Scratchin' the Itch(en)

This is Grayling Alley says Paul Williams. Feck, he's right. Shapes are finning around at the bottom of the deep run in front of us. Lots of shapes. Some of them are quite big. Grayling. It's what we've been searching for.

Paul seems to be spotting the fish first, before I do, maybe it's something to do with his lofty elevation giving him a different angle of view. Or perhaps it's the crap polaroids I'm wearing to replace the good ones that broke. Paul's haul today is prodigious, a big guy with a big catch rate. From now on I'm considering calling him 'Edgar' or 'Dyson'. He just seems to Hoover fish up as he tracks along the river with his euro nymph. Decent grayling, tiny grayling, salmon par, out of season brownies - they're all the same to Paul. 
  

Fish, he says, pointing to a weed frond swaying in the flow at the tail of the run. That's just a weed frond swaying in the flow, I'm saying, as a dark silhouette detaches itself in front and then drifts sideways and downstream. 'Look at the tail on that mofo!'..  often when they drift down stream it's because they're mildly spooked and I'm wondering if we've been rumbled. The water is absolutely gin clear and the river low, blamed, by a fly fisher I met here earlier, on over-abstraction. Partly true probably, but also because of the arid summer with little rain to replenish the chalkstream aquifers. This run is still a deep scour in the bed though and one of our best chances for a better fish from such nervous water.

We're fishing the Itchen Navigation, a braid of the River Itchen. 'Improved' in the 1700's to form a canal network linking Winchester with Southampton docks, the route fell into disuse by 1869. Today, like much of the Itchen system and other southern chalkstreams, it's frequently stocked with brown trout to meet the demands of visiting fly fishers. Stockies are really not my thing, especially in rivers, which is why I take long journeys north or into the westcountry for wild river trout fishing. But come autumn, the wild grayling potential here, less than two hours down the road, is just too good to ignore. 

So here we are today and I'm hoping to scratch the newly developed grayling itch that has snuck up on me unexpectedly. I've caught a few in the Derbyshire Derwent and Cornwall's River Inny and it would be nice to add the Itchen to my novice list. Perch aside, I don't see myself as a fly rod specimen hunter, but with grayling I can appreciate the attraction, and certainly this morning I'm hoping to improve on my own modest personal best. More than that, I'm looking to break a run of mediocre fortune in my fishing that's been hounding me of late, and so perhaps a good fish from this spot matters a little more than it should. 

Paul generously stands back to give me first crack, but despite his expert demonstration of its efficacy today, I'm resisting the euro nymph approach. For the slightly eccentric and highly objective reasons I wrote about in my last blog (nymphing in three dimensions) I'm sticking with a short rod and single nymph. Eccentric but not stupid and I'm very happy to accept a choice from the beautifully tied tungsten beadheads he kindly offers. A blue-ish beaded ptn style fly on a 14 jig seems like it will do the business. I climb over the wobbly fence, keep low and creep into position just behind the great raft of watercress growing along the river margin. So far so good, the fish seem unconcerned and I figure that a low side cast with the 8ft rod will avoid the risk of flashing over their heads. 

But here it all starts to go wrong. The adrenalin, I think, of being over good fish makes me snatch the cast and I hook the bankside on the back cast. I can hear low chuckling sounds from up on the bank behind me while I creep along and free the snagged hook. Then somehow the fly line falls back down through the rod rings. Fuck. Patiently I unpick the muddle and try to calm my nerves, but I'm still rushing a little too much and this time the leader connection, still inside the tip ring snags on the next cast. It's a right bugger's muddle now. Whole new tippet, re-tie the fly and by now the chuckles behind me have escalated to down right piss-taking. 'It'll be trout season again soon!' 'Fuck off'. It's a low point but I force my self to breath and slow right down, telling myself that while I've been faffing about like a rank amateur at least the pool has been rested. I also remind my self that I can actually fish. 

This time it plays out in text book fashion. No false cast,  just a low, slow, lazy side cast that the Superfine does so well. The leader unrolls and lands softly upstream, the nymph in just the right position to sink down to the feeding plane by the time it reaches the fish. I track the fly back towards me, and see the line pause out of the corner of my eye, but it's the fish I'm watching and I'm already lifting against its solid resistance as I see the silver flash of its flank turning on my fly. Don't ever be told that grayling don't fight. A good fish will test you and they know how to use the flow. My fish bolts downstream along the water cress and turns broadside to the current, twisting and rolling to shed the hook.                                          
I can see that this my biggest grayling so far, and as the rod plunges and bucks I'm just hoping the hook doesn't pull or that the fine 0.1mm tippet doesn't snag and part in the watercress, but the Superfine soaks up all of the action. I put some pressure on to get the fish's head up and then it's all done with nice and quickly. In the net, such a lovely fish, 14 inches and strong. 

The trials of the last couple of weeks are washed away by the last few minutes and as I watch my fish swim strongly away my spirits are restored. Now, in the Derbyshire Wye I've seen some really big grayling..