Fly Fishing Hampshire

These are my recollections of my first introduction to fly fishing in Hampshire on the River Test but let me first explain……….

I caught my first brown trout in a stream at the back of our house known as Crimple Beck in Burn Bridge Nr Harrogate in North Yorkshire with a red worm at the age of four on a one piece solid fibreglass rod that had belonged to my father.

When I was seven I caught my first brown trout whilst fly fishing on the River Coquet at Felton in Northumberland where my grandparents lived and where I spent all my school holidays. I fly fished almost every day in the easter and summer school holidays on this river but also on the River Nidd in North Yorkshire.

As a teenager my grandparents sent me Trout and Salmon magazine each month which I read from the front to back cover paying particular attention to any articles about chalk stream fly fishing.

It was a dream and an ambition of mine to, one day, go fly fishing for brown trout on a chalk stream and at the age of forty nine that dream came true thanks to the generosity of my wife Anne and sons John and Adam.

Through Orvis, who are a fishing equipment retailer,...