When fishing a river you may feel that you have to
get out on the water, so that you are within reasonable casting distance of
where you feel the different
trouts are lying. Don’t be deluded about this, however. It may surprise you
to know that there are two circumstance on a river when the fish can be almost
at your feet, and wading more than a foot or so from the bank is unnecessary.
The first circumstance is during a spate when the water is highly coloured;
indeed just as you are concealed from the fish, so the bed of the river is
concealed from you, and it is unwise to step into the unknown. In flood water
trout like to keep out of the strong current, and they often lie close to the
bank so that they can safely snatch any passing tit-bits of worms or other
insects this means that you can either fish from the bank or, at most, a step or
so into the water.
The second circumstance where wading may be
unnecessary is in the evening, when darkness is falling. This is the time when
The bigger fish take up their positions at the ends of pools, sometimes only a
few feet from the bank from which you are fishing. Here you have to be very
stealthy in your approach, otherwise all you will see is the shooting arrow
shapes of trout taking off.
In normal circumstances, however, wading is necessary
and, like everything else in angling, there is a right way and a wrong way of
doing it. I need hardly ask you to check that there are no leaks in your waders
before you start, especially on your first outing of the season. Nor, I believe,
do I have to remind you of the dangers of wading out of your depth and having
the devastating feeling your waders filling the water!
This latter problem, however, is more easily prevented
than you might think. Most drenchings of anglers on a river are caused by one of
three things stepping into a hole, being carried off your feet by a strong
current, or slipping on stones under the surface. Apart from common sense and
the precaution of judging the water before you set foot in it, there is one
excellent piece of equipment you can use in strange water or water which has
slippery stone or deep holes or ledges to be avoided. This is a wading stick,
obtained easily at fishing tacklists. If you fasten a length of string to the
stick and tie it to your waist or your haversack you can release the stick to
float in the water when you hook a fish, then recover it when the fight is over.
Wading is an activity to be practiced sparingly,
mainly to get away from the bank and to get clear of trees of foliage which
might hamper you back cast, Never forget that once you step into the water, you
are in the fish’s world. This is his habitat and he has considerable advantages.
If you stir up mud or gravel, all the fish will scatter. If you step hurriedly,
the trout will feel the vibrations. On many rivers for example on some stretches
of chalk streams in the south of England wading is not only quite unnecessary,
it is prohibited altogether.
Yes! wade if you must, but do it very carefully, as
rarely as possible, and remember on a strange river that you next step forward
might well be into a deep hole!