River Wylye
Salisbury & District Angling Club
The weather was glorious, Springlike, yet it was February. Lesser Celandines and Snow Drops greeted me as I walked along the river. The water still high and cold, but a little clearer than my last visit.
And it wasn't just flowers that greeted me. The River Keeper and his work party were carefully trimming and pruning the bankside trees. It's a fine art; too much cut and the river looks overexposed; too little and there's bound to be complaints about access. There's a more important issue (more important than fishing?) and that is the amount of insect life that depends on streamside vegetation. I've watched trout in early autumn sip aphids as they've fallen from the trees.
Most of the main Wylye was burling along and even fishing the slack water along the margin produced just one small grayling. But the mouth of the Till was its generous self and a better grayling grabbed the nymph in the pool of water backed up by the main river. The sun was warm and it was just wonderful to out. Whilst I played the River Keepers completed their important work.