A Proper Chalkstream Passion: How Fishing Breaks Hooked Me for Life

You know, there’s something about the Test on a misty morning—the way the river breathes, those lazy swirls under the willows—that gets into your blood. Takes me back to ’92, I think it was, when I first stumbled into Simon Cooper’s little operation at Nether Wallop Mill. Back then, it was just him, a battered telephone, and a dog-eared notebook full of riverkeeper contacts. Funny story, that phone rang so much he had to wedge it between his shoulder and ear just to tie a decent Adams knot. But that’s Simon for you. Thirty years on, Fishing Breaks is still run the same way: by anglers, for anglers, with a proper love for these chalkstreams.

Now, here’s the thing about English chalkstreams—they’re rarer than a mayfly in December. The British Isles? They’ve got 85 percent of the world’s chalkstreams, and let me tell you, they run sweet as you like. But back in the day, unless you were born into the right fishing club or knew a keeper who’d look the other way, you might as well have been staring at those trout through a locked gate. Simon? He grew up on the Test, practically gill-deep in those Hampshire currents, and it drove him barmy watching folks miss out. So he did what any mad-keen angler would: turned his Rolodex into a revolution.

“Make the best beats accessible,” he’d say, and still does—usually while untangling some poor sod’s leader down by the mill pool. Not that he’s some posh outfitter; the man’s got mud on his waders and a knack for remembering which bend of the Dever holds the fussiest brown trout (hint: it’s the one with the overhanging hawthorn, where the current sorts of sidles left). That’s the beauty of Fishing Breaks. It’s not some faceless booking agency; it’s a bunch of us who’ve fished every yard of these rivers, from the gin-clear shallows up at Whitchurch to that tricky stretch below Leckford where the mayflies hatch late when the wind’s right.

And the Test! Oh, the Test. You know how those Test trout can be—fussy as a cat at a salad bar. But when they’re on? Nothing like it. I’ve lost count of the days I’ve spent knee-deep in the carrier streams, watching rises so delicate you’d swear they were ghosts. Simon’s team—keepers, guides, the lot—they’re the ones who’ve made it possible for the rest of us to crack the code. Took us ages to convince old Charlie down at the middle beat to let novices have a crack at his pet pool, mind you. “They’ll spook ‘em all!” he’d grumble. Now? He’s the first to hand out flies to beginners.

Course, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing. There was that time in ’08 when the floods washed out half the beats, and we spent weeks rebuilding riffles by hand—proper backbreaking work, but what else were we gonna do? Let the redds silt over? Not on Simon’s watch. That’s the other thing about this outfit: they treat these rivers like family. Because they are.

So here we are, three decades later, still scribbling bookings in the same ledger (okay, fine, there’s a website now). But the heart of it? Still the same. A tight-knit crew, a handful of the finest rivers you’ll ever wet a line in, and a standing invitation to swap lies—the fishy kind and the “I swear it was this big” kind—over a pint at the Mill.

Founder in 1990? Check. Chalkstream specialists? As if their lives depended on it. Access to water you won’t find anywhere else? You’d better believe it. But the real magic? It’s in the way the morning mist still rises off the Test, same as it did when Simon picked up that phone and decided to share it with the rest of us.

Give ‘em a ring. Tell ‘em I sent you. Might even get you the secret fly pattern for the Stockbridge carriers. Might not. Either way, you’re in for proper fishing.