WINTER GRAYLING

By Andy Everrit

 0530hrs and the alarm wakes me up from a deep sleep. On getting out of bed I look out of the window, everything is frozen solid. A real cold snap came in during the night and I am now wondering if I’m mad. The river is 65 miles away and the grayling will probably be put off with the sudden change in temperature. Never mind, you never learn anything in this game by staying at home and wondering how you would have got on, so off I go.

The river in question is the Annan, a top class sea trout and salmon water with a good head of grayling. Only a fortnight before, a local had a 3lb12oz (oh how I dream of a fish like that). I stop en route to pick up my mate, Owen. He has had grayling to 2lb12oz on the Annan - admittedly on trotted maggot – so there are fish there.

When we arrived at the river, it looked in great condition even though the weather could have been better. Setting up I went for a two fly rig; on the dropper a Heavy Czech nymph with a lighter shrimp pattern on the point. Now you might wonder why the lightest nymph would go on the point - this is so the dropper drags the point fly down, allowing you to bounce the fly rig over the river bed giving the flies a natural decent down the river.

With weather like I was experiencing, you are required to keep the flies very close to the bottom, as the fish will not rise to intercept the nymphs when the water is so cold.

Now I am no expert when it comes to this sort of fishing (or any other kind when it comes to that!) but this is how I tackle each swim: I firstly enter the pool very slowly, then wait 5 mins to let the swim settle. Facing upstream, I cast a very short line, up and slightly across the flow. As the flies come downstream I raise my rod, which enables me to keep in contact with my flies. They make their way down the river and as they pass me, I start to lower my rod until it is also pointing downstream. Takes can come at any time so you really need to keep in touch with your flies.

As soon as a grayling takes your flies you must react, as the fish will soon spit out your offering when they realise something is not right. I then fish out the pool covering all the usual haunts. Being able to read a swim is your biggest asset, as the fish can be tightly shoaled at this time of year and are easily missed. Most of the fish I caught were in 3-4ft of water, which means deep wading - so just be cautious while doing this, as a quick dunk in the river is the last thing you want during a freezing cold day!

I will not bore you with an account of every fish caught, but over the next two days I had 30 Grayling to just over 1lb, which is great fishing (although I was a little disappointed that none of the bigger fish made an appearance). Owen had 20+ fish long trotting to just under 2lbs, and also had a lot over the 1lb mark. But alas I couldn’t touch these larger fish. Most of the larger fish came from deeper swims where I was unable to wade to fish the flies properly.

I know most of you reading this are hardened ‘spotty bashers’ but believe me, grayling fishing just puts you back in touch with your fly rod. Takes are not felt - it is all down to watching where your line enters the water and as it travels down, any small pause or stop in the line must be struck and well lifted into. When your rod loops over with a hard fighting grayling on the other end, it is all worth the effort.

Andy E

PS Speaking to the Bailiff it’s £20 a day for sea trout fishing. The Annan is a top sea trout river, and I will be travelling up in May / June 2006. If you are interested just e-mail me nearer the time.

Good luck to one and all during the coming season.