A very enjoyable day today spent at the Rockbourne Trout Fishery. English fishing, by my reckoning, is a very expensive proposition – what with annual fishing rod taxes (is there any item in the U.K. that is not specifically taxed??), licensing, paying, in most places just the cost of being able to wet a line there. Well I am here to tell you that Peter and Simeon, the owner and fisheries manager respectively, have not only put together a class operation – with the very real possibility of catching some high quality fish, but at a streamlined cost for such a great time. The nuts and bolts, briefly is that if you are not a season pass holder, you can fish on a daily basis and your costs are fixed – you can purchase a daily pass for a given number of fish, in our case, the four of us each had a 2 fish ticket. We did need to purchase from the British Gov’t a one-day license (GBP 6) and the total fishing cost was £38 each, or about $45 USD. Still pretty stiff, you say? Check out Exhibit #1 below: 
This is my very good friend George Edward “Buddy”. As an aside, Buddy is an “X”, in other words, the 10th in his family line with exact same name (excepting for the “Buddy”). Buddy caught this super Blue Trout on fly, 5.5lbs! Be like Buddy, if you’re going to catch fish, catch big fish!
Buddy was not the only one to score, both his wife Sue and I managed to land fish too – Sue’s Rainbow weight was 4 lbs and my very enjoyable Rainbow catch came in at a respectable 3 lbs, all taken by wet flies.
Sue catches fish, she just doesn’t hold them!
My last minute Rainbow
And lest anyone start in with the “well that’s just like shooting fish in a barrel” manUray, We fished hard for three hours, changing retrieves, flies, presentations, the works and fishing in each of the six lakes available to us. But here’s the beauty part; if you don’t fill your tickets, or even if you don’t catch any – you’re not going to go home empty handed. Rockbourne smokes fish onsite and they give you sealed packets of smoked trout to take with you. These packets retail at £6.50 each. Also, if you’re not into fresh fish, you can trade your catch (this is not a catch and release fishery – it’s catch and filet!), for smoked fish. Want the fresh fish? They will handle the dressing out for you at a cost of £1 for each fish. Simeon didn’t charge me and thank you very much!
To sum up, if you’re in the life position where you’re weighing costs -vs- benefits (I know all about that), Rockbourne Fisheries is an excellent value all the way around – I now know, and value the RockBourne Identity!
For more information, go here: http://www.rockbournetroutfishery.co.uk/ or contact Peter and Simeon on their Facebook page, Rockbourne Trout Fishery
Disclaimer- Rockbourne management and owners do not know me and in no way offered any compensation or inducement. The opinions and experience contained herein is solely mine based on our experience today. That said, anytime I’m in the U.K. I will be returning again!
A view across Spring Lake
The return of Carson.... 