Monday 19 January 2015

Frosty Ladies


On Saturday I headed for the River Test in search of my first grayling accompanied by James who has had some recent successful trips to the river. A 4.30 am start and a long journey saw us on the riverbank at eight, just in time to watch the sun rise.

And reveal the murky water - it seems I'd brought my grayling luck along with me, and as we soon discovered it was going to be difficult.


After chucking a few lures about for pike we set up the trotting gear and headed off in search of a grayling. And I got one pretty early on - mission accomplished, my first grayling of about 6oz was in the net - plenty of time to find a pounder.

The early success wasn't the story of the day, we both worked really hard to find them and getting them to stay on the hook, especially the bigger ones proved nearly impossible - made even more frustrating because they came straight to the surface before twisting back into the depths shedding the hook. Giving a tantalising glimpse of what you would have won.


We covered a lot of water, meeting back up occasionally - each hoping that the other had found the secret - no it was just tough going. Eventually I stopped moving about and opted to build a swim, which proved a good call in the end.

If I had landed everything I hooked I would have bagged up, probably loosing 2 grayling for every one I landed (and I managed to loose what felt like a good pike on a plug).

My hard work resulted in 15 grayling to about 10oz and half a dozen or so trout thrown in for good measure. A tough day but a beautiful place and a the result I was after - my first grayling.

I will be back...

9 comments:

  1. Tough.... Bri, that's the only word I can think of. They aren't easy to catch full stop, but matters made worse by the conditions. Another time eh!

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    1. Still had a great day, they made us work for it but we both caught. And yeah, definitely up for another trip.

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  2. A great form of fishing, and you certainly picked the best species for the prevailing conditions.

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    1. The conditions looked great on paper, think the dirty water put them off as they are used to feeding in gin-clear water. Or it could have been something else - that's fishing!

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  3. I'd recommend sweetcorn as a change bait, Brian. Grayling really love it and it brings a far higher average stamp than maggots in my admittedly limited chalk stream experience. Salmon like it too, and so do trout of course. No feed necessary either. They just snatch at that bit of yellow and hang on!

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    1. I used maggots and James used sweetcorn, the plan was we would both switch to whatever was working - unfortunately neither was producing fish on a regular basis. And we were both loosing more grayling than we landed. Just think the dirty water was putting them off, ah well, next time...

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    2. I'm making it sound like a defeat - it wasn't. Just the first grayling was worth the time, effort and money - and to end up with 15 was a cracking result. Next time will be the search for the pound plus fish...

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  4. Fantastic job on getting a new species. Too bad about the pike coming unbuttoned.

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    1. Cheers. Yeah, shame about the pike - only had it on for 10-15 seconds but it felt like a lump. They will be on my list next time, hopefully when we can spot them in the clear water.

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