Martin Bowler’s Adventures
Our adventurer heads to the river in search of bite-a-chuck winter action... and finds it!
THE grayling is a lady T you can pursue without risk of divorce, but your dalliance with her on the riverbank may well be more than your wife approves of.
The queen of the northern hemisphere has an understated beauty, with fins coloured like exotic butterfly wings and flanks of silver, blue and green.
Like her distant cousin, the trout, she has a love of clean, fast-flowing water, so your trysts with the Lady of the Stream
will probably be conducted in stunning, natural locations.
Be warned, though, you can easily lose her in the first phase of courtship.
When hooked, the resistance of her sail-like dorsal fin as she corkscrews side-on to the current can spell disaster, especially when the lips your hook has kissed are, to say the least, delicate.
Trying to catch a big grayling can be frustrating when she leaves you standing on a cold river bank, but when you do connect and hold on to her it will be worth all the effort – which is why I go on a series of dates every winter.
There are opportunities for everyone to catch grayling, and don’t assume you need to travel south to do it. There are places all the way down from Scotland, many of them far less pressured than those of my nearest haunts in Hampshire and Dorset. In fact at one of these, as I stood in a sea of muddy footprints left by other anglers, I reckoned a move to a quieter location would be in order – so my advice is to initially do a little research and perhaps venture well off the beaten track.
To trot a float for grayling I generally use a 14ft Drennan Acolyte Plus, twinned with a centrepin reel that allows complete fingertip control.
My robust 4lb line will be Specimen Plus or Floatfish, liberally coated in floatant to keep it on the surface.
A Loafer or Avon float fixed top-and-bottom is my favourite, and in all but the deepest of swims the Loafer gets the nod, its wide, bulbous shoulders and tip helping greatly with presentation.
You need to be the river’s master, not its servant, and dainty floats and shotting patterns have no place in grayling fishing. I bulk shot ideally at three-quarters depth, but often in a shallow run this isn’t practical. In such cases the weight will sit directly under the float stem. The two or three droppers need to be robust, and No1 and No4 shot will present the hookbait best in fast flows.
I use a micro swivel to connect the hook length, normally a size 18 Super Spade to 4lb line or, in the very coldest conditions, a size 20 barbless Carp Feeder to 2lb 12oz mono.
On many fisheries long glides are interspersed with deeper holes – to target these properly you need a slightly different approach. Laying on helps to keep the bait static or slowly inching along the riverbed, and for this technique, instead of cocking shot for an Avon-style float, I create a paternoster link just this hold foot above I or bottom, squeeze so over while just hook length. enough the float shot On sits to to a
cocks When and the sails bait away is taken, without the float the weight ever being felt. To get the bite in the first place, though, free offerings are the way to the lady’s heart. Throwing these in by hand is a waste of time, which is why I never go fishing for grayling without a mini bait dropper.
I now need to mention a tactic that will extract grayling from weir pools or confined swims, but please don’t tell John Wilson. In his words: “It’s like going to bed with your socks on!”
I do occasionally use a feeder and quiver tip combo, but I wrestle with my conscience, knowing that perhaps it’s not in the true spirit of grayling fishing. If you do decide to spike the lady’s drink, as it were, and fish the feeder, hold the rod at all times and strike immediately, otherwise you risk a deeply-hooked fish. Whatever tactic you use, travel as light as possible so you can stay mobile. I would never consider taking a chair to the bank, because 20 minutes in each swim is more than enough. My first two-day grayling trip was a joyous affair, and while the wind reddened my cheeks the fish bit freely. Not all of them were hooked, however. Along with mullet, grayling are the Houdinis of the fish world, slipping the hook far too easily. However, a series of beautiful fish to 2lb 10oz did reach the landing net and kept me busy. The time flew by, and not for a second was I bored. I had a chuckle to myself on the way home. Why not enjoy an affair with the Lady of the Stream this winter?