River Itchen, Winchester 

Riverside Park Bank,(nearby postcode SO18 2JR) between Woodmill and the White Swan Public House. They don’t like you fly fishing due to the proximity to the public footpath. However, if you are proficient, they can’t complain if you roll cast a fly there.  There are all the usual coarse fish there and, especially in the winters months, the occasional shoal of grayling.  This is an ideal stretch to trot a slightly weighted, or unweighted, worm downriver and see what happens.

Once they sorted out Winchester’s waters, the trout now average more natural sizes than the 8-pounders once caught below the fish smokery in Eastgate Street, or the 16-pounder caught at Durngate in 1888 by a local angler with a hazel rod and minnow bait. Grayling were introduced to the Itchen in the mid-1800s, average sizes fluctuate from ¾ lb to more than 2lbs.