered fish farms have their fish stocks monitored and stocking carried out under section 30 licences. Joe Public can buy a Barbel/Sturgeon/Catfish/Crocodile from his local pet shop after the briefest assurance that they will look after it and keep the tank topped up. Once pumped full of pet store fish food and too big for its tank, it is humanely released into the wild. The previous proprietor of the creature aglow that they have released their charge into the wild to roam free, and not flushed it down the loo or banged it on the head.

Many keepers in this valley can recall Orfe, Goldfish, or Koi Carp being caught in the river; principle species available for stocking garden ponds/tanks ten years ago. Today the range of fish available for the domestic pond is much greater, Catfish, Sturgeon, and many more are available to keep at home. Some of these fish will end up in rivers and ponds.

A few years ago a particular stretch of the middle river was affected by a population of pet shop terrapins, grown fat in their tanks on pepperoni pizza they were cast out and thrived in the wild. Aggressive and voracious they posed a far greater threat to the balance of nature than the practice of stocking the river with indigenous mixed sex Brown Trout that is now viewed as a threat to “fish population health” (not my words) of the river.

On the Sunday, my wife, Otis and I followed in Hawker’s footsteps and left this part of the Test Valley for Keyhaven and the salt marshes. The tide was out and much of the marshes were iced up, thousands of waders, geese, gulls and ducks were concentrated on the uniced flashes of water. Hawker and his punt guns would have had a field day, firing at this dense concentration of fowl, although the army of camo clad twitchers may have had some choice words to say to him when he got back to land.

Week 51

Week 51

Christmas week and a cold start followed by a warm middle and an icy blast towards the end. For two days we had the bedroom window open through the night, not because of a surfeit of seasonal sprouts but because the overnight temperature was approaching double figures; woken both mornings by a particularly randy Male Blackbird singing outside our window trying to convince any females in the area that now was the time to “get jiggy” as I believe they term it these days.

At the start of the week we had a crack at the ducks, my employer’s son and grandson along with an elderly gent from the village. Initially the signs looked promising with plenty of cloud cover and a steady wind that typically dropped just as it was getting dark. The wigeon that have been around for a few weeks didn’t put in an appearance and we only shot five birds, four Mallard and a Gadwall. A little disappointing after the numbers that have been coming onto the pond in previous weeks, but that is Wild Duck shooting for you. I declined the offer to shoot instead concentrating on picking up with Zebo and Otis. Zebo is a bit of a whiz at locating dead Ducks in the Dark and didn’t disappoint on this occasion, even picking up a roving Indian Runner that normally inhabits the lower river around my employer’s house. Twice the weight of a Mallard he bought it to me alive and intact for me to release onto the river. If it had been my stupid spaniel with jaws of steel the Duck would have been crushed in seconds. Zebo has always had a very soft mouth, when he was around one year old, and out with me feeding the fish one week, he would pop behind the fish food hut and carefully pick up a Duck who was sitting very tight on a clutch of eggs and bring her to me. Each morning of that week I would take the duck from his mouth and put her back on the nest, by Friday she had a resigned look on her face as she was carried to me each morning that screamed “Good grief here we go again!” She hatched off her eggs the following week and was spared her morning ride in a Labrador’s mouth.

The cold temperature and icy easterly wind towards the end of the week blew in a load of Snipe. The dogs putting up over half a dozen on a Boxing Day afternoon trek across Bransbury Common. On this particular stretch of the river the Snipe, if they are about, always seek out the same ditches, muddy scrapes, bends on the river that they have inhabited in previous years. I think I saw the Merlin that has turned up most winters, earlier in the week, the dogs spooking a small bird of Prey from the ground by the Flight Pond.

The river has cleared and dropped an inch this week, The Brown Trout have come through spawning very well, and on the two mild days in the middle of the week, even raise their noses to the odd fly that was on the water. The Grayling are in spanking mid season form and, as I have stated previously, are an ounce or two heavier for a given length than in previous years. The eggs in the hatchery have been hatching all week, and so far look to be a particularly good batch. For much of this week I have just left them to get on with hatching, next week they will need a good clean and the unhatched and empty egg cases removed. The fencing for the stew ponds was also delivered this week, Otter proofing the stew ponds one of the first jobs to be tackled in the New Year.
The Pheasant and Partridge are a bit thin on the ground on our morning feed around. I am feeding half as much food compared to a month ago, and much of this is being gobbled by Pigeons and Roe Deer; although walking up the road at Dusk this week I have heard quite a few birds“cocking up” as they go up to roost which suggests that they are feeding on something else somewhere else.

Week 50

Week 50

An up and down week again for the weather, beginning with a huge downpour followed by some nice cold days and finishing with high winds and the afternoon temperature climbing into double figures degrees Celsius. Early in the week we had our third days shooting. My employer’s grandchildren plus friends filling the sky with lead while we beaters poked around for the few remaining Pheasant and Partridge. For much of the week we have been inundated with pigeons although these failed to show on the day. The bag was half what was shot on the first two days but more importantly, all enjoyed the day, an important lesson to learn in all field sports: it's not about the bag, but all about the day.

A little Egret has turned up this week. Every winter we saw more and more of these highly conspicuous birds, I have a photograph somewhere of one fishing in the small stream that runs through the Mill House garden. In stark contrast to the brilliant white plumage of this small member of the Heron family is the black cloud that I see flighting up the main river every morning: between twenty and thirty Cormorants all heading to the Upper Test for a day feeding. I have seen groups this big while fishing a pond that borders the Middle Test and know of several keepers who see them roosting in numbers in a particularly isolated tree; sitting like the birds from Noggin the Nog. I have said it before but up until five years ago I had not seen a Cormorant on this stretch of the river, I now see numbers every day either passing over or pitching onto the river and pond to feed. With no national strategy to prevent their steady rise in numbers something radical must be done regionally to protect fish stocks on the chalk streams of the south where the clear water provides easy fishing for a Cormorant. An organised and concerted effort by keepers and riparian owners to go out with their shotguns, pigeon bangers, crow scarers and fireworks at the same time for a few days to keep these birds on the move and push them on somewhere else, preferably back to their natural coastal environment. It's an “I’m alright Jack policy” but in the absence of any National effort to limit the damage being done by these birds to freshwater fish stocks it seems the only option available.

The first few eggs in the hatchery started to hatch this week, they will go on hatching throughout the next week. So far they have been one of the best batches of eggs that I have ever done, with few to pick out daily. There is time for it all to go wrong yet.

With the National Trout and Grayling Strategy preventing us from supplying our natural mixed sex Brown Trout to the few people that we have supplied over the past five years, we are exploring various ways of replacing the income lost from these orders. Either by buying in some non indigenous Rainbow Trout Fingerlings and growing them on to a stockable/smokeable size or growing on some Carp to supply Coarse fisheries, either of which is alien fish culture to that which should be going on this river valley, the rearing of native mixed sex Brown Trout to replenish stock in the river.

The National Trout and Grayling Strategy for the River Test?….. Bonkers!

And like so many strategies dictated from on high over the past decades, completely unworkable, unenforceable and out of date before implementation.

On the dog front Otis had his best day shooting yet, although we are currently on our third house phone in as many months and he proudly demonstrates his soft mouth by pinching baubles off the Christmas tree.

Week 49

Week 49

A significant drop in the temperature this week with two nights of minus five degree Celsius and one of minus seven. No snow, but one morning rain fell shortly after the sun rose and froze on the road; The world’s worst Spaniel – Dobby, struggling with the conditions and like Bambi on ice with his gimpy back legs. Cold Snaps like this are welcome at this time of the year and reaffirm the point to everyone that winter is really here and the growing season has ended. Mild winters can often result in weed, grass trees and birds failing to go into their period of winter shut down, rousing themselves early in the new year with out of season buds and nests that are often caught by late cold snaps in late March and April.

The Flight Pond partially froze over during this week, the pond houses a spring that keeps the temperature a few degrees higher than other ponds but in prolonged freezing periods it will freeze over. It is tempting to divert river water though the pond during cold periods to keep the pond clear of ice, the pond would however act as a silt trap with suspended solids in the river water settling out and the pond eventually silting up, while a shallower pond would still attract Mallard and Gadwall, it would not prove to be as attractive to other types of Duck such as Tufted and Pochard – diving Ducks who prefer a greater depth of water. If there is a significant amount of ice on the pond, many ducks land on the adjacent river and toddle over to where the evening’s food has been tipped.

Cold Snaps always bring Wigeon onto the pond. Arriving en masse and at high speed they are smaller than the Mallard and have a distinctive whistling call. Many of the Ducks that overnight on the pond rouse themselves at dawn to fly a few hundred yards to my employer’s orchard where they are fed everyday. Most days this week when opening the bedroom curtains I have seen half a dozen or more duck circling overhead before pitching on to the river for breakfast. I have never shot Duck here in the morning but I am sure a hide by the apple trees would produce a few brace for someone who could shoot straight. A lot of Duck are shot up and down the valley, mostly wild, some are morning ponds some evening ponds, several estates will also drive the marshes for Duck. In some places they may take a bit of a hammering for a few weeks before learning a lesson and using other pieces of water. It pays to be sensible with wild Duck only shooting them when conditions are right, and leaving them alone when they are having a hard time of it with the weather, do that and they will continue to use your pond.

Few fish were active in the river, not even the Roach; my son failing in his attempts to tempt them or the Grayling while trotting a single maggot. A brief excursion to the neighbouring Put and Take Trout Fishery not only revealed a stunning display of Christmas lights being manoeuvred into place but also a brace of hardy anglers making their way home with a bag of Triploid Rainbow Trout. Sterile fish who maintain their condition throughout the Winter this is where they belong and is what they were initially developed for, a non native fish that is incapable of spawning but will provide good sport for anglers when native Trout populations are going through the rigors of Winter spawning, and not for a half baked, half hearted attempt at protecting a particular river’s wild trout population.
Heavy Rain at the end of the week has turned the river to cocoa, and put the Kibosh on a planned Sunday afternoon of Pike fishing and enabled me to go Christmas Shopping - Oh Deep Joy!