I’ll just refer to this newly fished stream as "LB". Anyway, the stream flows near Luke’s house, the same stream that Dom fell into in front of all those people a few years ago.

Luke and I wandered down a mile or so downstream, and upon arriving at the first trouty looking spot, were flabberghasted to see a leviathan trout of over 2lbs, and 3 others around the pound mark!!! Well after a few tries with the nymph, I decided that they must have been quiescent, as they just stayed put on the bottom without even wagging their tails.

A gamekeeper soon appeared, and informed us that we were poaching! After showing him our rod licences and a bit of riparian chat, we were "let off", and we moved upstream by about 400 yards, and into another territory, which we knew we could fish.

As we walked down into a horse field towards the river, I suddenly noticed Luke start fleeing from something in fear. A quick glance to the right confirmed my suspicion that a large mammal was "on the hoof". Luke and Wesley are easily put into flight by farm beasts, and this was evident here.

I’m afraid to say that I legged it too, as it was a large shire-type horse, and it looked mean. Upon reaching the river, Luke dived in as though he was trying to swim for it. However the water was only knee deep, and he had to haul himself out still with that horse at bay.

Actually, Luke just fell in and got totally soaked, but at least that rogue horse didn’t get us. The sodding thing just appeared out of the trees at full charge towards us. It even looked like it was going to leap over the river at one point, but we successfully shooed it away.

We spied countless trout on our way to a good pool near the railway tunnel. I caught I nice plump trout of about 1 pound in that pool. There were 8 trout (all brownies in this stream) lying in what looked like a loose shoal, rising and on the fin: really an excellent sight.

Further up we came to a very decent pool under the road bridge there. There were about 3 fish in the 1 and a half pound mark, and one of them even ate Luke’s fly, before spitting it out swiftly after.

Well well, I always went on at Luke as to why hadn’t he fished this brook yet? "Well people are always saying that there are trout in here"

Lucky sod, he has a very decent small trout stream teeming with good sized wild brownies, and it is all walking distance from his house. I would say that a pound fish is just run of the mill here, and there are several fish in the 1 and a half to 2 pound plus mark. The big fish were seriously spotted fish, and looked very nice indeed.

The first from LB