Kept at home with Covid travel restrictions and no end in sight, I have concluded that it will be a long time before I can travel to my Farnborough and District Club waters, where I am Vice President, driving fifteen miles from my home not considered a reasonable distance to travel for exercise.

As a fly fisherman, I was first attracted to the Club to fish the tiny Hampshire chalk stream, that is the River Whitewater. Only seven miles in length, the club has the final 3 miles to where it joins the confluence of the River Blackwater, and is classed as a mixed fishery, with wild brown trout on fly fishing gear from 1st April until 30th September, with a crossover of methods with coarse fishing from the 16th June, until 15th march.

When the first Lockdown ended in mid May, I drove to the River Whitewater with my fly rod to take advantage of the annual Mayfly hatch and was fortunate to find a large over wintered brownie smacking into a hatch of green Mayfly. Being early in the season, the flies were hatching intermittently and this trout was making the most of those on the surface. I waded up along the bank until I was within casting range, a gusting upstream wind making placing the fly difficult, but after several casts, the fly drifted onto the surface just above the trout’s nose and it took. The 7 ft No 3WT rod bent double on the take and after a ten minute fight, the 22 inch trout was on the bank.

In early June I booked in to fish Shawfield Fishery, the Club restricting numbers to 15 people a day due to the Covid regulations. Opting to fish the small lake with the pole and the bread punch, I fed a heavy mix of liquidised bread and ground carp pellets in balls 7 to 10 metres out, plus a couple more in close alongside a bed of lilies. Small rudd were a nuisance, but tench moved into the swim and I landed four between 3lb and 4lb 8oz, my 12 – 18 red elastic coping well with the hard fighting tench. This was the biggest of the afternoon.

During August, just as we were beginning to think that life was returning to normal, the Club carried out a much needed work party on the badly overgrown bottom stretch of the River Whitewater at Ford Lane, opening up several swims for coarse fishing. A few weeks later I travelled light with just a rod and a landing net to try one of the new swims, catching roach on the bread punch, until a pike took one of my fish, the pike finally snagging me in some roots. Trotting worms on the stick float brought a succession of  perch, while a switch back to the punch put more roach and some chub in the net, before the pike returned to fish off the day.

The River Blackwater at Camberly club stretch has proved a perfect venue for bread punch roach on the stick float, but this Autumn after the second Lockdown, I found that the chub are growing on quickly, taking five hard fighting chub and some quality roach on the stick float with punched bread on the hook.

Now in 2021 the year ahead beyond the third Lockdown looks to be one of continuing restrictions, which I hope will be lifted enough to allow wider travel to some of my favourite fishing haunts.