In my ongoing quest for interesting river and stream trout fishing within a sensible drive of home I came across the Rossett and Gresford Fly Fishers' Club. This is a small (but perfectly formed) club which manages a few miles of the River Alyn, half a dozen miles or so south of Chester just the Welsh side of the English/Welsh border. Only £50 a year, it's a real bargain gem. This is an account of my first day on the river - what fun!

So, a new river to explore. And a new time. Incredibly, I was up at 06:00 and away by 06:30. Now anyone who might know me would be aware that I tend to believe that getting up before 9ish is liable to lead to a rapid decline in health. If God had meant us to rise early he wouldn’t have invented the ‘lectrik light and heavy curtains.

Anyway, intense anticipation and a desire to miss the rush-hour over the Runcorn (jubilee) bridge galvanised me into fantastic action and I was parked up by half seven. The Alyn here is an interesting little river with a collection of fast riffles, long, slow glides and the odd deepish pool. Mostly mixed pebble and gravel bed with some muddy areas where the flow is slow. Tree cover is pretty comprehensive but not so dense that you can’t get some form of cast in. The Rossett and Gresford Fly Fishers have developed the water a lot and kept the heavy brush at bay and provided loads of places to get into the water. Today was sunny and the water was low and terribly clear – hmmm, might not be entirely productive for a novice like me. I didn’t mind though, I could explore a new stream and come back another day with added knowledge and cunning.

Into my waders and down to the river with a 6ft Wychwood ‘River and Stream’, 5’ braided leader and 3 feet or so of 6lb to 3lb tippet with a short 3lb dropper. Tied on a biggish Klinkhammer on the dropper and a 16 white bead-head nymph – no fish rising even though there was the tail end of some form of hatch so let’s try the Deadly Duo! Away we go, stalking up the shallows, casting into the riffles and edges of fast water, flicking my fly gently but accurately into the exact spot where the wary prey might just be skulking… Well actually it was more like stumbling upstream thrashing the water at any random spot scaring the trout witless. I did, though, catch numerous varieties of Willow and, I think, Elder. This fishing lark is going to do wonders for my botany expertise. However it’s pretty frustrating to have to wade back every two or three casts to un-hook yourself from an aggressive tree. Still, practice makes perfect(ish) and after half an hour or so I could actually swing my line low under the overhanging trees an hit the spot with a modicum of accuracy.

Here we come to a deeper section and the bottom becomes a black, sucking, muddy sludge. Hmmm, the water level is getting pretty close to the top of my waist waders. Should I retreat? No push on to the side there and clamber over the tree trunk to the shallows I think. Well that seemed a good idea at the time! God it’s hard to clamber anywhere in waders and the bloody mud keeps sticking my feet to the bottom. Still just a little heave here and what the hell is holding me back now! SPANG!… something thwacks me on the head from behind. What cowardly attack is this? Looking around I see my landing net just sinking out of sight – Oh Bugger! it’s got caught on a bloody bramble and the magnetic connector has let go leaving the elastic bungee attachment to snap back and assault me with a heavy Neodymium chunk. Anyway, just managed to catch the retreating net, scramble in an undignified heap over the tree and with a single bound I was free. Thank goodness nobody will ever know of my ignominy.

Anyway, I spent the whole day doing such, and yes, believe it or not, I did catch a trout. Just a single, quite an unremarkable little thing. I suspect that the fish took sympathy on me and offered up the most junior member of the Piscatorial Union to help out. Still, beggars can’t be choosers and next time will be different!