Author: Nigel Rainton

Devon had over fifty days without rain until the thunderstorm last night. The South East of England was a desert. While driving over Salisbury Plain, the countryside towards all of the horizons was the colour of straw. It was straw. Five weeks of 30 degree heat had desiccated the fields, the sheep and cattle had only dry stubble to graze on, they were out of condition.

River Walkham

The Western Rother was very low and warm throughout my stay in Sussex and the fly rod never came out of its case. I fished for carp in the farm lake and watched the eclipse. I caught a few pretty, little, fat carp on slow sinking dog biscuits. They fought well above their weight. The lake was full of carp-lets. I scooped out a couple with my landing net. Perfect miniature commons.

Back in Devon, I visited the club’s beats on the River Tavy. During five consecutive days I walked each of the beats, travelling slowly downstream, looking for fish and mapping invasive plants. I watched a trout cruising around a small depression in the bedrock, occasionally rising for flies. It was catchable but the rod was at home.

River Tavy

I met a family beside the river, three young children were playing in the shallows, they were enjoying themselves. Their mother seemed unconcerned when I gently mentioned the sewage discharge upstream.

Next year is forecast to be a super El Niño. The sea surface temperature around Cornwall is currently 19 degrees. The 2015 floods were linked to the last super El Niño. Eleven named storms produced record level rainfall from November 2015 to March 2016. The Met Office have warned of autumn storms and a hotter summer.

I need to prepare for extreme weather. Autumn and winter storms will fill the lakes and encourage the sea trout upstream but the spate rivers would be unfishable. If next year is hot, I will seek out mullet and bass.

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Fourteen consecutive days of air temperatures over 30°C. The water temperature of the lowland River Rother was 20°C, over my limit of 18°C. The trout were not active, they were in deep, fast, weedy water waiting for darkness when they might take the odd shrimp.

The Leconfield lakes were 21°C and looked beautiful but dead, no fish moved. It was even too hot for carp fishing. I returned to Devon.

The temperature of the Dartmoor rivers varied from 23°C to 18°C. The fast water, shallow riffles and tree lined banks kept the water temperature down on the Tavy. I fished for a couple of hours and had three takes but failed to connect.

The fourteen day heat wave was followed by a further two weeks of hot weather. I visited Burrator one evening but the water level had not dropped as much as I had hoped and I had a frustrating couple of hours snagging the large boulders that lined the edge of the reservoir. The trout were offshore in the deep water, nothing moved.

In Devon during 2024 the prolonged rain in the spring and regular spates throughout the summer, meant that the rivers were full. 2025 had the driest March since 1961 and the summer was the warmest on record.

According to the Met Office, the mean maximum summer temperature in England has increased steadily since 1960 from 19°C to 21°C in 2020. Since 1960 the annual winter rainfall in England has also steadily increased by 13%. The summers are getting hotter and the winters wetter. Global warming is here.

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It was a mixed week. The hottest day during May since records began, 33 degrees ! At the end of the week the trout in the lakes became lethargic as the water temperature exceeded 18 degrees and the dissolved oxygen level dropped.

At the start of the week we had bright sunshine, cold winds and rain showers. Then high pressure settled over England and a hot southerly wind brought soaring temperatures to the south east, Sussex baked and the trout disappeared into the weeds.

I visited Great Springs on 15 May and caught three nice rainbows on various patterns of mayfly. It was windy which helped me reach distant fish and the ripples hid the tippet.

On Saturday 16 May I took a loaf of bread and a light rod to the lake on the farm. The fish were patrolling the margins on the down-wind side of the lake and were very wary. I was surrounded by sheep and cattle. The grass had been chewed short which didn’t give me anywhere to hide. I caught one small wild carp. The first fish I had caught from the lake since it was dug and landscaped.

On Sunday 17 May I went to the Leconfield BBQ and ate too much cake. During the hour prior to the picnic I caught 3 rainbows from Luffs. I had the lake to myself. The south westerly breeze cooled me and helped with casting. The fish were hunting mayfly nymphs and adults, they took the dry fly as soon as it touched down.

On Thursday 21 May I caught two carp from the farm lake on floating crust. One fish was fat with spawn and the other had already spawned, we should have some lovely wild fish in a few years.

On Friday 22 May it was 28 degrees but I thought an evening visit to the river was in order. The heat wave forecast for the bank holiday weekend would prevent any further fishing trips before my return to Devon. The river at Keepers Bridge had an olive green tint and was up a few inches. I went upstream towards Perryfields Barn. During three hours walking I saw two fish rise, neither fish liked my imitation mayfly. The winged imitation of a dun twisted the tippet and presentation was poor, I should remove those patterns from my fly box.

I took photos of the mayfly as they hatched. The duns, spinners and egg layers were everywhere. There were no birds feeding on the flies and most duns lifted off the water and found security in the willow trees. By 8 o’clock I was exhausted, I should have delayed the trip a couple of hours.

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It was cold. An east wind, overcast sky and odd spells of sunshine, were perfect for fishing. I had an urge to fish the Abbey Beat on the Tavy.

I took the Hardy Perfect that I had rescued from a market stall. The water level was good and the deep wooded valley sheltered me from the cold wind. I paddled in the margins, flicked a nymph across the pool and let it drift under the overhanging branches. After twenty minutes of concentration I left the pool. A trout rose exactly where I had been fishing !

After another twenty minutes I gave up on the fish. A huge sea trout drifted downstream and disappeared in the riffle at the end of the pool. I walked to another, much deeper pool and worked the nymph beyond a sand bank. Nothing responded.

The woods along the river bank were carpeted with bluebells, pink campion and wild garlic. The garlic squeaked as I crushed it under foot and the scent was overpowering. Japanese Knotweed and Himalayan Balsam lined the edge of the river and restricted my back cast.

The rod performed well and I only lost one nymph in the trees. As I left the river trout were rising for midges and I regretted leaving my dry flies at home !

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The mayfly have a civilised life cycle, the nymphs make their way to the surface around noon. The duns flutter into the air and head for the nearest vegetation. The date on which the mayfly season starts is largely determined by the length of daylight hours. Other factors play a minor role. My diary entries record mayfly hatching at Little Springs on 30 April or 1 May consistently for over 10 years. The hatches are later on the Rother and last until late June.

A week earlier my hunt for mayfly had been inconclusive. I thought I had seen a couple of duns but they were too far away to be sure. I arrived at noon and had both lakes to myself. The strong, blustery, west wind made cats paws on the surface and stripped the seeds and pollen from the willow trees. The margins along the east bank were a constantly moving soup of debris, the trout were flashing at ascending nymphs and gulping down emerging mayfly.

I found a lone cowslip near the fishing hut which reminded me of the title pages of BB’s books. I took it as a good omen. The wind assisted my casting, floating the #3 line high on the forward cast enabled me to reach the middle of the lake, close to the feeding frenzy. For an hour the trout rose to my fly, I hooked four and netted only one. The hook pinged out of the other three as I reached for the landing net. I think the acute angle of the 10′ 6″ rod was too much, I should have extended the telescopic landing net handle.

The most successful fly was an extended foam body imitation of a spinner. I spent a while chasing the clouds of spinners to get a closer look until the hatch abruptly ended about 2:00pm. In a couple of weeks the Rother will come to life and I hope to continue fishing the mayfly hatch there.

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