Salisbury & District Angling Club

Salisbury and District Angling Club holds one of the largest blocks of chalk stream fishing in private hands anywhere in England, and almost all of it is fished by members rather than sold by the day. The club controls water on five rivers that meet at Salisbury: the Hampshire Avon from Durrington down through Amesbury and the Woodford valley, the Wylye from Warminster to Stapleford, the Nadder at Barford St Martin and Wilton, the Ebble in the Chalke valley, and the Wiltshire Bourne at Gomeldon, Hurdcott and Laverstock. The game fisheries are fly only, upstream dry fly early in the season with nymph added from 1 July, and most run a tally or disc board so you have your beat to yourself.

The character changes a good deal from valley to valley. Durnford, on the Little Durnford Estate, is the club’s showpiece: twenty two beats of stocked and wild water with hatch pools, gravel flats and carriers. West Amesbury is two miles of largely wild river where habitat work with the Wild Trout Trust has let the club cut back stocking almost entirely. The Ebble and the upper Bourne are small, clear and difficult, the sort of water where you spend longer looking than casting. Sutton Veny and Eastleigh on the upper Wylye are wild fisheries of three rods a beat, managed for natural character rather than numbers.

Game membership is £360 a year for full and associate members, £330 for senior citizens and £57 for juniors, and is subject to a waiting list. Coarse and mixed fishery membership is £165, £112 and £29 on the same bands and can be bought at any time. Members can buy guest day tickets at £40 adult and £10 junior for West Amesbury, Queensberry Bridge and Abbey water on weekdays outside the mayfly period, and any day from 16 October to 31 December for grayling. Day tickets to non-members are sold on some of the coarse fisheries through local tackle shops. The club is based at The Cart Shed, New Bottom Road, Stratford sub Castle, Salisbury SP4 6AB.