Pete's Weighty ( Fly Fishing ) Words

Just in from a most excellent day having taken Joe for a days guided grayling fishing. It was a special occasion as it was his birthday and thankfully there were a few presents waiting in the river for him. The river is still thundering through. It is lower than where I left it a week or so ago but still meaning options are still limited to heavy stuff. The pink nasty was the fly of choice and I think Joe was just a little shocked at how pink it actually was. Don’t forget pink is the new black. It again worked pretty well for us and even a brownie or two thought it looked the part which amused Joe as I think he might have had a few reservations about how something so bright would attract a grayling let alone a trout.

One thing if nothing else is that I am determined. This was tested to the maximum a couple of days ago when we turned up to try and catch some grayling from a well known chalkstream. I feared the worst driving along the valley seeing how high the water was and it looked even worse when we peered over the bridge and saw that you couldn’t even see the bottom. Stuarts dreams of low,clear water with gently rising grayling were shattered when it looked more like the Taw in full spate.

Walking along the bank (it was flowing to fast to wade!) it looked like we should at least throw some heavy bugs into the margins and see if anyone was home. Stuart is one of these guys who just catches fish no matter what and 3rd cast a 10 inch grayling picked out his pink bug in the gloom. Moments like these spur you on and more fish were to follow to the same method. We kept mobile and covered lots of water and caught more than our fair share of fish. It was supposed to be a 2 day trip and it stayed that way but it ended up a slightly early finish due to more rain but that day and a bit window of opportunity proved the old saying “if your flies aren’t in the water….”

I’m sitting here writing this smiling thinking of the 15 inch grayling Stuart caught that managed to take line upstream when the rule book would state something else!