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