River Wye, Buckinghamshire

I recently had the pleasure of fishing the River Wye at West Wycombe Park. 

A chalkstream, the Wye rises in the Chiltern Hills and flows for around 10 miles until it joins the Thames. It was my first foray to the (troubled) chalkstreams north of London and quite exciting to explore a new scene.

West Wycombe Park is the 18th century 'pleasure palace' of Sir Francis Dashwood. Whilst Dashwood briefly attained the high office of Chancellor of the Exchequer - until he decided to tax cider, making his government so unpopular as to bring about its downfall - he is best remembered for establishing a Hellfire Club in nearby caves. Here powerful men of the day gathered to let down their hair with debauched rituals of 'much drinking, wenching and banqueting'. 

Dashwood's neoclassical home

The landscaped grounds contain several examples of classical temples, follies and statues - many of which drip in erotic irony and suggestion. I sensed the great frivolity of yesteryear, buried under the falling dust of an eyeblink in time.

Flowing through the idiosyncratic gardens, the River Wye has been sculpted into the elegant shape of a swan. Parallel feeder streams form the legs. The body of the bird has been forged by a lake where naval battles were re-enacted for the whimsical amusement of Dashwood's guests. The Wye then tumbles from the impoundment over an artificial cascade, dead straight for a stretch, and then curves clockwise into a mill pond, the head of the creature. 

The swan's head and Sawmill Lodge

I arrived early at a private entrance reserved for anglers and readied myself in the shade of ancient lime trees. It was early July and the undulating Chiltern Hills were a dry brown. The day's forecast suggested that some rain was at last due to cut through an extended spell of oppressive heat. Leaden skies carried the threat of an afternoon thunderstorm. Storm bringing gusts animated the trees and a pair of kites mewed as they jostled in the breeze.

A pickup truck drove in and parked beside my car. The man who alighted came to introduce himself as John Roy, a member of an angling club with rights to fish the estate's waters. John is an ex-South African like me and we spoke of our shared connections. John then kindly offered to show me around.

We walked downriver to the neck of the swan. Stripped long ago of any sinuous urge, the river flowed unbroken and straight as an arrow. Sunlight gleefully burst through the clouds to magnify water clearer than the Test, where trout roamed the gentle flow like they would in any lake. Then the sunlight was gone, and I shielded my eyes and stood on my tiptoes to try and discern trout in the silver glare.

John stalks a trout

John proved to have a keen eye and a precise cast. He would use his best guess to predict the direction of his target's travel and deposit a fly in its path. Then, crucially he said, he would impart some life into the fly. The movement certainly excited the trout, which accelerated forward to inspect the disturbance. That was the easy part. The real challenge was to persuade them to take the fly because they were obviously quite aware of the danger. 

This was the perfect water for sight nymphing, so John looked on with some bemusement when I tied a small tuft of natural wool to my leader. My eyesight is not what it was. Hilariously, a trout rose to my indicator and ate it! It never ceases to amaze me that a trout might turn its nose up at a #18 Parachute Adams but greedily swallow some shapeless piece of wool as if its life depended on it.

It was a clear sign to dispense with the indicator. I needed to emulate yesterday's nymphing masters, Oliver Kite and Frank Sawyer, who undoubtedly would have turned their noses up at my sheep's wool. As a reward, a trout held on to my nymph long enough for the thicker parts of my leader to be plucked under - a sure sign. Urged on by John who had seen the fish take the fly long before my line had moved I struck with hope, thrilled when the fly held firm and a spirited 2 lb brown trout came to John's lovely McLean landing net.

John departed on a family errand. Left to my own devices I found a trout rising in the shade of a tall poplar. A large branch had crashed to the ground and now lay in a discordant mess of leaves pointing away from the water. Judging from the fleshy pink fibres where wood had been torn asunder, it had fallen very recently. With one eye on the trees above I cast a Parachute Adams into the water. The cast was poor and the fly landed behind the trout. Nevertheless, the fish turned on its heels and raced downriver in pursuit, holding its snout in touching distance as it weighed up my offering. I willed it to take the fly under my breath but the trout terminated the affair by abruptly turning away. As it swam upriver to return to its lie I flicked the same fly into its path. This time, the trout sped forward and ate the fly without so much as a second thought! 

The fish was at least 3 lb and it bore away from me into the riverbed of filamentous algae. When it emerged my tippet was weighed down with hair-like clumps of the algae. That usually spells doom. Within a second, the trout and fly were gone.

A couple pushing a little child in a pram walked to the water's edge just ahead of me and threw a stick into the water for a dog to fetch. The current brood of Dashwoods, I gathered. Perhaps they did not see me, but stick-fetching dogs are about as welcome as wasps at a summer picnic. When the family eventually passed by and I said hello, the child scowled and stuck her tongue out at me.

At the curve of the swan's neck the river tumbled through a gap in a low weir and briefly hurried. Several trout could be seen in the frothing currents and lively eddies. Larger specimens occupied the oxygen rich water at the head of the pool whilst smaller trout held in the tail. 

Something was animating them, driving them to jostle about and rise. It was difficult to determine what they were taking and I spent around an hour casting different patterns to them. The rise forms caused water to bulge which suggested that they were feeding on emergers. Nothing I threw at them worked. Licked, I sat down on the grassy verge and ate my lunch.  

Much later in the afternoon I returned to this spot and finally managed to hook one of the fish with a #12 mayfly emerger no less. The fish was large and it ran for the bank like a charging bull, breaking me off in short order.

Thunder echoed down the valley as towering storm clouds gathered. A terrific downpour was unleashed and I sheltered through the brunt of it in a musty arch beside the ornamental cascade. There were big trout in the deep water beneath the waterfall but my heaviest nymphs could not tempt them.

The public are permitted to visit the park in the afternoon and families and couples explored the grounds around the house and lake. The venue's fishing rules advised that I should 'carry third party liability insurance of not less than £1 million'. I would need to watch those back casts! 

Mysterious Daphne

Through the trees stood a pink temple dedicated to the Greek nymph Daphne, where a pellucid spring mysteriously emerged from the ground to flow as a fully fledged stream. Hidden by trees for all of its short course it seemed the perfect place to escape the public. The stream barely flowed and its soul was darkened by a bed of black silt.

Slowly, trout came into view, black submarines moving with steady purpose. I threaded my rod tip through bankside growth and propelled a #20 bead head nymph into the water with a bow and arrow cast. The gentle plop of the fly sparked interest from a rainbow trout which glided over and casually took it. The white inside of its mouth out of place in the dark water, a clear trigger to set the hook. For a rainbow trout, it was strangely subdued and came to my net quickly.

A brace of Daphne's brown trout then fell to the same method, the last of them the best at around 3 lb. Its capture drew an excited audience of young children who were very keen to ask me what I was doing and why.   

I had one section of feeder stream left to try but it ran past the main house and I wasn't keen to go about stalking trout with an audience. I returned to the private neck of the swan and enjoyed a moment when everything clicked - a brown trout successfully sight nymphed and landed. 

When I walked up to the Feeder Stream the grounds were empty and the grand old house eerily silent. Soft sunlight shrouded the stillness in a haze. The Feeder Stream had been left delightfully untamed, offering a glimpse of the natural Wye. The river twisted with vitality beside mature willows, maples, limes, and an Indian Bean in flower. Carpets of dainty white flowers clogged the stream and trout lay suspended in thin slips of glassy water. Shielded by reeds I flicked my nymph to the nearest of two brown trout in a bath tub sized pool. The trout dutifully obliged by taking my fly. 

The delightfully untamed Feeder Stream

A pretty footbridge bridge funnelled the current. When clear of the abutment on the far bank the river spilled out to form a little pool of temporary respite. A pink trout occupied this water, suspended over white gravels and sandwiched between weeds and the far bank. As I watched, the trout glided upriver beneath the bridge. I wondered if it had seen me but it returned within the minute. I made a fairly long cast to it and the trout sipped in my nymph. When I struck, the fish darted straight into the weeds and then nothing, not even the merest shake of the head. Fearing the worst, I jogged over the bridge to the far bank whilst reeling in line. The trout eventually came free with some heaving, still intact with my line and fly, to where I could net it. It was a rainbow trout notable for an almost complete absence of spots. 

Absurdly clear waters

I walked to the upper limit of the Feeder Stream, stopping to observe the many trout in its absurdly clear waters for a time, content to merely observe, tired but satisfied.  I had visited and fished nothing like it before. Engrossed, tantalised, divisions of time had been erased as if I had travelled through a rabbit hole to fishing's Wonderland. 

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