Opening Day

An intrepid early-season angler gets little advantage from wading.

We are suffering a drought over here in East Anglia, so you might expect a "rainbow bonanza" with thousands of  trout thrashing about in sunken reservoirs; but you'd be wrong. Grafham Water is filled from the River Great Ouse which oozes rather than flows, down in its floodplain, over a mile away beyond the Great North Road. There's a huge pumping station on the river bank at Offord so the reservoir doesn't rely on local rainfall and has been filled to the brim in anticipation of high demand. This is a good thing for households and farmers, but bad news for anglers.

When the reservoir is filled to the brim, wading is almost impossible so you are left with the dam wall, the harbour and two or three stone groynes to fish from. The harbour is a popular spot and so, if there are spaces on the two stone arms, the fishing is probably rubbish! And so it turned out to be.

I spent all of the previous week dreaming of big fish. I booked a boat and ordered a new pair of warm, neoprene waders for the occasion. Then I set up two rods and packed all the gear in my bag and waistcoat, still with seven days to go before the event.

By midweek the weather forecast looked bad and my brother decided to cry off.I had been eager to see him, but must confess that I prefer to fish from the bank, and it's a lot cheaper. So I cancelled the boat and left it until Saturday dawned to decide whether to go fishing or not.

Low water at Rutland
(Daily Express)

There are alternatives to Grafham. Ravensthorpe is a beautiful Victorian reservoir that nestles in a wooded fold in the Northamptonshire hills. Fishing opens there in early March and some whoppers are usually caught, but this year the only safe place to fish from is the little dam at one end: the rest is mud. It's a similar story at the larger reservoirs which all have severely restricted bank fishing at the start of the season. Rutland Water doesn't open until the end of the month, but the low levels there have been shown on TV to illustrate the seriousness of the drought. Its a very beautiful place, so perhaps I'll book a boat and take my brother up there when the water warms up a bit. What could be better than to fish in a pretty place? It's even better if there are ospreys to watch at the same time, and they will just be arriving at Rutland now.

I did manage two fish around mid-day. One was silver like a salmon and the other was gaudy pink and brown; a cock fish with a huge head, hooked jaw, battle scars and missing fins, He was the ugliest fish I have seen in years, but the leeches thought he was the best thing since Moby Dick.