Grayling, the winter princess
Deserving of a promotion, this beautiful, mysterious, hard-tohook fish is finding favour with younger rods especially
This mysterious fish is finding favour with younger rods, says John Bailey
Late in the evening of 23 February 2018, my great friend Ian Miller hooked a fish at 50yd range on a float-fished piece of sweetcorn. The 14ft rod and 3lb line was pushed to the limit. For five, 10, 15 minutes, the battle raged in the gathering dusk. Without doubt, this was one of the vivid moments of my blessedly vivid angling life. I could see the fish, one of monstrous proportions. It was a grayling, well over 4lb, probably, I guessed, over the British record.
Close to the net, almost beaten, it gave a final shake of its head and the hook flew free. We collapsed in despair onto the dead sedges.
Not long before this episode, I was talking to Neil Freeman, who runs the fishing on the Test at Broadlands in Hampshire. We discussed returning salmon, trout populations, big roach and grayling stocks. “Grayling are a real eye-opener to me,” said Freeman. “It’s grayling that seem to really excite the younger angler. I don’t know what it is about them personally but I am enthused by the fact that at last we have game anglers under 30 flocking to fish the Test here. And, of course, it’s great for the fishery finances because they’re banging on the door at the end of the trout season when I’m looking at a long, slow winter. If anything gives me real hope for the future, then it is this renaissance in interest in the grayling. They really are the fish of the moment.”
HIGH REGARD
Freeman didn’t mention that grayling are fabulously beautiful, hard to hook and, as Ian Miller found out, even harder to land. They are
held in high regard in Scandinavia, France, Germany and into Eastern Europe. Now, it seems, the UK is catching on. Younger anglers especially fancy something fresh and different. After all, if you want stocked rainbows, you might as well go to Morrisons. Salmon? They’re great, as we all know, but fishing for them can be a massive gamble and hugely expensive to boot. Browns? Our loveliest trout for sure but can a person fish a lifetime for one species, no matter how lovely? As Freeman explained, grayling fill an important gap, too, allowing us to fish our rivers through the late autumn and winter when otherwise they would be closed. Just as the trout season ends, grayling come into their prime.
Talking to younger grayling anglers such as Neill Stephen and David Lambert, you realise that it is the mystery of grayling that excites them. Grayling are new territory and there is a secrecy about them that you don’t find in the rest of the game world, with whispers and rumours about where there might be monsters. This is a whole new side to game fishing that attracts the young. And, I might add, excites the old.
I’ve caught a good few thousand grayling in my time and, when I’ve written about them, these are my parameters for those who aren’t grayling aware. A 1lb grayling is a good fish, a two-pounder is great and a three-pounder is sensational and, for most of us, a UK fish of a lifetime. Then there are those of us who dream of four-pounders or, in Miller’s case, see them more as the stuff of nightmares.
There are probably big grayling near to you. The famous big fish venues are wellknown and, in no particular order, include
the Driffield Beck, the Welsh Dee, Tay, the Tummel, Tweed, the Annan, the Wye and its tributaries, the Derbyshire Dove, the Lambourn, the Test, the Frome, the Nadder and several of the Yorkshire rivers, too. They are the well-known big grayling rivers: chances are that there are plenty more beside.
browns disappear
November for grayling sees the big kick-off. Plenty of trout fisheries are happy to sell rods in the dark, dour months when there is not much alternative income. Some might be worried at the thought of resident wild brown stocks being bothered but, in my long experience of grayling fishing, come the first frosts browns tend to disappear almost entirely. I’ve never had any qualms about putting up a grayling rod and disturbing over-wintering spotties.
If I look back to the beginnings of my grayling fishing in the 1970s, grayling are universally hard. Takes from a grayling are just so quick that I wonder now how any of us managed to land a fish. Twenty-five years back, the Czech nymph technique changed all that and the addition of a strike indicator made grayling takes hittable at last. A trip to the Czech Republic in the mid 1990s, which I wrote about in The Field at the time, changed my grayling fishing forever and the technique still works well today.
To a degree, Czech nymphing has been superseded by the French leader approach, which has gathered pace these past few years. Certainly, the French style is incredibly light and unobtrusive. I watched Neill Stephen catch superb grayling in the winter of 2017 from the thinnest, clearest water imaginable. I couldn’t even see the grayling that he was pursuing but, time and time again, the French leader attack worked for him with one cracker after another. It was a thrilling piece of fishing to witness and proved yet again that young, talented anglers and grayling are a real fishing fit.
There are many fisheries that allow fishing for grayling through the winter with a float and bait – and so they should. Go back decades and one of the great acknowledged skills was trotting for grayling, preferably with a centrepin. The legendary Reg Regini routinely picked grayling off at 80yd-plus range and that, believe me, with the shybiting grayling is quite a feat.
I love trotting and I adore trotting for grayling when the frosts bite. My preference is for a 14ft rod, a centrepin, of course, and probably 3lb or 4lb mainline straight through to a stick float. The size of the stick float will depend on the size of the river, the speed of
the current and the depth of the swim to be fished. Shot the float so it’s dotted down to a half-inch or so; much more and the grayling will probably have rejected the bait before the float buries properly. Baits can be maggots, though I prefer small, red worms or pieces of sweetcorn.
SKILL AND ARTISTRY
If you don’t believe that bait fishing demands skill and artistry, you’ve probably never tried it. Controlling a float, especially in a breeze, particularly at distance for big, wily grayling is immensely demanding. That float has to follow the contours of the current exactly. If there is a hint of drag, the grayling are lost to you. They are murderous in their discrimination and they are every bit as happy to reject a worm as they are a nymph. Do not think that using a bait makes grayling success easy because there are no guarantees.
One advantage of trotting for grayling is that you can cover a great deal of water. I like to look for long glides, possibly 100yd long, depending on the river I’m fishing, and preferably 4ft to 6ft deep with a steady flow over clean sand and gravel. Find a heaven like this and you are in grayling territory. Regini was the master. I’m happy to trot 50yd or 60yd and after around 15 trots down, I’ll probably up sticks and work my way downriver, covering every yard of water. This is just as mobile as any fly-fishing technique and all you need is your rod, bait, a few spare bits and bobs, net and you’re free to roam.
Sometimes, I roam too much, the next swim down always looking greener. This can be a mistake. As the light lowers towards the early dusk, it pays to settle on a glide and work it hard. Shoals of big grayling can comprise merely one, two or three fish. There are days you have to work a stretch hard before one makes a mistake. The heavy thump of a biggie makes that effort worth the wait.
What I do advise is that after taking one grayling on a float, or a maximum of two, is that you move off and don’t harry the rest of the shoal, if indeed there is one. Also, try to unhook smaller fish in the water with your
Murderous in their discrimination, they are as happy to reject a worm as
they are a nymph
forceps. Always use a barbless hook and wet your hands before holding a fish for a photograph. If it must be weighed, make sure this is done speedily and the return is a secure one. Some anglers hold the fish against the current but my feeling is this stresses them even more. I find it better to let them lie in the shallows where there is a flow of water brushing over them until they recover and, in their own time, drift back into the main river.
That last week of February 2018 was the most extraordinary of my grayling life. I was essentially guiding the first couple of days but with friends for the remaining three. We did catch fish between 2lb and 3lb but, astonishingly, we landed 20 over that 3lb barrier. Fish of 3lb 10oz, two at 3lb 11oz, 3lb 12oz, 3lb 13oz and a stupendous 3lb 14oz were the pick of an amazing crop. I doubt whether I will ever see the like of this week again. So many things aligned: the river itself and the genetic make-up of these gigantic fish; the perfect conditions that featured steady, clearing water after floods; daytime temperatures of 10 degrees and warm nights; and, of course, a team of expert, passionate float anglers. Sometimes it all comes together and, if Miller hadn’t dropped that fish on the 23rd, I’m sure the record would have fallen. Perhaps it’s your turn next? Either way, our so-called ‘fourth game fish’ is well and truly up for promotion.