GRAYLING
THE lowlands of southern England are chalk stream country, and here the cold can be an advantage.
As the mercury dips, the water clarity increases and it’s then that our Arctic species, the grayling, feeds with gusto.
These obliging fish continue to fill anglers’ Instagram feeds when every other chance of a picture has gone. On the hardest of days that seems pretty good news to me.
With frost-trodden footprints left all day in the fields and steam rising off the river’s surface, the beauty of it all makes me forget my tingling ear lobes, dripping nose and numb fingertips.
The rod in my hand is a Drennan Acolyte, and the centrepin reel is spooled with 4lb mainline, treated to be buoyant and help maintain control. The float has broad shoulders, something that Avons and Loafers have in common to ensure a smooth and steady downstream trot.
In these polar conditions I need a small bottle of glycerine, too. A smear of the sugary liquid around the rod rings acts like antifreeze. With my bulk shot sitting at three-quarters depth and a size 18 Super Spade hook I’m good to go.
I might need five minutes of introducing loosefed maggots, but
if grayling are here I know a bite will come. This confident mindset is all very well, but I’m careful that this doesn’t lure me into fishing in a slapdash manner. True, catching grayling is easy, but big grayling are something else entirely!
I’ve always found that the big charcoal-backed beasts prefer the deeper water you find in pools, and in such places presentation is difficult for the float angler.
Feeding by hand or via a catapult is useless, and only a small bait dropper will reach the inner sanctum where the big fish live. A mobile hookbait would be tossed around in the turbulence, so now is the time to lay on in the style of our country’s most famous float fisherman, the late Billy Lane.
Yes, I will trot the glides, but when deep water presents itself I shall change tactics and wait for the rod-tip to stab down. A giant grayling against a white canvas of frost and snow is as uplifting a sight as bluebells in spring.