When it comes to catching big still water trout in beautiful tranquil surroundings, few could argue that Avington set in the heart of rural Hampshire is not only THE place to be, but also the place where it all started. Under the guidance of its creator and original owner the late Sam Holland and fishery manager Roy Ward, the fisheries crystal clear chalk stream fed lakes facilitated the development of the concept of big fish stalking, an edge of the seat individual fish targeting technique that not only remains the big attraction here, but is without doubt the real key to success at the fishery even today. It is possible to cast blind then strip back lures and still enjoy some degree of 'stockie bashing' success at each of Avington's three lakes. But why bother when you can do that at a thousand other small still water fisheries dotted around the country, and probably for half or less of Avington's day ticket price. What makes Avington so special is its idyllic setting with bags of shoulder space and a venue that produces all its own perfect quality stock fish on site ranging from a minimum 5 to 7 pound 'stockie' size well into double figures, some of which have been and may again in the future be encouraged to reach record breaking proportions.

With the benefit of hind sight I can honestly say that stalking is not that difficult a concept to get your head around. If anything, it's even easier than blind water whipping, providing a few fundamental rules are taken on board and adhered to. I was lucky in that I had a master in the art of stalking in the form of Graeme Pullen to show me the ropes. First by demonstration, both for me and for the video camera, and later by letting me loose with the polaroids and fly rod. Actually, when I put the polaroids on and start peering into the gin clear water, the thing that most immediately stuck me was the amount of empty fishless water there was out there. Fish are not evenly distributed around the area of each lake. Despite having spent most of their previous life in a fish farm stew pond, they very quickly learn that there are favoured and less favoured zones which is what happens on all stocked trout waters. The advantage Avington has over much of its competition however is that you can actually see where these areas are removing the risk of wasting time flogging some barren swim to death. The only 'problem' at Avington is that many of the main fish holding areas, and in particular for the bigger fish, tend to be swims which on any other water you would immediately walk past on account of the degree of casting and fishing difficulty they present. There are no shortage of bushes and trees around each of the three lakes, either deliberately put there, or left to encourage stalking. With any other approach, getting a shot at many of these fish would be difficult to impossible. But stalking isn't any other approach.

What I found so amazing when I found a big fish in a tight jungle situation was that to be successful you don't necessarily have to be able to cast. On many occasions, the fly line will not even be poking through the end eye of the rod. One fish in particular summed it all up for me. It was laid up tight in to the bank under the exposed roots of a very tall tree with several dense bushes either side of it. Even to see the fish properly I had to force a pathway through the dense branches and leaves. Then there it was quite literally under my feet. Not a monster, but a nice fish of around 8 pounds which Graeme encouraged me to have a shot at. So having poked my arm and the rod through the thicket, I was told to do a catapult cast which is done by taking the fly on a short length of leader between the fore-finger and thumb, then with the fly line clamped solid against the rod butt so that it can't slip, pull the rod tip down to put a good bend in it and let it go using the action of the rod as it straightens to catapult the fly towards the fish. The idea is to land the fly about a foot or so ahead of the fishes nose. Then instead of starting to retrieve the thing, stage two of the approach is brought into play. This is the technique of 'jiggling' which is simply to twitch the fly up and down vertically using the rod tip in the hope of provoking a response..

I say fly, but actually what you need to be using is a tiny heavily weighted nymph. Usually this will be fished on a weight 4 outfit which while that all might sound a little out of proportion to the size some of these trout can achieve, is actually more than sufficient, and it has to be said, great fun too. Why scantily clad small nymphs work so much better than larger more generously dressed flies is difficult to say. Such a tiny prey item hardly seems worth the effort to such a large fish. But actually, it probably isn't so much a feeding response as an irritating provocation. Whatever the reason, it most certainly delivers the goods. But the fly needs to be heavily weighted so that it sinks immediately, it's actual working depth being controlled by the rod tip. The fish can see the offering easy enough as you are dropping it at very close range right in its line of vision. Yet very often they will turn their head deliberately ignoring it. The thing is not to be put off. This is just the first response in what should become a building level of irritation. It could well be that when the fish turns it will swim away, and if it does, that as they say is the end of that. But if it doesn't, it is almost certainly setting itself up for some sort of aggressive response if you stick at the task at hand.

This particular fish looked at my tiny weighted bug a couple of times and turned away. So I took it a little closer and kept the gentle jiggling action going. On a couple of occasions it inched forward as if it was going to have a go then checked itself. Other times it just completed blanked the thing out. Then suddenly it took it. This happens very quickly, and unlike fishing blind when the first you know about what's going on is when the fish is hooked and powering away, with jiggling it's different, because they just suck the fly in and don't do much in the way of actual movement. What I was told to do was look at the fishes mouth. Inside the mouth, the tongue is white and very easy to spot. So when the trout opens its mouth to suck in the little bug, you get a quick glimpse of the white tongue which, because the whole thing happens so quickly, is your trigger to strike without ever feeling anything at the rod tip, which is exactly what I did, and bingo. Then 'all' you have to do is try to play the thing and keep it from darting under numerous snags while precariously stood leaning over the water through a hole is a bush trying to pass the heaving rod along from hand to hand through the jungle until you can get the fish into open water facing a bit of clear banking. These are fully finned fish in the peak of fighting quality, and as it was the cooler back end of the year when we fished it, there was plenty of oxygen available in the water to help it keep the tussle going. Certainly a fish to remember.

Graeme took a few too on similar tactics. But these weren't the only trout we caught. Some were also caught while actually sight casting to fish patrolling up and down either mid way across the lake, or to the sides from gaps in the bank-side vegetation. One chap in particular who I'm not sure whether he was an Avington regular or not, went straight for the radial casting and lure stripping approach, and within the first hour had a very nice four fish limit. The trouble is that as catch and release is not permitted here, then you either pack up and go home early, or as this chap did buy another ticket, which at £75 a throw is not something I would want to be doing. For starters, I don't want a freezer full of rainbow trout however good their condition. But more importantly, with such an exciting, absorbing and time consuming alternative available, what is he point. Far better to walk all three lakes before even wetting a line looking at what is in the place and where. Unless of course you stumble across a real monster en route. Then you simply have to give it your best shot. That's what most of the regulars do. You can always revert over to the lure stripping later in the afternoon if you have some spare capacity still in your bag limit. But not so early in the day. Or of course you can give another kind of 'blind fishing' a go which I have seen people do here with varying degrees of success, including some monster fish. This involves looking for areas at the windward end of the lakes where dead leaves and other vegetative flotsam has gathered, poking a hole through it with the rod tip, then lowering the fly down through the hole and jiggling it up and down.

Fly, or should I say nymph choice can be very important at Avington, and quite a few innovative successful patterns have been devised by stalking regulars over the years. As has already been said, these need to be heavily weighted and usually tied on hooks in the size 10 bracket. Fly tying expert Syd Knight provided our selection which included a Light Brite Chomper, When All Else Fails, and one of Graeme's own patterns, the Firebird, which was the one I used to tempt the fish mentioned earlier from out under those tree roots. But interestingly, earlier in the day, that particular pattern didn't get so much as a look either when jiggling or sight casting. Then as the day moves on, or as light and possibly even temperature conditions change, preferences can also change with them. In addition to this, showing a fish too much of a pattern it isn't interested in is not a good idea. Perseverance to a degree is all very well. But the time eventually comes when enough is enough and a change is called for. So be prepared to rotate through maybe half a dozen proven patterns with any particular targeted fish before either getting it or giving up. The shop at the reception has a good selection of regularly successful Avington nymphs, on top of which, a chat with the ever helpful fishery staff who see the day to day patterns emerge and decline, is always a useful ploy here as it is at any other fishery in the land.

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