LADY OF THE STREAM
Nothing beats the challenge of catching a tricky grayling on the fly during the coarse fishing season
Patrick Galbraith sets out to catch an elusive grayling on the River Nith in Dumfriesshire
Iremember the first time I ever caught one. It splashed out in the swim with its large dorsal fin flashing iridescently in the mid-morning sun. ‘I’m into a sea trout,’ I shouted down to my godfather. I wasn’t. ‘That’s a grayling,’ came the ghillie’s voice from the bank, King Size Marlboro Red hanging out the corner of his mouth and landing net in hand.
That evening, I took to the bookshelves. I soon found ‘ Thymalus thymalus’ in a wellthumbed Encyclopaedia of Angling in the British
Isles, which told me that ‘this member of the Salmonidae family, also called the “lady of the stream”, can be fished for throughout the coarse fishing season, and provides thrilling sport on the fly when the trout season is closed.’
Some eight years later, on a dreich December morning, I tore along Drumlanrig Castle’s avenue of lime trees on my way to pick up a grayling fishing permit for the River Nith. My phone had rung the previous morning while I was mid-cappuccino in a city centre cafe.
‘Mr Galbraith, it’s Erin Hunter, the river manager at Drumlanrig,’ said the voice on the other end of the line. ‘You’ll have to walk the beat tomorrow. It’s been pouring. The track’s too wet for your wee jeep.’
Things were not looking good. ‘ And what sort of flies are doing well?’ I asked. ‘Nymphs,’ came the voice, ‘nymphs’ll do’.
Erin was right. Dumfriesshire was sodden. Grayling fishing is at its best when the river runs as clear as Plymouth Gin. On this occasion, the water came cascading through the pools the colour of a Glenfarclas single malt.
It was almost eight before I had successfully tied some Czech nymphs on my line and attached a little grayling float. In terms of difficulty, threading flies onto nylon in low light conditions must be right up there with ironing and finding shot woodcock in dense brush.
As I wandered up the river to the top of the beat, the world was coming to life. Legions of screeching rooks swarmed overhead, sallying forth from Drumlanrig’s ancient woodlands to pillage for the day, while mallard burst off the river protesting noisly about being disturbed.
Trotting my flies along the gravelly bottom, I reflected on what a pleasure it is to be out on the
river long after most fishermen have put their rods away for the winter. While salmon spawn from November through to December, grayling spawn in May, which is partly why they’re fished for outside the game fishing season. They also shoal up during the coldest months, meaning that from the end of October through to January, if you hook one, you could well go on to catch many more in quick succession.
Yet it wasn’t cold. At 14 degrees it was unseasonably warm, adding to my general sense of pessimism about the prospect of a fish. I continued pootling my way down the Carronfoot pool, flicking my line upstream and watching my weighted nymphs sink beneath the surface to hang below the float.
Grayling are bottom-feeding fish, which necessitates a heavy fly-imitating insect larvae or a shrimp. While such patterns are very good at catching the lady of the stream, they are also particularly prone to getting snagged on logs and other miscellaneous fluvial detritus. At somewhere in the region of £10 a day, a grayling ticket is fantastically cheap, but on many an outing I’ve lost at least that amount on flies.
By half past eleven, having fished right through two named pools, I had seen my bite indicator tugged beneath the surface only once and was a fraction of a second late in striking. Grayling are canny little fish, renowned for spitting a hook out just as fast as they pluck it from the fast flowing current.
I was busy considering a fly change, perhaps an imitation Hydropysche or an equally memorably named Rhyacophila caddis, when Erin’s pick-up rolled into view. ‘This man,’ Erin announced, introducing James Mackay, a stalwart of the Scottish grayling fishing scene, ‘is the person to speak to.’
James explained he had been coming to the Nith since he was eight-years-old and considers it the finest grayling river in Scotland. ‘What are you fishing with son?’ he asked. I showed him the nymphs. His face contorted into a look of bemused incredulity and he pulled out his fly box. ‘These are what you want,’ he announced, placing two orange flies in my hand. He then launched into his favourite recipe for grayling fish cakes before Erin gently reminded him
Top left: Patrick casting on the River Nith below the old factor’s house, which is no longer part of the Queensberry estate. Inset
right: Bobby with his rod and net in the Doctor’s pool.
of the Nith’s strict catch and release policy.
I carried on down for a couple of hours before getting to the Whitehill pool, which I thoroughly exhausted with no joy. With only a few hours until darkness, I set off for the best bit of the river, determined to catch something.
As I splashed through the shallows, two figures appeared out of the smoky smir of rain, standing right in the middle of the infamous Doctor’s pool. One of them was netting a grayling. ‘My third this afternoon,’ the angler announced before introducing himself as Bobby Quinn.
‘Well, that’s three more than me, so pretty good going,’ I said in a cheerful attempt to mask my disappointment. ‘ Not really son,’ came his reply, ‘ we had almost thirty a fortnight ago. Come down here on my left. If there’s a shoal, you’ll likely catch one down there.’
Bobby was one of the most passionate anglers I’ve ever met on the river. Over the next while he reflected on his trips to every grayling fishery in Scotland. ‘The Nith though,’ he concluded, ‘is quite simply the best grayling river in Scotland. It’s not the number of fish but the sheer quality that keeps me coming back.’
An hour later the sun was going down and on the way back to the fishing hut I ran into James Mackay. ‘Any luck?’ I enquired. ‘Not really son, just a wee one but I got a picture of it that’ll do for Facebook and that’s what it’s all about.’
He laughed and cast his fly out into the water once more.