Fly Fishing on the River Dorset Stour

The Dorset Stour rises from springs on the Stourhead estate in Wiltshire and runs 61 miles south and east through Gillingham, Sturminster Newton, Blandford Forum and Wimborne before joining the Hampshire Avon in Christchurch Harbour. It is the largest river in Dorset and drains most of the county, gathering the Cale, the Lydden and the Divelish as it crosses the Blackmore Vale, then the Tarrant, the Allen and the Moors River on the way down.

It is not a chalk stream, and it is worth being clear about that before you drive down. The Stour rises on greensand and spends most of its length in a clay catchment, so it colours after heavy rain in a way the Test and the Itchen never do. The exception is the middle river. Between Blandford Forum and Wimborne it crosses the chalk of the Dorset Downs, and by late spring that reach runs clear and steady enough that anglers who fish both describe it as behaving like a chalk stream. That is also where the Brown Trout, Grayling are. Above Blandford it is a roach, dace and pike river, and below Wimborne it becomes serious barbel and chub water, with the stretch at Throop holding a national reputation for big fish.

Fishing here works differently from the chalk streams to the east. No agent sells day rods by the beat on the Stour. The water is held by angling clubs and associations, most of them fishing it for coarse species, so the way in is a club day ticket or an annual membership rather than a booked rod. We list 2 stretches on the river. Anyone who wants fly water in this catchment should look at the River Allen, which joins the Stour at Deans Court below Wimborne and is the one genuine chalk stream among its tributaries.