Unexpected trout

A day spent chasing the plentiful, pristine wild brown trout that reside in small streams up and down the country proves the best sport doesn't always come with a hefty price tag attached

- John Bailey

A WHILE BACK I wrote a piece for The Field about targeting big river brown trout. Last September I took my own advice and had a week on the Usk and the very upper Wye doing just that. The last weeks of the trout season are my favourite times of all, and the adventure was glorious. I hooked two large brownies, one in each river, and neither fish gave me a ghost of a chance of landing them. I'd stalked and strategised for days, put in intense effort and enjoyed (or should that have been endured) a total of five minutes' angling embarrassment. Now this September I'm going to be concentrating on the absolute opposite end of the spectrum: pursuing plentiful, pristine wild trout that exist in serious numbers in small streams.

Most won't be big, and anything of 10 inches or above I'll regard as a specimen, but that won't matter a jot. This will be a new and supreme test. A bit of a mind reset but more engaging, and I'll be learning every minute on the job. A last but serious bonus is that this style of challenge comes in at a fraction of the cost you might expect: a pittance compared with a day on a typical keepered chalkstream, for example.

Smaller wild brownies from smaller streams are fun and the sport is action packed. Fishing in miniature like this is all about freedom, exploring and in every case solving your own problems. There are tips to be had but no hard and fast rules, so it feels like being a child again back when angling was full of mystery and magic. Apart from an open mind, you'll not need much if anything new to enjoy such an expedition to the full. But, crucially, you will require the mindset.