Trotting Heaven.

 

 Whenever temps start to fall one of three things happen, one we know the shortest day of the year is approaching, two I'll still be wearing shorts and t-shirts to work and three Grayling will be on my mind! 

 Once again I had been invited to fish the river Wylye for Grayling by Mike and I could not pass up the opportunity. I had a sleepless night on Wednesday owing to my youngest being a tad poorly and the excitement to get back on to big Grayling territory. 4am I was up and by 5am I was leaving for Wiltshire.

Let's go! 

 I arrived in the murk and got myself suitably dressed and armed with 3 pint of maggots to drown, could that 3lb specimen I've been seeking for a few years now finally be found and landed? I was certainly going to try and early on I found a couple of willing fish which were held up in tight pockets. Within the first 2 hours I had managed 4 fish with two weighing in at 2lb 5oz and 2lb 1oz, a cracking start and could only hope things would continue in that manner.

2.05

 Fishing oddly was hard in areas as I suspect a combination of the heavy floods condensed the fish and then freezing temps kept them there because once I had located shoals the bites came thick and fast, some were Grayling and some were Trout which at times were so hard to get through, so I deepened up to try and get through water column faster and give Grayling a chance and this did work in parts. 

 A number of young fish between 2oz and 1lb 8oz came to the net but found it challenging to get any bigger fish and going on catch reports since the grayling season opened it has been slim pickings largely. Finding the shoals weren't easy but once achieved I was catching and around 3pm I did manage a couple more good fish of 2lb on the nose and my best of the day of 2lbs 6oz, a really nice deep bodied fish which hung deep throughout the fight which was very satisfying and nervy in equal measure.

Best of the day, 2.06

 Just before those two 2lb fish were caught I did hook a very heavy fish that I do feel was a Grayling but was unseen, once it hit the main flow the strain on the hook hold was clearly too much and it slipped away, that said I am very impressed by the new XT maggot pattern from the new hooks that will be launched in the spring from Drennan Int', I've been using various patterns this season and I am, currently very happy with their performance and also now been using the Acolyte Specimen Float rod "15ft" and again has performed very well with some very powerful fish on the light gear, if you are looking for a lightweight but powerful float rod for Chub, Grayling, Barbel etc then this rod is most certainly what you are looking for, its a stepped up version of the acolyte float rods including ultra. 

 The only downfall with this time of the year is the short days and by 1620 I had lost almost all light and that bought down the curtain on yet another thoroughly enjoyable days fishing!

Trotting heaven.

Stiff as a .... sock 

Chub Day.

 

 Last weekend I finally got the chance to do a decent amount of fishing, a whole day has been hard to come by of late and armed with a loaf of bread and some maggots I made the most of my time.

 After weeks of heavy rain it was nice and settled, which did bring its own challenges but with some knowhow chub are willing beasts. The river was very low and very clear, not terrible conditions for chub if you can find them. I knew where they would be held up but catching them was proving to be a proper challenge, my first half an hour proved completely baron, I turned my attentions to my approach and stepped down my hooklength from 6lb flourocarbon to 3.3lb, dropping the float and hook size too.

 Within three trots the float slipped under and I was latched into a hard fighting chub which put up a good account of itself. Once in the net I started to ball up tiny bits of white crumb to keep the fish occupied, on the scales this one went 5lb 1oz, not a bad start at all! Once the keepnet was erected I got to fishing the swim a little harder and the bites came more readily, infact my next 20 or so trots after making that seemingly enormous changeup twelve chub came to the net and lost another two! I could not quite believe how tightly packed they were, but once they were confidently feeding they were hanging themselves.

 Amazingly still once the swim slowly died off as the fish wised up and a couple more came to the net the first fish was the best with most in the 4lb bracket, given that number of fish I was hoping there would be at two to four 5's or maybe even a 6+ amongst them but it wasn't to be, just glad to get a bend in the rod.

 After exhausting that swim I went for a walk downstream around half a mile to another run that looked good for trotting and once again it took a good twenty mins or so to get a bite which resulted in a chub, that was it for that spot and a few more moves resulted in nothing. 

 With the sun dropping by this point I went back to the swim I had the single Chub from and opted to fish maggots instead of bread and fed the swim consistently and within my first five trots the float darted under and was met with some serious resistance, the kind of power chub simply can not generate, so it could only be a barbel or a rare carp! five minutes or so passed without seeing the culprit had me wondering if I was actually going to see it! Then a couple of minutes later, out of the depths a barbel appeared! 

 It really was turning into a great day on the float but nothing big, to be honest it was nice just to get out and do some fishing.