Tag Archives: grayling

Little rivers with little reward!

Managed to get out for a few hours with my mate Burnsy on a small local river that normally fishes real well and has a good head of grayling in it, but not today for some reason

Conditions were steady with a bright sky and not to cold with a low wind. An anglers dream at this time of year. Setting up, I was thinking this should be good but I was so wrong! You can never tell how a day will go but that’s fishing!

Everything looked great with water levels spot on but the fishing was as tough as old boots. Changing methods, fishing hard on the bottom with big beads and mixing the depth up to no avail. As the afternoon progressed, the odd large dark olives came off and the odd spinner passed fluttering about but not enough to get the fish moving. I finally gave up and dug deep in my box and pulled out a squirmy worm, things got desperate for a take! Few casts later I took a grayling to my surprise.

If in doubt worm them out from now on lol, it doesn’t matter how long you have been fishing and how much experience you have, on days like this you feel like a newbie. Challenging and changing conditions can make you or break you. Never give up. Always think of doing different things and work every little run, ripple or pool. It was hard but we both caught a few in the end so not a red letter day but more than that we had a good day chewing the fat and putting the world to right.

Jig pattern for grayling

2 Replies

Little pattern that I just tied up for the grayling on my local rivers!

I’m out tomorrow on the lower waters of the river taff near Cardiff so going to give them a dip down in the posh area of the taff 🙂

Ian Gillard at http://get-slotted.co.uk/ sent some trout line hybrid squirrel in rust colour for me to try so come up with this pattern below. Rust and a purple rib. Looks nice and sure it’s going to do the business for sure! I’ve added a little of the black pepper to the thorax also, it looks awesome wet!

In search of grayling on the river Severn

7 Replies

Over the weekend Me and and my good butty Sam Weston traveled up to the river Severn for a day of grayling Fishing.

The river Severn is a wonderful river and very beautiful with wide open valley with a meandering river running through it, You never know what’s around the next bend and every pools clear and fine gravel under foot! It’s such a beautiful place.

Was quite fresh starting off and quite cold with frost on the ground so first we started off with nymphs in the slower deep pools.

My setup, Hanak 10ft 3wt superlight using a french leader with a 2 nymph setup with a yellow indicator around 12″ long. From there 4ft of tippet with a dropper around 20″ up from the point. Simple setup to start with. For Nymphs, I went for a little colour due to being so cold and no sight of any movement or fly life, It’s a start! Later on I went for more natural colours and still nothing really. Just one of those days!

I found it quite difficult to pin down the grayling using all sorts of nymphs, after a spell of catching trout, I dredged the bottom and fished just under the surface to no avail, They just didn’t seam to be anywhere or feeding, It happens on times. Your always learning and thinking in these situations. Me and Sam did manage to pin a few down later on in the day but was very quiet. Trout were very active so we moved around a lot trying to avoid them!

For the last hour a small hatch of olives kicked off and there was a little window of dry fly action, smaller grayling but action none the less!

Winter fly tying

Leave a reply

With only a short number of hours in the day for Fishing the next best thing is tying flies!

I’ve done a fair bit over the a few months and posted quite a lot over Facebook and not here so making up for it. I’ve done a few smaller boxes of dries but mostly nymphs in all colours and sizes.

The nymph below has been the bomb for the grayling so far me and my good mates!

Hook, size 14 Hanak h450bl

Bead, 3.5m gold

Body, squirrel hybrid black pepper

Tag, glo bright 5

Rib, gold medium wire

Thorax, small amount of 17 spectra dubbing

To finish off add more squirrel in front of the 17 and brush over, it Gives a great affect when wet!

Winter bugging for grayling is something else. U love it or you hate it, and I love it! Everybody has there favourite pattern and for love no money you won’t get a look in but me I’m happy to show the world. Presentation and size and a splash of colour for good measure does me well 🙂

More flies to follow in the next posts I’ll be adding tying videos soon also. Hope you like the pattern and if you do tie it I’m sure your not going to be disappointed!

Grayling Fishing on the river Wye!

Leave a reply

Bit of a change for my good mate Ian Gillard over the weekend, we both fished the river Wye up in Builth wales, Gods country!

Popped into the local paper shop picked are day tickets up and off we set. My mate Ian never seen the river up there and how clear the waters are and I think it was a little bit of a eye opener. Condition were perfect, Low wind and clear sky’s, What more could a angler want on the hunt for graying.

Water levels were good after the washout a week before with record breaking river levels! Most rivers in wales broke there banks and were quite dangerous!

I thought it would be good to head down river and walk the beat just to show Ian about first and show where the grayling normally are in the shallow waters, Crystal clear water can be quite deceiving in depth and in these places you never know what could be in there!

Dry fly was a little out in the morning the wind picked up and started to cover the river with leaves but then I had the chance to show Ian grayling pulling leaves under looking for insects. Not often seen on the lower taff.

Most of the day was Fishing French leader with light tippets and small nymphs. I opted to use my Hanak 2wt super light in Fishing so fine. What a great rod for it to!

Throughout the day we managed some beautiful grayling and out of season trout that were released as quickly as possible.

Below a few images of the great day we had and a short video on how clear the water was and how beautiful the grayling are up there in the Wye!

New box of river nymphs complete!

Leave a reply

Been doing my best on completing this box of nymphs to get started on a smaller box ready for the future trips out!

I’m always looking at new patterns and trolling through fly images on good old uncle goggle looking for new ideas most nights. There are some real awesome people out there tying and always something new to give a go!

We all have our go-to nymphs and patterns that we have full faith in but we are always looking for that edge. Over the years of competing for wales in the river internationals and meeting some real awesome anglers, I’ve collected patterns from most and this is where I mix and match patterns for different rivers. Every little helps they say!

The next box will be more for grayling for the winter months so I’ll post some images after it’s complete. Tight lines guys and girls

Nice to be back tying after such a long time

3 Replies

Well it’s been a long time since I’ve posted sorry guys and girls. Due to an eye condition it put everything on hold for over 9/10 months but I’m Back doing what I love, fly Fishing and fly tying.

I’ve started tying new boxes and sorting my gear ready for a day on the water. Well soon as we have water! What a crazy few months it’s been with this hot weather. Rivers are on there bones and fish are stressed. But tonight the heavens have opened:). Well here is what I’ve been tying the last few days ready for my trip!

Grayling candy

2 Replies

Well the grayling are back in the crosshairs and the vice has been red hot getting ready for it!

Hopefully the weather will be kind this year, giving us many chances to fish for the stunning fish!

Been tying all sorts and in all manner of colours,Pinks,purples, Flo orange and Gold. Always great to have a wide selection of colours in the box but also don’t forget the drab flies, the more natural looking colours, brown, tan, black, and greens!

Below there are a few selections of my favourites ready to hit the water. I’ll put up the more natural patterns soon. Warning please wear dark glasses with these images 🙂 All materials are bought from Funkyfly tying, Great company and great products!

Searching for the grayling with Paul Jenkins

5 Replies

Sunday morning was a bit of a blessing with good cloud cover and no rain or wind but the weather report was saying it was changing for the worse in the afternoon so me and Paul Jenkins made the most of the good conditions and decided we would search out the grayling along the river Taff!

Paul hasn’t done much fishing on the Taff for sometime due to fishing other water far and wide like the wye and other hidden little places so it was a change. We were on the water around 9.30 and checking out the fist pool of the day but someone already beat us to it so we moved up river to a long sweeping bend. Ideal place for the grayling to hide out. The far side was around 4ft deep with lovely pea gravel with the odd big rock around the place.

Nothing much going on with any sort of fly hatch going on that early so the bugs were out. we both set up on the nymphs. Paul moved in above me fishing the shallow side and I went below fishing the deeper side with the heavy bugs dragging the bottom. Paul was fishing the lighter nymph in the shallower water just on the edge of the drop off. Grayling love that edge and the slope into the deeper water so always concentrate on them areas, they will produce fish! Paul was the first to hook up to a lovely grayling around the 1lb, fin perfect.

Slowly we moved around the river searching all the likely looking areas and we did fish the slower deeper waters with the klink and dink and was rewarded with a few grayling but they just didn’t seem to be in that water in numbers! We targeted the heads of the pools with a little faster water due to seeing a few flies hatching. Fish did start rising but only for a short time and not really worth changing over, the wind started to pick up into the afternoon and the leaves stared to fall making things interesting and becoming a pain so we set off again up river to more open water and much slower.

French leader twirly style!

We changed over to long leaders and light nymphs and this seemed to do the trick. We started to pick off grayling in good numbers by working down river very slowly pitching the nymphs upstream and letting the leader go past you and down river with lots of upstream mends to keep the dead drift going. The slower the better and the takes were coming in thick and fast. We were having so much fun we didn’t realise the time and with that we decided to call it a day.

It was a great day out with Paul and the fishing was brilliant. Till the next trip and I can’t wait, ive got that grayling bug big time!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

First session on the grayling.

Leave a reply

The trout season has just passed so the grayling are the next target. Thymallus Thymallus, the lady of the stream!

Waking up nice and early with a zing in my step I was soon out the door and down the river setting up the 10ft 3wt. due to being so early and cold the nymphs were what I started on!

The point fly was a size 16 squirrel and partridge jig with a 2.5m bead and the dropper fly was an olive caddis pattern also with a 2.5m bead. These two nymphs are great all year around!I

I headed for the slower waters around 3/4ft of where the grayling like to hang around this time of the year, I opted for the two nymph setup with the French leader. I slowly fished up river casting a long line covering a lot of water with not much disturbance. It wasn’t long and the leader slipping up river to a fine grayling around the 1lb mark! First of the session and in perfect condition.

As the afternoon went on a few small olives started to hatch and it wasn’t long and the grayling started to rise. Problem was there were so many small grayling it was quite impossible to hook a better size grayling due to the fast little buggers taking the fly or dragging it under, so I changed back to the nymphs and fished hard on the bottom and it worked quite well. I still caught many smaller grayling but there were many more bigger fish than small so result!

click on the images below to enlarge