Trotting on the River Test - Jan 2016

The Test at Romsey

Once the new year had been seen in and all the Christmas celebrations were over my attention soon turned back to fishing. It was decided that my friend Dave and I would make the journey down to Hampshire to fish the River Test near Romsey.

The rivers had been all over the place locally due to vast amounts of rain over the Christmas holiday period. Our thinking was that the chalk streams of Hampshire would more than likely be fishable as they are far less affected by excess water than our Sussex lowland rivers.

We planned to float fish trotted maggots in the hope of catching grayling, trout, dace, roach and chub. The Test is a fantastic river for this style of fishing and we always enjoy our days down there. However, upon our arrival even the Test was out of shape....high and coloured. We looked on in disbelief as it was long journey to make to find the river unfishable!

Salmon Parr

Seeing as we were there anyway, we tackled up and decided to give it a go. The sun was shining for the first time in what seemed like weeks anyway so it was actually a pleasure just being out in the mild winter weather. Any fish would be a bonus.

Nice size Dace

The water was pushing so fast that our floats were 40 yards downstream of us literally seconds after plopping them in. It was very hard to find any water that was of a sensible pace. Eventually, after much searching we did find a few pockets of softer looking water and some fish seeking refuge within. They seemed to be thinking the same as us......find the steadier water to make life a bit easier!

Grayling

Once these areas had been located then a few fish started to come to our nets. Mostly dace, grayling and trout. In fact, in the end we managed a fair few fish as they seemed to be squeezed in to the steadier areas like sardines. A good day was had and we trundled back to Sussex in high spirits having thoroughly blasted away the mid-winter blues. No monsters but a great day out in good company with some beautiful fish. What more can you ask for!