A Chalkstream in Hertfordshire

This is a report of my visit to an intimate and very private chalkstream barely outside Greater London, in the county of Hertfordshire. So private that I was asked not to say very much else about its whereabouts. 

I took the train, needing to travel through London at the peak of the morning commute. When my train eased beside the platform passengers were already occupying the vestibules. Standing room only for an hour from my distant southern shire. 

The carriage lurched along in silence, the passengers preoccupied by their phone screens. Large electronic ear muffs are the new fashion, the ultimate 'do not disturb' accessory.  Wearing quick-drying khaki and carrying a large bag of fishing paraphernalia, I stood out from the monochrome sea of suits. There are times when I must join them, when I'm tired, when I know what is to come in the commercial boiler of London, when I too might want to be left alone to rest and prepare. But now I observed them as an outsider, carrying only excitement at the prospect of spending a work day fishing. 

I began to read a cheap copy of John Gierach's 'Sex, Death and Fly Fishing', noticing a few craned necks and odd glances given the provocative title. At each stop yet more people shuffled into the carriage and by the time we reached East Croydon the crowd was so thick that we stood cheek to sweaty jowl. I put away my book and we began to sway rhythmically like sea grasses to the clickety-clack lurching of the train. 

The decks cleared at London Bridge. Over the muddy Thames in a flood tide, modern glass towers contrasted with the elegant curves of St. Paul's Cathedral.  They don't build them like they used to, that's for sure. Then the train was sucked, wheels squealing, into the bowels of London, emerging into the daylight of the north of the city amidst row upon row of new-looking apartment blocks, each precisely like its neighbour. I imagined the thousands of cubicles they housed, each with a toilet and sink, and spared a thought for the precious chalkstreams - like the one that I was heading to - which suffer for the wanton thirst of a growing population. Changing trains at Finsbury North for a near empty reverse-commute service came as a relief.

I was collected at the train station by my host, Clive Paveley and we made a short trip in his well-used campervan. Potholes caused a sprig of lavender hanging from his windscreen to sway violently. I was told it was an ancient talisman for protection. It was needed for this road. 

The road eventually brought us to a wide basin of grassy hills with shimmering lakes at either end. An emerald corridor of sycamore and alder trees wended between the lakes,  oncealing the river from view. As Clive poured me a coffee, a pair of jackdaw chicks called noisily from a hole in an ancient oak tree which stood beside an abandoned house. The home belonged to a former estate keeper, said Clive, its boarded up windows lending a haunted beauty to this oasis not twenty miles from the centre of London. 

Even by mid morning the heat had begun to crank up and I was relieved to enter the sylvan corridor. My breath was stolen by a first glimpse of something which glinted and babbled so unexpectedly - a glassy chalkstream which flowed through a series of bends over bright gravels and luminous weeds. As if to complete the dream, a trout rose to take a mayfly in the nearest pool.

Something felt different about this chalkstream, something primeval, as if I might see a herd of Iguanodon emerge at the water's edge to drink at any second. And then it came to me. It was the trees. They were strewn liberally in the river's channel, some left where they had fallen by nature's natural force and others clearly hewn and rigged by a shaping hand. This was a club of Arboreal Arrangers. Clive said that since adding the woody debris the population of trout had increased by 50%. If you build it, they will come seemed to be the simple message.

I discovered that Clive's fishing style existed in happy symbiosis with mine. He advised a calm, patient observance. We sat on a tree log in the middle of the stream and waited, whilst the river's eternal flow clawed coolly at my calves. The song of the wren and warbler rang from the trees and then the jarring chatter of parakeets from the highest treetops. I had forgotten there are naturalised parakeets north of London. Then a trout snatched a mayfly from the marvellous little run before us, just downstream of a fallen log.

I watched the fish rise a few times more and then I sent a fly to it. The take came in a flash, way too fast for my reflexes, and my strike sent the fly into the trees behind me. The water was rested, cast repeated - only for the take to be missed again! This time a longer rest, to be sure the plucky trout hadn't become wise to me, and then finally, I had success at the third go. The catch roughly provided the same sense of satisfaction as when a stubborn weed comes out with all its roots still attached. You will know the precise moment of jeopardy, announced with a crackling groan of the roots as the pressure begins to tell, when at any moment the weed will either snap at the stem (soon to return like Lazarus) or give way with a deeply satisfying final crunch.  

I said to Clive that I was quite happy not casting another fly that day.

We hoped to experience a mad rush of mayflies being consumed by trout but the hatch never quite hit those heights. Mayfly filled the air above and drifted down the seams consistently, but the trout engaged in the feast only spasmodically, as if something in the air added some great nervousness to the occasion.

Clive takes stock of the river from a convenient seat

As we waded carefully up the river, clambering over great big tree boughs at intervals, we spoke about our children and then about football. In the last day our respective teams had each won a title. Clive lives in the shadow of The Emirates Stadium and had grown up in north London an Arsenal fan, whereas my own attachment to Aston Villa had come from much further afar. Clive hooked a great big trout but it escaped whilst I fiddled with my net. 

My enduring memory was also of one that got away. This trout rose confidently to take a French Partridge, and then duly announced its heft by tearing off upstream like a bronco ignoring the reins. It turned and raced downstream towards me, as I attempted quite ineptly to wind in my little Orvis Battenkill reel with enough speed to keep the line taut. When the fish came into view my host yelled, "It's an eighteen incher!" At that moment the fish seemed to see me because it turned hard-a-starboard and promptly found its freedom in the roots of a willow. I needed a rest after that!

After that moment, shortly after we had eaten our sandwiches, the trout seemed to switch off from taking the dry altogether. Once or twice there would be a thrash of water but we half suspected they were not takes at all by attempts to drown the flies. At the end of beat where a bridge traversed the stream and we could step out from the river to a convenient gravel track, the sound of animated voices came to me, not from the track where I expected them, but from behind. A group of five people wearing chest waders had come up the river behind us, following the outstretched arm of a guide who pointed items of interest to them. Clive had warned me about them, and we were pleased to have finished the beat just in the lead. 

Senior people from various environmental quangos, they were keen to know what I thought about the river, and I answered honestly, to say it had been a privilege to fish a river in such obvious rude health. They seemed pleased by my answer.

Clive made the rather good point that we should fish for a little longer to avoid the evening commute rush, and so we forged upriver, and I caught a grayling and then a trout with a nymph.  It was nice to finish on that note.

After a long, hot, but thoroughly enjoyable day, the airconditioned carriage on the journey home was welcome. As I drifted in and out of a light sleep, I lost my thoughts to what lay in the secret sylvan shadows at the edge of the city, where now, with the anglers long gone home, I imagined the trout were at last feasting on the mayfly.