The Sparkling Stream
The upper Itchen was in fine fettle yesterday. Laser-sharp sunlight illuminated the crystalline water. Every crease and current glinted and gleamed. Expectant trout hung in the midwater as if suspended by unseen strings. Their shadows swayed rhythmically on a tapestry of chalk and verdant weed. Fins and tails dimpled the water's surface where they fed. Hidden by a bank of teeming sedge, Bjorn cast a dry fly to a rising trout. The trout was easily fooled, a wonderful way to start the day's fishing. Cold water reaching his knees as he released the trout, I pointed Bjorn to another trout a few metres upriver, this one twice the size of his first. It was less easily fooled, but eventually showed an interest in a sunken emerger. From my elevated perch on the bank I saw the trout move and take the fly, and called to Bjorn to set the hook. I swapped places with Bjorn, my turn to cast to a third fish which fed freely beside a floating cumulus of weeds against the far ban...
