Beauty on the edge of the Fens

I fell across this place today. A magical stretch of the Nar miles from anywhere, where water surges through an old mill-race under a ramshackle bridge, speeds headlong across a riffle, through a long-demolished sluice, into a deeper pool.

I'm no chub angler, but it screamed chub. Dace flashed on the shallows - I can't remember the last time I saw a shoal of dace - while a thick black tail or two waved beneath the streamer weed.

What a glorious, glorious place. Flies were hatching on a steadier run above a bend, with the odd dimple as fish tucked into the free feed.

I wonder how many more places like this lie forgotten, where the fish never see an angler as the river winds through the meadows, keeping its secrets to itself.

Brief respite for the River Nar

It's not exactly a household name when it comes to pike fishing, but it might well hit the headlines later this summer. For of all the rivers in the Fens, the Nar's one of the most vulnerable to drought.

Its upper reaches are totally different in character to the embanked stretch that flows through the Fens on its way to the old whalers' quays of King's Lynn. It's a chalk stream, shallow and fast-flowing, that supports a run of sea trout, along with resident brown trout, dace and a few chub.

It was raining hard this afternoon, when I dropped in on a couple of spots around South Acre and Castle Acre. The Nar was bowling along like a good-un, but several inches down on its normal level. Spots where I'd seen fish in the past, like the glide above a ford that usually held dace, were all devoid of life.

It's forecast to rain for the next few days, bringing short-lived surface run-off to the river. But the Nar depends on springs deep beneath the chalk hills to feed it. And if they fail, the river and the life it supports will struggle to survive, as it shrinks to a just a trickle through the water meadows.