Whilst seemingly offering footholds, were in reality floating, and a missed step meant an unexpected drop into deeper water where fish were hiding from potential predators (you don’t live too long if a small wild brown in a narrow, shallow stream, without some serious self preservation skills!)…so that pool was not worth casting into! And casting in this tightest of environments was an incredible test, and more so when the wind picked up. stinging nettles, still do, in September!) and so as to avoid sending warning signals through rippling the flat pools. We walked out of the water on the sloping banks where possible (nb. Stealth was imperative and the littler fish in the real shallows could be seen skittling away, in water illuminated by the sunshine, and the bigger, too, and from yards behind, spooked, maybe, via vibrations from my heavy wading boots on the hard banks? It is a short stream, filled with cool water from its aquifer, which is supplemented by spring waters whose numerous entries are evident by those little bank side distortions in their muddy slopes. It flows in a tree lined corridor through gently rolling farmland and its banks are untended and natural with all that entails, until it reaches Audley End, where in sight of the glorious Jacobean House, it is impounded, and then released to flow through more open territory toward Cambridge. The Cam or Granta rises near the delightful Essex village of Newport. September 2012 – the upper Cam, or Granta One final attempt this month produced another dace, and some fun, stalking chub, but I was not disappointed, because a ‘cunning plan’ had already been hatched with Rob Mungavon, and this was put to work, the very next day. OK…an admission…in a fit of intemperance (or maybe inventiveness!), I also made a visit last Winter, armed with a small spinning rod and a few Mepps to try to eke one out of the Mill Pool at Codham, but this produced only a solitary jack pike of 20″, who was quite surprised to meet me! I caught dace on the fly, and chub, too, but no ‘spotties’, or even rogue, escapee ‘bows. I tried, using the flyfishers’ tec hniques but could not match my Coarse Brethren, and in spite of several visits. Clive Gliddon, an official of the Billericay & District AC wrote to tell me that their section of the R Pant at Shalford had some trout in it which their, predominantly, coarse fishers would catch from time to time, when indulging in their paste and maggot, worm or bready, means to capture the specimens they seek from this exciting little fishery.
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