Late Summer on the Avon at Bisterne

The morning swim at Bisterne, which looked so inviting

Bisterne – Hard fishing, some Angling history and a funny bank-side incident.

This was to be our last day on the Hampshire Avon and Ron Clay and I were going to fish with Nigel Connor who is a regular to the Avon in general, and to this stretch in particular.

Nigel had some work to do in the Salisbury area and had arranged to stay on for a couple of days so that we could fish both Bisterne and Christchurch Harbour together.

The Bisterne stretch of the River Avon is only open to coarse anglers during August and September, and the last two weeks of the season, as the venue is mainly reserved for game fishermen. It is a very well preserved length of the river with good banks and fences as well as a couple of salmon huts where one can seek shelter from adverse elements or, in our case, to provide a welcome refuge where we could sit and chat and have our lunch.

The true beauty of the Hampshire Avon
On arrival at the house where you sign-in and pay for your permit, there is little in the surrounding area to lead one to believe that Bisterne is any different from any other stretch of the Avon in these parts.

However, once through the gate, and having spent some time wandering along this stretch, it reveals the true beauty and diversity of the Hampshire Avon, a river which still brings anglers in pilgrimage even though it’s glory days are long gone.

Here you will find deep glides through the streamer weed, gravel shallows, nooks and eddies that appear to have come straight out of Mr Crabtree and deep bends with overhanging trees that just scream out, “chub!”

The three of us walked a good length of the river where Nigel gave us the benefit of his previous visit’s experiences and we each picked swims where we would fish the morning session, agreeing to meet in the salmon hut for lunch around 1 o’clock.

I chose a really inviting looking peg on a slight bend with overhanging trees on the opposite bank, and a good deep run at about a rod’s length out. Opposite there was vegetation on the bank just downstream from the overhanging trees. Good cover on my bank for the gin clear water made the swim appear even more inviting.

Indeed, the only thing that encroaches on this idyllic piece of the Avon is the traffic noise from the nearby main road, otherwise it is a lovely spot regardless of whether you catch, or not.

Minnows homing in like heat-seeking missiles
On the first cast with the trotting rod the minnows homed in like heat-seeking missiles with a succession of ‘shelled’ caster being the result. I tried to feed off the minnows with maggots but again this was not to be. A few dace started to come to the float, but on an unacceptable ratio of minnow to dace, so I went on flavoured corn in order to keep the minnows at bay.

I was loose feeding a little of the corn by catapult and after a few minutes I had some vicious bites that turned out to be chublets in the range of 4 to 8 ounces. A change to maggot brought the inevitable minnows but after about 10 or so I had a slashing bite from a lovely grayling of about 12 ounces. These Avon grayling really are gorgeous fish, probably never before caught, with that sail-like dorsal fin that even in the slow moving river catches the current and gives a fight that belies their actual size.

The Deepening Pool
Such was the action (or what passed for it) until Ron appeared and told me he had caught a mass of chublets and about half a dozen grayling as well. It being close to 1 o’clock we made our way downstream to the salmon hut to meet Nigel, who had caught far more dace and grayling, and a lot less minnows than either Ron or myself.

As a romantic, I’d like to believe that the hut was where Chris Yates wrote the introduction to his great hymn of praise to the Avon, The Deepening Pool. It looks like it from the picture at least. Inside the Hut, as we ate the lunch provided by Nigel, I tried to imagine some of the conversations that the walls had been witness to over the years, and indeed tried to guess where Chris Yates might have sat while writing that introduction.

Lunch passed all too quickly and we drank a quick toast to the river gods from my hip flask and each wandered back to their chosen swims for the afternoon sessions.

Both Ron and Nigel had decided on a move, but I was still keen to continue where I had by now invested a fair bit of time and bait.

Sadly, the afternoon session passed for me exactly the same as the morning. Too many minnows, too few dace but a couple more of those lovely grayling more than made up for the mass of minnows.

Beast stroke
Later in the afternoon Ron had come to fish a little upstream of me and I noticed (well, sensed rather than noticed to start with) that the cows from the fields were beginning to gather for milking. The next indication of their arrival was an almighty splash just 5 yards upstream of my swim where one of the cows had decided to take a late afternoon dip – through my peg!

Bisterne’s swimming cow – in my peg!

Now, over the years I have seen a lot of strange things whilst fishing, but never before had a cow come swimming past me, churning the River into a chocolate coloured mess and totally ruining my chances of catching anything else for quite a while.

The damn thing swam to the opposite bank, stood there for a few minutes stamping its feet, then, calm as you please, it swam back to my bank.

Not content with wrecking my swim, it then proceeded to walk upstream, still in the River, past Ron’s swim (giving Ron quite a scare) and further on upstream until it passed out of sight.

Masses of wild flowers in the dying sunshine
It was by now a little too late to move and work up a new swim, so I contented myself with a nice walk along the bank further downstream in the dying sunshine of the early evening.

Despite being late September there were still a mass of wild flowers along the bank and surrounding water meadows, in fact so much so that you could have easily been led to believe that it was still the height of summer. I made a few sketch maps of swims that took my interest for future visits, as I will definitely return to this beautiful stretch of my beloved Hampshire Avon most probably during the last weeks of the season.

Meeting back with Ron we decided that enough was in fact enough and we walked back to the car to wait for Nigel, who if left to his own devices will fish on forever even in his leaking waders (have you bought a new pair yet Nigel?).

We drove off to the Ship at Barford for dinner and a few beers and the inevitable discussion on what might have been had the water levels been more normal, and the minnows been less evident.

From a personal point of view I cannot think of a better way to spend a day than as described above.

Granted we could have caught more, but the good company, the feeling of being part of angling’s rich history whilst sitting in the salmon hut, and the swimming cow, made this a day I shall long remember.