A Grayling too Far?

Following my musings last time on fishing with French leaders, and having acquired one of these, I checked my brownie points balance at the Bank of Sarah and found that I did have sufficient credit for another visit to the Test at Timsbury before season's end. I was approaching this mainly as a piece of "r & d" rather than "r & r", wanting to have another opportunity with the French leader system. Bearing in mind how tough our last outing had been, I was managing my expectations with regard to catching fish - on the basis that Nicholas had found the fishing hard. If the grayling fishing equivalent of The Terminator (think relentless rather than deadly) had gone through his complete repertoire on our previous visit here and been left scratching his head, what hope for me?

As I was tackling up, the chairman of the syndicate that fishes this stretch happened by to exercise his dogs. He informed me that I would have some company from pike anglers that day, and was kind enough to share some sightings of salmon making their way up the river in the past week. I said I'd pass this information onto a colleague who'd been thinking about the salmon fishing on this stretch, and was reassured by the chairman's endorsement of the part of the fishery I was intending to target for grayling. We both agreed that this was a lovely spot in the Hampshire countryside, and parted to our separate and very different pursuits that morning.

A word about equipment; I had nail-knotted my Hends French leader onto a fly line already spooled onto my Orvis Battenkill Mid-Arbor. This is a lovely reel, but the floating line it holds has been disappointing; using this to deploy longer-leader techniques seemed ideal.  Rather than my usual Greys Streamflex Mk1 10ft 4wt, I opted for my Scierra Flylite 10ft 4wt, which has a more "tip flex" action and I felt could suit the French leader better.

By the way, first impressions of the Hends leader were really favourable. It is tapered and knotless, very supple and memory-free out of the packet; nail-knotting it to the fly line was easy with a tool. I had attached a couple of feet of sighter material finished with a tippet ring, and using this flavour of Stroft for pretty much the first time ever I deployed a two-fly rig. On the point one of these, matched nicely with a silver beaded Olive Quill Nymph on the dropper.

I also used a technique shown to me by Jim Williams some time ago now, just to make the sighter that little bit more "hi viz". Preparations were made, off to the water I went. The day was overcast, with barely the odd puff of wind, ideal conditions I thought for getting to grips with a French leader.

There's been a lot of discussion and some controversy around French leaders. For the fly fishing newcomer, I think that leaders in general are one of the most confusing and hard to understand "technical" aspects of this great sport. From how to attach a leader to a fly line right through to what knot to use for tying on the fly and everything in between, I think the best advice for a newcomer is "keep it simple".

Anyway, back to my day! Starting at the downstream extremity of the main carrier, I found the leader performed beautifully. Admittedly, I was using a couple of reasonably heavy flies and fishing at quite short range, but I was still fishless when answering the expected enquiry from one of the promised pike anglers as he passed on the access road.

I wasn't fishless for very long after, however. After a bit of "distance catch and release" on a very welcome grayling of half a pound or so, all hell broke loose. My indicator stopped dead, I lifted the rod tip, and before I knew it something large and angry had taken off about 20 yards upstream. "Hmmm, that isn't a grayling" I thought. This resulted in my new French leader getting a very welcome "stretch" as I was soon into the fly line, with the quality/ fitness-for-purpose of my nail knot duly assured by passing both ways the entire length of the rod and beyond. With fly line and most of French leader safely back on the reel, I had glimpsed something silver and I thought "Is this a sea trout or a salmon?".

The answer soon became apparent, however. The magenta stripe gave the game away, not only that but I also realised this was a foul-hooked, very fit and feisty over-wintered rainbow. As good as wild, I was pleased to see this fine fish detach itself and swim away. I fully expect to receive an invoice for leader stretching and knot "QA" services rendered.

Figuring that the recent mayhem would have "spoilt" this stretch, I decided to move upstream to the hatch pool. I persevered with the same setup, slightly lengthening  the amount of leader and gradually getting used to the slightly different timing required when casting a long leader. I started at the downstream extremity of the pool and worked up, fishing the broken water. Meeting with no enquiries let alone acceptances, I resolved to move upstream and return to this spot later - it surely must hold fish!

Here there MUST be fish!

My upstream sojourn was brief and fruitless, by now it was about 2.30pm and I decided to move back downstream to fish the opposite bank in the above picture. I was frustrated that this pool hadn't produced any fish on two visits now, and decided a change of fly was necessary. Onto the dropper went a pink fluffy beadhead grayling bug and an induced take (inadvertent, of course) produced a micro grayling. This inspired me to "think pink" for the point fly, and to add one of these to provide better indication, as the light wasn't great.

I looked back from the opposite bank to roughly where I was standing when I took the above picture. The broken, riffly bits of water with flat spots looked especially "fishy". I was sure that this pool must hold fish. What was I missing? What would Jim Williams do? Then the penny dropped - he'd put some chuffin' weight on the rig to get the flies down, keep them there and to put tension into the rig for improved indication. This was really quite fast water with a strong current, and I couldn't believe I hadn't tried this already. Fly fishing NUMPTY!

So, pinked and shotted up, I returned to roughly the position from which the above picture was taken. Kneeling to avoid casting my shadow over the pool, I cast gently upstream and instantly felt the surge of confidence that this method would work.

First cast with the right method!

I could feel the rig bumping along the bottom and then - who said grayling were soft takers? With the above little beauty safely released, the next drift resulted in an even more aggressive take. This was no grayling, but another over-wintered feisty rainbow. Pink is the colour! My attempts to bully this fish in were ill-advised, and I was soon replacing lost tippet and flies. Same pattern on the dropper, but on the point went one of these. Thank you, Peter Anderson. This was a throwback to using the pattern that caught my first-ever grayling in 2010.

Surprisingly, the pool had not been spoilt and several more grayling succumbed to the same method, albeit a different pattern of pink point fly and 5x tippet to allow for feisty trout....

Best of the Hatch Pool Bunch!

This was turning into a very memorable afternoon. Maybe I should learn to be quicker over ringing the changes to find the right method in future? Hmmm. Maybe!

The day was running away from me, and I wanted another crack at the stretch I'd fished first, near the access road. I felt the passage not only of the afternoon (which had exceeded expectations) but also of my grayling fishing season overall, and the matter was becoming urgent.

Where it all begins....

What the picture above perhaps doesn't show is that, whilst the inside (near bank) of this stretch is quite slow-running, there is a decent current around the outside of this bend. I wanted to fish that slightly quicker water with my pink flied and split-shotted nymphing rig. This would be relatively short-line nymphing with a long leader, would it work here as effectively as in the hatch pool?

Well, the answer turned out to be yes, it would. As good as, if not better, the 10ft rod gave me the ability to control the drift and presentation of my flies, with takes continuing to register instantly. Several more fish came to the net, of  generally a better size than from the hatch pool further upstream.

Back he goes...

The Southall Shrimp pattern accounted for these beauties and I was getting to the point where daylight was fading and I knew I would be packing up shortly. Fishing even closer to the access road, I thought "This could be my last cast of the season" as the flies went in and I lifted the rod to "set" my indicator in the vertical position. Barely into the drift, the indicator hesitated and a smoothly lifted rod tip met with a satisfyingly solid resistance.

Look at the dorsal fin on that!

I held my breath, this was clearly a good-sized grayling and before long I could see the fish, a male with his enormous sail-like dorsal fin up. This was tricky - I couldn't go downstream as the road bridge was in the way. It took more time than I would have wanted ideally in quite a strong current, but he was safely netted.

Managing a hasty snap, I took my time ensuring this fellow was properly revived. My best fish of the season with the last cast of my season. Certainly not a grayling too far.

Happy trout season everyone.