something graylingy going on.

Col and I arranged to meet up with Scott from http://something-fishy-going-on.blogspot.co.uk/  on Sunday . Scott was after a grayling to add to his already impressive tally of  108 different species so far this year, quite an achievement i'm sure you'll agree, so we were keen for him  to add another species to his tally with any luck. To begin with the three of us started of trotting in the run where we had picked up fish from the week before, and it didn't take long for Scott to land the first Grayling of the day, the pressure was off!

from then on we all started to pick up a few grayling, great fun on a fine winters day

you again!

Grayling even manage to put a smile on my face!

sport slowed down a after a while so we split up for a while to try some different swims, where we had a few more grayling of various sizes and the odd out of season trout.

It was a pleasure to meet you Scott and I hope you catch some more of your target species before the years out.

  

single lady

I had Sunday afternoon free so thought I would pay the grayling burn a visit, as Col was saying in a recent post it's grayling have proved hard to find this year for some reason, maybe water quality? I don't know but recent spates have certainly cleared out a lot of the silt and on this day it was running low and as clear as I have seen it.

from the first pool I was pleased to land a nice grayling on a tan glister bug



   still some ice in the shade

my hopes were high in the next few good pools but I never got another touch, not that I was feeling too disheartened, just being on the river on a fine winter afternoon was enough for me, and ive got a feeling that the Grayling will put in an appearance again at some point. 

A Dose of the Trots.

On saturday me and Brian went west for a shot at the grayling. Despite having trotted for grayling many times , it was the first time i'd   done it  properly  with a centrepin reel, Brian on the otherhand has a good few years experience using his, so i was in good hands for any advice or help i would need.
When we arrived  just before 8am it was just light enough to see what we were doing and once tackled up we were trotting.

It didn't take long for Brian to bring the first grayling and then the second and third and the odd out of season trout  to hand, before i too got into some of the action, after a few initial teething problems i started to get the hang of it.

The sport tailed off an hour or so in , so we searched elsewhere in vain , before returning again, if anything the walk was a good opportunity to get the blood circulating again in our feet, in fact we regularly took breaks just to warm up , we were joined by a wee robin , looking for free food , he even had the brass neck to attempt to take maggots from my bait apron .

 We went on to take a few more grayling, the sport  seemed to come on in spells.

It had been a nice day on the river, and i now feel i little more competent with the centrepin, thanks Brian.

back for more

I couldn't help myself today and went back to the same spot as last sunday for another session trotting for the grayling. Not such a nice day today with a strong downstream wind and generally feeling quite dreich.

 Started of with a wee trout before connecting with a good grayling, just under the 2lb mark.

a few more trout and another good grayling followed, just over the 2lb mark this time

and that was my lot for the day, a nice way to spend a short November afternoon, next time I think I might explore a different stretch of the river.

weekend grayling search

With a lack of fishing recently I decided to take Friday off work and have a day fishing for the grayling and headed up to perthshire to do a bit of trotting. The river was running high but clear so I was hopeful that I might pick up a Grayling or two. Fishable spots on the stretch were fairly limited with the high water but  I was in a good run where Col and I have encountered grayling before in similar conditions. Unfortunately It wasn't to be today though, plenty of out of season trout throughout the day but no grayling for my efforts, never mind a couple of steak bridies from the local butcher shop for the journey home to end an enjoyable day.

I still had plenty of bait left over from Friday so on Sunday I headed west to a river i haven't fished for a good while now, my plan was to fish its lower reaches where Ive had a couple of good grayling days in the past,  when I got there and peered over the bridge though it looked disappointingly dirty so I jumped back in the car and travelled to the rivers upper reaches where I found it  running clear and at a good height.

a hard frost on the ground today

 I've never fished this stretch before so I had a wee wonder downstream until I found a pool that I liked the look of with a nice pace and depth. After a few trots down I had a  trout before I got talking to an angler on the opposite bank, as it turns out  we knew each other from a forum, Paul knows this river like the back of his hand and pleasingly he told me the pool I was fishing was a reliable one for grayling  although  I would be better fishing it from the other bank.  I crossed over to join him and after a while I connected with a fish,  this time it turned out to be a grayling ,  just a wee one but I was pleased to finally get of the mark!

I dropped a better fish from the same spot before landing a nice grayling of a pound and a half

 a few trots down later and the float went in the same area again, felt like another good fish  but it shed the hook. They wised up after that, but by now I was beginning to feel the cold in my feet so called it a day contented  with a couple of hard won grayling,  a big thanks to Paul for his expert advice, can't wait to get back on this river next weekend.

Winter Account Open

Not been doing much fishing of recent , mainly due to the weather , work and other matters. A few hours this afternoon allowed for a shot at the grayling burn, no question about it the grayling have been notable by their absence this year, the last two visits I have resulted in a grayling lost at the net each time.

This afternoon the burn looked great plenty water and good clarity, in fact the silt seems to have been flushed away in the high water, the water though was cold, and last nights hard frost was still evident throughout the afternoon .

 I set up Nz style first with a size 14 blister bug under a dirty Polly, but after searching a nice looking bit in the first pool I decided to up the size of the glitter bug to a size 10 , with immediate result.

A grayling a real sight for sore eyes, and for once it didn't come off  at the net.

I continued upstream for a few pools with renewed optimism, but apart from a hat trick of out of season browns that found a liking for the nymph , no more grayling were forth coming. still theres always next time.

On the Bench

A nice whiting badger cape has sat in my drawer unused , decided to tie up some grey duster variants, just turkey biot klinks in truth but in greyduster guise. would have preferred them more if the badger cape had bigger black centres. Dressed on size 14 kamasan b100's. look forward to trying them out next spring .

abdomen :grey turkey biots
thorax: mole
wing post: white poly yarn
hackle: badger

salmo the leaper!

I haven't managed to get out fishing for a couple of weeks now what with one thing or another, not that i'm complaining, there's a long winter ahead to chase the grayling. Yesterday I was out with my pal Mike for a day trip with our camera's in Perthshire, by chance our first stop was the Buchanty spout on the river almond, where you can watch the salmon leap. We had a good laugh trying get some pics of them, most of the time the salmon were long gone by the time I had pressed the shutter release, I think Mike may have had more success but here's some of my mostly out of focus efforts anyway!

   

the river Almond upstream from the falls

after a much needed bridie from the butchers in Dunkeld we visited the birks of Aberfeldy, stunning at this time of year.

if the weather plays ball this week it might be Perthshire again at weekend for a bit of trotting  on the Tay.  

Surfs up!

Yesterday afternoon we made a late decision to try out an East Lothian beach for flounders , this beach has the added pull of throwing up the occasional turbot, some big ones too but we have still to encounter a decent sized one. We arrived about an hour before low tide and fished the first hour down, the conditions looked rough  but i don't think they were as bad as it looked.  The surfers were out in force enjoying themselves and we even found scaling down to 2oz leads was managing to roll to our liking on the bottom. . I lost a flounder right at the edge, it then went quiet until the tide turned when Brian was the first to take a fish , a wee fellae but nice to see .

He then took the next again .

Whilst returning flounder no.2 , Brian walked into my lines , I thought it was him  but it was infact a take as when he walked away the rod was still nodding , and i landed my first of the day .

 

 It wasn't busy sport but I had another and Brian had  another Brace, one of them a good sized fish.

Brian decided he'd had enough, frustratingly i had a lot of bites not coming to anything , i then had a bite on my right hand rod , which had a small flounder , while i did that my other rod rattled , which brian picked up and reeled in   to find a double shot of flounder. The gully i was fishing seeemed to have come to life, but darkness was almost upon us and bellies were rumbling .

Not the busiest of flounder sesssions , but not bad either. looking forward to giving it another go and with a bit of luck perhaps a turbot will grace our hooks?

drawing to a close

With the season drawing to a close tomorrow I spent a final afternoon on my favourite local burn, some pictures.

A Tumble in the Jungle

Decided on one last trip to a local river yesterday. I hadn't fished it since late May, mainly because I find getting from pool to pool a real task when the undergrowth gets going also take in consideration the damage inflicted on waders with brambles and partly also because it's slow flat pools are perhaps more suited to early to mid season dry fly tactics.

My fears were justified , getting from pool to pool was a real task in the deep areas where you had to leave the river, I basically had to grasp a bunch of nettles and haul my self out the water and up the banking , my hands are still stinging. On another occasion I was trying to get past a junk yard stretch of the river which is full of Japanese knot weed forcing my way through I took a tumble down the banking , luckily my reaction was to let go off the rod at the top of the brae and also I stopped short of the river.

The fishing though was fantastic!Barely a rising trout to be seen all day , but in any piece of water with any defined current ,  even wee short shallow runs in the tails of pools , fish were to be had mainly to a wire nymph but a few took the dry.

A shallow dub  behind a  bush  which held  fish

 A few good fish were willing to take too , the best I landed was 1 3/4lb which put up a great fight , also   had good number in and just over the pound mark , and a few lost that may  have been bigger fish?

Even the minnows were hungry

1lb 12oz

the rivers were up this morning and with exceptionally heavy rain forecast for tonight , I've a sneaking suspicion that's going to be the last outing of the 2013 trout season, still there's plenty of other types of fish to go for during the winter season. Looking forward to it already.