Chris McCully and friends probe the frigid River Annan for grayling
JOHN ROBERTS WAS FISHING many years ago with that doyen of grayling anglers, Reg Righyni, when the great man “collected” his 49th grayling river. Righyni’s hope was to catch grayling from as many streams in the UK as possible. He eventually collected more than 100 rivers, a feat possibly unprecedented and probably unrepeatable. Collecting rivers has always struck me as a benign ambition, one distinct from the competitiveness and even egocentricity that can surround angling for one’s PB (personal best) of a given species. Perhaps because I so rarely catch specimen fish, PBs have never impressed me, but angling in different contexts, using varying methods, does engage me, and it was in that spirit of collection and curiosity that John and I fished for grayling on the Annan (Dumfries and Galloway) in the company of Richard Faulks.
None of us had caught grayling from the Annan before, though rumour and the angling internet had it that big grayling — fish to 2lb, with some even bigger — could be caught. While we were staying at Kirkwood near Lockerbie, two stretches of the river were available to us, the adjoining beats at Kirkwood and Rotchell and a beat eight miles upstream, Jardine Hall. That variety of water would give us options.
Grayling will tolerate extremely cold conditions — I’ve caught them on the Tweed and the Teviot when there’s been grue in the flow, ice at the edge of the stream and when the landing net has frozen — but rapid changes in pressure and temperature can put them briefly off the feed. Readers will remember the cold snap that afflicted the UK just before Christmas 2022. On the Annan, we could feel the wind backing from the NE to the N and the temperature falling by day and night. During one of our sessions at Kirkwood I felt obliged to wear my warmest hat (an acrylic yellow beanie shaped like the tip of a condom), wore two fleeces and carried two pairs of gloves. In such radically icy conditions neither John nor I expected to encounter bountiful numbers of grayling.
From Kirkwood Mains it’s possible to drive down to the river; where the track ends, two beats (nearly two miles of river) are within easy walking distance: Rotchell lies downstream, while Kirkwood and its succession o
