As the days shrink and the weather harshens, Matt Eastham is lifted by the prospect of big grayling
IT FEELS LIKE FIVE MINUTES AGO that I last wrote about grayling fishing, but here we are again, the trout season long gone and midwinter fast approaching. Another full circle nearly complete.
I do have an affection for grayling. They’ve never held my attention in the same way as trout, but their association with the transition of seasons through vivid autumn colours to the sombre sub-twilight of winter days is something I hold very dear. If ever a fisher of rivers needs a means of dealing with the looming spectre of our bleakest months, then what better diversion than to spend short sessions in search of this most elegant of fishes?
In the north of England, we’re blessed with many options on the grayling front, although it’s true their numbers have declined on all but a handful of urban rivers. Why this should be is debatable, but there is a belief among most local anglers that cormorant predation has much to answer for. Certainly, it is plausible that the large roosts of overwintering birds on rivers such as the Eden and Ribble must put huge pressure on what is essentially a species of nomadic, open-water habits. Those anglers who’ve been around the block a few times all have stories about how in the late nineties one could catch two dozen grayling from a pool while barely having to move an inch. Alas, those days are gone and tracking winter grayling on the big northern rivers has become more challenging.
There is still an easy pleasure in the search, though, a kind of methodical water-covering exercise, not unlike step-and-cast wet-fly fishing on upland lakes.
I enjoy the intimacy afforded by the upper reaches and tributary streams. Grayling hereabouts may be fewer, but the small pools can be easily covered and by setting myself the task of thoroughly searching a handful of obvious spots, I can idle hours away safe in the knowledge that if there are fish willing to feed, they’ll surely see my flies.
There is always the possibility of an exceptional fish, too, as I discovered in January. I was fishing the headwaters of a local stream which holds a modest population of grayling that occasionally trouble the 2lb mark —a fine fish for what is little more than a beck, but hardly a monster in the wider context. Nymphing my way up a favourite pool, I lifted into something which immediately displayed all the hallmarks of a large grayling —that dogged almost eel-like writhing as it slowly backed away downstream. Something wasn’t right, though: it felt too heavy to be a grayling, hugging the bottom apparently unconcerned by the bend in my two weight. When, after a good five minutes, the balance finally started to turn and I managed to le
