Monday 27 January 2020

The Secret Stream


I haven’t wet a line in this beautiful little chalk stream in over a year, and was really looking forward to wandering the banks, stick ‘n’ pin in hand, hoping to catch my first grayling of the season. Arriving before sunrise we could see the stream had broken it’s banks - but as the sun rose we were relieved see it was still gin clear. It hadn’t been fished in quite some time and we soon discovered the trout were ravenous!

Meeting back at the fishing hut for a nice cup of tea and some breakfast - me, James and Richard realised that although we could spot grayling we couldn’t get through the trout - it was going to be tough going. The trout were always going beat the grayling to the bait, so I scanned the bottom searching for lone grayling. And I found one - a fantastic 2lb 0oz on some shallow gravels. My day was made!

Next I tracked a big grayling upstream for about 40 yards before convincing her to take a bait - great fight - and my second biggest grayling ever at 2lb 4oz - what a brace of fish! Three more grayling including one at 1lb 15oz, a few more trout and three little jacks - turned a tough morning into a proper red letter day. As the light faded it was difficult to drag myself away - can’t wait to return...


2lb 4oz, my second biggest grayling ever.


2lb 0oz, a brace of ‘twos’ - fantastic.


1lb 15oz, nearly a hat-trick!


Thirty one trout, the best two both going about 5lb.


And three micro-pike, look at those markings.

6 comments:

  1. Stalking grayling, that's a new one for me and it looks very rewarding. Nice one .

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    1. It was so full of brown trout you’d stand no chance of a grayling without spotting them first. Great fun stalking these!

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  2. What a cracking day. Trooot are simpyly the most stupid of fish which I guess is why fly fishing wa sinvented....

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    1. A brace of two pound grayling was beyond my wildest expectations - proper cracking day!

      Those trout can be dumb at times, caught a couple of them at least twice. But other times they easily outsmart me - especially on the fly.

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  3. Fantastic fishing mate, you were a man in the groove, faultless in pursuit of some big ladies! Glad you got a couple in the end.

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    1. Cheers. One of those days where I really felt I fished well (or at least to the best of my ability). Cracking photos - thank you.

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