Last Day of the Grayling Season?

Grayling are wonderful fish. Wild, skittish, beautiful to behold and my passport  to fishing rivers in Hampshire I wouldn't want to afford during the trout season. One of these is the River Test, and this entry relates my visit on Friday to Wherwell, which is one of the premier venues for grayling in England.

The main river here is supplemented by a network of carriers, but it was to the main river I went alone with my hopes and ambition to snatch a last day on this beat before the trout season and sky-high prices were back upon us.

I had been to this water before with Jim Williams. After my last trip out on still water at Holbury I was eagerly anticipating being back on running water, and the different challenge this presents, not just the moving water but completely different quarry, tackle and technique.

On to tackle. My chosen method was fishing what is known as "the duo" or "klink n dink". The main point to note is that this means fishing two flies at once. One is a dry, or floating fly, which sits on or in the water's surface. Attached to this fly one adds a nymph, which is a fly designed to sink through the water and imitate aquatic morsels that fish like to eat. If a fish takes the nymph, the dry fly disappears to indicate the "bite"; so the dry fly is dual-purpose as fish might think that it is something nice to eat, too!

Technically the Klinkhammer is an emerger pattern which means it isn't quite the same as a dry fly. You'll see in the picture below what it looks like, complete with hi-viz "post". This is also akin to the "New Zealand" method!

Klinkhammer and Nymph (actually, a shrimp pattern)

On this occasion I had about a metre of line between the dry and nymph flies. The nymph is actually a Southall Shrimp pattern, one of several generously given to me by Peter Anderson, one of the most experienced and effective grayling fishers I know. Like most fly fishers, Peter is a true gentleman and a great example to novices such as myself.

An inviting looking pool!

Tackle-wise, I decided to use a 10ft 4wt Scierra Flylite rod with an Orvis Battenkill reel, neither of which had ever caught a fish before. This was also my first attempt at using a needle-knotted leader to fly-line connection rather than my usual loop-to-loop. I was also experimenting by building my own leader - something I've only recently started doing. The leader is a length of nylon or similar material which attaches to the fly-line at one end and fly or flies at the other. I believe this 3-5 metres to be the most important part of the whole fishing set-up.

Looking good?

Anyway, I had a mare! The idea of building your own leader is to taper it so that when you cast the energy transfers efficiently along the flyline and through the leader which causes the fly or flies to "turnover" and land on/ in the water in a neat & tidy way. In a nutshell, I made a mess of my leader build which resulted - courtesy of only a couple of casts - in a horrible tangle of monofilament  which I had to cut off, accompanied by the required amount of bad language....

So...I had a cup of tea and reached for some of Mike Barrio's tapered leaders which I'd recently purchased. I attached one of the 3 metre 5lb variety onto the end of my fly-line, then added another metre or so of Stroft tippet material. Back on with the klink n dink, and we were ready to go! A couple of trial casts away from my intended first pool confirmed that this set-up was turning over beautifully. Translation for non-flyfishers - the energy I was imparting in the act of casting was being transferred very effectively into and along that all-important last 3 - 5 metres of my fishing tackle.

Anyway, back to the fishing....

The first couple of fish were - ummm - caught, but "released at distance". One was a wee grayling whilst the other was a brown trout, a decent sized fish which just threw the hook. I was going to put it back anyway, as they're out of season! What I was really after were grayling but after fishing up the pool to the bridge, which is the upstream boundary of this beat, I'd only had trout.

The most noteworthy of these morning trout leapt clear of the water to take my Klinkhammer BEFORE it landed in the surface film. This was quite spectacular, I can only assume the "dink" attracted its attention sufficiently. All good fun, but not what I was really after. Later, I noticed a good pod of grayling upstream of the beat boundary bridge - out of bounds, in golf terms.

After lunch I moved downstream to fish the inviting glides. As I walked along the bank I spotted a few grayling and made mental notes of locations to try on my way back upstream. Anglers move upstream so as to come up behind the fish, which hold facing into the current on the lookout for food.

Inviting!

Anyway, long story short. I was in for a disappointing afternoon. This yielded a couple of small grayling which didn't do the river or myself justice. I got bogged down and stayed in one spot too long. My focus wasn't great and I couldn't get "in the zone". I snapped myself out of this slough of despond and got moving upstream, started fishing half-decent and picked up the small grayling; then, I suffered the most almighty of tangles (bad casting and degraded leader as a result of numerous rebuilds). At this point, I realised that She Who Must be Obeyed coming home from a week in Scotland was becoming more pressing than fishing. I decided to forego rebuilding my tackle and further piscatorial effort in favour of being a good husband.

Highlights were my morning trout leaping clear of the water to snaffle my Klink, and a day on the water. It was good to have my wife coming home as well, to put it mildly, after a long week coming into a cold, empty house after my commute to London each day. I also enjoyed taking some fish on the Southall Shrimp pattern. Lowlights were not being able to practise any level of skill in watercraft, i.e. you must find the fish and fish where they are! I think I was speculating/ prospecting, a.k.a barking up the wrong tree.

It was also good to give this rod/ reel combo an outing, and to take some fish with it. I really do believe, though, the hardware generally is of secondary importance to the software. That 3 to 5 metres between the end of the fly line and the flies is the most crucial part of the whole setup. Here is a great "how to", from the one and only Jim Williams, which is very straightforward and easy to understand. I'd also recommend East Sleep Fish Ezine in its entirety.

I suppose the real highlight was ending up in my wife's good books for being back early enough to help her after her looooong drive from Scotland.

For lovers of Border Terriers, watch out for my next blog entry. This will be an update on the one and only Hamish McCheffings, now approaching six months old!