Advice to someone thinking about starting up fly fishing the Middle Severn

       I regularly receive requests for information from midlands based anglers thinking of taking up fly fishing on the middle Severn. Here are a few pointers.

1. Forget the 15ft rod and 10/11 lines.

There really isn’t any need for heavy kit on the Severn. Even with a few feet on and conditions that require big heavy tubes a 13/14ft rod and 9/10 lines are all you need.

Most fly fishing on the middle river is done at or towards low water. That means fishing glassy glides and pool tails. In these circumstances lighter lines are a better bet. It is important to think stealth, not ‘whamming it out’. My low water double handed rods range from 14ft to 12ft and I use 8/9 or 7/8 lines with them. I also have an 10ft 8 weight single hander which I fish with 7 or 8 weight lines and occasionally a 6 weight. My favourite low water line is a homemade shooting head constructed from the front portion of an 8/9 floating Spey line with a very fine gradual front taper. This allows for delicate presentation and if I want to get the fly down a little I use trout (not salmon) poly leaders of either 5ft or 10ft. On low water I also use longish leaders so the poly leader and hook length will be somewhere between 18ft and 25ft long in total. This set up is designed to give as delicate a presentation as possible while still using a rod with the backbone to land a good sized salmon quickly.

I’ve seen plenty of Severn salmon spooked by heavy 10/11 lines on low clear water. One day sticks in the memory. I was sitting on the river bank watching a guy repeatedly crashing a 10/11 shooting head without poly leader on to 3ft of clear glassy glide. When his casts got within about 20ft of a known lie a fish rocketed out of the water, turned tail and ran back to the deep pot of the pool breaking surface a couple of times as it went. ‘There’s a few fish running today’ the angler bellowed to me across the river. He didn’t seem to recognise that they were running from him. Instead he spent 30 minutes repeatedly covering the same now empty spot where the salmon had come crashing out of the water.

2. Go fishing not casting

It amazes me how many people think it is perfectly OK to practice their casting over water holding salmon. It just isn’t fair to people trying to catch them. I remember one season when an angler took up station on a particular holding pool to practice his casting from the bank. He stayed in the same place for hour after hour, day after day. After a few weeks you could see the gap in the bank side vegetation behind his right shoulder where his D loop had acted like a garden strimmer. Fish just wouldn’t settle in the lies his line covered and the only fish caught from that pool that season were holding out of his range.

Modern Spey casting has given anglers a wide range of casts that are worth learning and will get us out of jail in more or less any circumstances. However, some of these casts are not exactly delicate. I’m thinking especially about waterborne anchor casts like the various modern snaps and pokes and also the classic double Spey. Don’t use these casts when you’re trying to cover low clear glassy glides. The noise created by ripping the line off the water is enough to spook the fish. Use kiss and go casts like the single Spey or snake roll, or better still - and if you’ve got the space behind you - use the overhead cast. And unless there is plenty of water on don’t use casts where you lay the line out on the water in the direction of the cast and then single Spey and shoot.

3. Fish deep by all means but avoid snagging up

I’ve found that a fly fished deep and fast can be highly effective on low clear water. It is a very useful alternative tactic to the usual subsurface presentations. However on low water it is important to fish deep and fast. Or at least to make sure that your fly is not continuously dragging bottom. If you don’t you’ll find your hook attached to a rock, a spawning barbel’s back, or you might even snag a salmon.

This might seem too obvious to be even worth stating, but unfortunately I’ve seen plenty of anglers who are clearly unaware of it. To the inexperienced a slow tightening of the line as it swings across the pool, followed by a heavy bump could be a signal that a salmon has taken your fly. However, if you’re fishing with a type 2 or heavier sink tip in just 3 ft of medium paced water and you aren’t working the fly, then it is much more likely to be caused by hooking a boulder (the slow tightening) and then dislodging it (the bump). Foul-hooked barbel can give a similar indication, and if they then take off broadside to the current may even convince the novice that they have hooked a salmon. Though it is comical to watch an angler lift the rod and shout ‘fish on’ and then reel in a rock fish, the serious problems caused by this type of fishing is that it risks foul-hooking fish, spooks everything in the pool and spoils the sport for others. Lines raking the pool spread panic in low clear water. If the angler gets repeatedly snagged on the bottom then the resulting taught line can bang into fish and it will certainly disturb them. Fish deep by all means, but if you keep getting snagged up make the necessary changes to stop it.

4.      Don’t fish with the sun at your back

Much of the middle Severn flows north west – south east, or between that and north - south. That means that fly anglers fishing in the evening during the key months of May, June and July are faced with the problem of the setting sun shining directly in to the fishes’ eyes. Salmon don’t have eyelids or wear sunglasses. You can waste hours on evening after evening trying to get them to take a fly in these circumstances.

5.      Take up night fly fishing

Salmon will take a fly well at night and on low water are more likely to be found in good fly runs at night than during the day. They seem to move out of the pools and in to the runs and tails as the light fades and will continue to push upstream under cover of darkness even when all upstream migration has ceased during the day. Don’t wait for perfect gin clear conditions for night fishing, as long as you can make out your boots when the water is up to your privates it is clear enough for the salmon to see your fly.

6.      Don’t bother fishing when an algal bloom is on, or when the water gets too hot

Most years at some time in the late spring a major algal bloom takes hold of the middle Severn. This reduces visibility to inches sucks the oxygen out of the water and chokes the fish. Residents might be showing all over the place, but they are distressed fish. Trying to catch them is a waste of time. The same is true of high water temperatures over 20c – don’t bother fly fishing. You can sneak out the odd fish when the water is just below this temperature, but it is tough going. Once the river is down to 15c or so sport improves dramatically. When the water is very warm the only chance of a fish is from the oxygenated water of the weir pools on the lower river.

7.      Identify a couple of holding pools and spend time learning them properly

The Severn is a working man’s salmon river. You can’t expect to get everything on a plate, the anglers tend to be tight lipped about where to find a fish. However, if you are prepared to put in the effort to do most of the work finding the fish yourself the rewards can be great. There are plenty of good holding pools on the middle Severn. You can get access to these on a club book for a very reasonable price (last season my middle Severn fly caught fish cost me less than a fiver each in terms of permit money). Join a few clubs, walk the river, if you stumble across a salmon angler don’t expect them to tell you much, talk to coarse anglers and ask them about where they’ve seen salmon. This will give you enough information to identify some areas to start with. Once you’ve found these deep holding pools start fishing the runs and tails and keep a close eye on the EA river gauges. Over time you will build up an understanding of where and when to fish.

A final word.....

The Severn is a challenge, but it is seriously under-fished as a salmon fly fishing river. Give it a go, put in the work and you may be pleasantly surprised.