Itchen Grayling Best.

 A week or so ago myself and Brian hot footed it down to the Itchen with Grayling in mind. Our 75 mile trip typically takes around an hour and thirty minutes on a good run, our destination? unknown. The plan was to park up where we could on a part of the river where free access was granted and fish our proverbial tits off. The only issue with that was the snow had already began to melt as we set off into Hampshire, we were certainly up against the clock because once that melt/runoff begins to enter the river it's practically game over.

 Knowing we had possibly a couple of hours we decided to get some fish on the scorecard, however, this wasn't an easy task either as trout were posing as a real nuisance, fly boys I apologise in advance, but they were eating everything before the grayling had a chance.

 I think I began fishing around 8am and took me nearly 2 hours to get my first grayling to the net. It wasn't the sort of response I was expecting to tell the truth, sub zero nights for possibly 7 or 8 consecutive nights really should have had the grayling feeding hard but I failed by and large to get a head of steam, problem was myself and Brian were having a grayling comp' and he was already pulling away.

 The hours ticked by fairly quickly and I slowly chewed into the early pace setter with a couple fish here and there, most were around the 10-12oz mark but as the day drew to a close I hit a heavy fish at around 40 yards downstream and I dare not push it. All day I was hoping to get something half decent but it never materialised, this was my chance so I played the fish cautiously as for most of the fight I thought it was a very good Roach.

 Roughly ten yards from where I began my trot a large dorsal fin cut through the now cloudy water, the unmistakable beauty of a large grayling came into view, just what I came for. It looked a two-pounder all day as she crept gingerly over the lip of the net. Weight in truth means very little when something this awesome has just graced your net but I am a stickler for facts and figures so I couldn't go without knowing.

1lb 13oz 8dr

 My day was complete and my desire to continue fishing ebbed away after that, I proceeded to watch Brian pull further ahead to complete the scoring at 15-11 by the close, a good day had all around. Not to mention that was my best river Itchen grayling to date.