Fishing from Caravans

Author: Barry Hooper

I know a chap who actually caught a 9lb 6oz sea-trout from his bed in a caravan.

Sea trout tend to 'run' at night, in other words go up-river from the sea when there is sufficient water to take them a long way up, and instinctively they know when it is raining 50 miles up the valley. They are just like salmon in this respect, and often the salmon will 'run' at the same time as the sea-trout, although salmon are less nocturnal in their habits.

The trouble with fishing for the delicious sea-trout is that you have to keep such anti-social hours. If you are a keen fisherman, with sea-trout as your preferred quarry, you will be only too happy, just after 'afternoon tea', to don the waders, check the fly rod and make sure the fly is the correct one for the water conditions whilst it is still light.

You will put on, if you are sensible, loads of anti-midge cream and repellent, a fishing waistcoat containing the paraphernalia of your sport (line, fly boxes containing a hundred patterns, fishing scissors, torch, etc) and your raincoat even if it's not raining, and, with your wading stick and landing-net, set out for the fast flowing river which has cost you an arm and a leg to rent for 3 days for you and a couple of Mates.

If you are staying in an hotel you will miss dinner. If you are staying in a really good hotel, you will miss a really good dinner.

Having trudged the few hundred yards to the river in, or carrying, your breast waders over a couple of stiles and other cross-country obstacles on the path, you approach the river at last and decide who will fish which stretch of river, then trudge off to locate the best wading places in the pool before it gets dark.

In your hotel the guests are just settling into the pre-prandial G&T or sherry. On the river the mosquitoes are just settling into a bit of human blood, and the midges are learning too.

At night the temperature of the water feels around freezing, but every now and then a little twitch of the line can put the coldest fisherman in sweats. The shock of getting a real bite when you are up to your waist in torrential water at night is .....well, it's why you're there. Trying to keep hold of one of the hardest fighting fish in the dark is an art in itself, and if you can eventually land it you deserve a good pat on the back.

You take your wonderful fish back to a silent hotel, creep into the kitchen and find the fridge, pop it in, go upstairs and crawl into bed at 5.00 a.m., almost certainly missing breakfast.

On the other hand if you are staying in a caravan or motor home , you can keep your own hours. You can probably park it very close to a river with day-tickets; sleep the morning away; have a serious breakfast at late lunch-time; prepare your tackle with your friends; go fishing and then come back and have a home-cooked (by you) breakfast of the freshest sea-trout ever, with you're friends there to applaud your victory at 5.00 a.m. and maybe even a beer or two.

The 9lb 6oz sea-trout caught from a bed in a caravan? Well, sea-trout fishermen do dream like the rest of us.

Interested in caravans and motor homes and the open road? Try this link for more of the same .

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