A Tale of Two Saturdays - Part Two: For a Few Grayling More

Saturday, 26th January

So here we were again, Nicholas Steedman and me, on the River Itchen in Hampshire. On the hunt for more grayling, following on from last week. The wintry conditions  had disappeared, in this part of the country anyway - the previous day/ night, the north of England had taken an Arctic battering. Thankfully, this hadn't affected Hampshire where - along with Herefordshire and Hertfordshire - hurricanes hardly ever happen.....

I'd had plenty of food for thought following our last outing. There had been time for me to listen several times to one of my favourite podcasts, in order to pick George Daniel's brains about nymphing rigs, in order to go for something a little more appropriate than my other leader setups.

Just a brief word about Orvis, Tom Rosenbauer, and his podcasts. Although these are inevitably biased to North America, I thoroughly enjoy downloading and listening to these on my iPad. I have a 1.5 hour + train journey each way on my daily commute to and from London, and Tom's podcasts are a darn good way to pass the time, along with Scrabble and various other tablet-based diversions.

Anyway, back to Mr. Daniel and his words of wisdom. I have George's book, the Kindle version, and this is another source of mental sustenance whilst at the tender mercies of Southwest Trains. Between listening and reading I was able to prepare a different setup for short-line nymphing as I sensed this would be a required approach for my next day by the water. It was this approach that I planned to deploy first, anticipating a return to the hatch pool.

Spot the difference from last week?

Oh, and I'd remembered to charge the battery on my wife's Lumix, in order to better document our second visit on consecutive weekends. As well as to bring a long-handled landing net for fishing the hatch pool.

At drift end...ready to lift n flick?

While I started off nymphing below the weir, trying to work the quieter seams and slacker water, Nicholas moved upstream to fish above the weir. In the first picture, once again I think you can make out the sighter in my setup, being a couple of feet of this material, tied onto my leader, finished off with a tippet ring and a suitable length of tippet. Nicholas observed that my fly choice was unlikely to tempt grayling and so it proved, with an out-of-season brownie coming to my net and being swiftly returned. I changed my fly. But, at least I would be able to tell Gary that I'd given his creation a "swim".

Nicholas fishing a little upstream from me

Already from these pictures it's clear the conditions were very different from last week. The river was much higher and nowhere near as clear, although water clarity improved during the day.

Nicholas into a fish in the hatch pool

Yes, the snow had definitely gone and the previous two nights had seen heavy rainfall in Hampshire, but the day was clearer and brighter than we'd experienced for a while. There was a wind, though, and this made it feel colder although once again Whisky Mac and hot tea was on hand.

Nicholas had his eye on parts of the beat that we hadn't fished the previous Saturday and went off to those reaches to investigate. After a brief wander upstream to no avail, I returned to the hatch pool with a heavy fly on the point and another of Gary Hyde's creations on the dropper....the tung-beaded PTN tempted some nice-sized grayling.

Lightly hooked, but in the bag nonetheless

I particularly liked the spots on the beauty above, and was enjoying having the dropper fly eaten. Briefly, I considered taking this fish as I've never eaten grayling and takeable this one most certainly was. No - back you go. It's amazing how hefty that 5x tippet looks.....

Nicholas returned with tales of more willing grayling - and we fished together for a couple of hours, chatting and being sociable. We discussed Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, and some vilification he suffered on the forum for catching and "chapping" a grayling on one of his River Cottage episodes. This was interrupted by Nicholas hooking into a lunker which put a nice bend in his 2wt, as per the picture below.

In control, as the pulse quickens.....only just

This resulted in a long, slender and very beautiful fish of maybe a pound and three quarters coming to the net. I was pleased to do the honours but - between the three of us - we made a horlicks of it, the lady made her excuses and decided not to wait for a snapshot. Never mind, we have the memory.

I think by this stage of the day it had become apparent to Nicholas that little or no business was being done "dead drifting", and the customers seemed to respond to an "induced take" approach.

Moving further upstream, I hooked and lost a couple of fish before getting one to finally stick. This was my fish of the day. Interestingly, this one took so early in my drift that it was tantamount to "on the drop", which happens a lot on small stillwaters at this time of year.

Stop it, that tickles!

A closer view

The wanderlust manifested itself again - Nicholas went downstream and I gravitated back towards the hatch pool. Once again, the light began to fail and I was beginning to feel the pull of a planned dinner at The Pig that evening, causing me to up sticks and see what was occurring.

I found Nicholas further down the beat, enjoying some sport with yet more willing grayling. As testament to his dynamic approach, he was by now experimenting with more of a downstream approach. Our move back to the cars was interrupted by a sighting in the clear water of a very decent sized fish, and a crack was duly had at it. The result was never in doubt......

Number 35 for Nicholas?

And here is a closer look at this very handsomely spotted grayling:

What a difference a good camera makes

And - after that - it really was back to the cars for a last cup of tea before heading home. The weather and conditions couldn't have been more different from the previous Saturday, but it was well worth the effort for a few grayling more.