It's early March and we hopped into the truck and headed to North Yorkshire for some last minute grayling fishing on a river we'd wanted to fish for a long time.
Ever have one of those places you really want to fish and either can’t make the time for it or things seem to conspire against you so that it doesn’t happen?
As Emma and I headed up to North Yorkshire I was just a little bit excited at the prospect of fishing a river that I really, really wanted to fish. No scrub that, needed to fish. We’d been blown off it a year previously. I say blown. It was more of a white out when heavy snow just seemed to come out of nowhere. We tried again last October but our friends who were going to be our hosts, Alan and Pam, had a serious oil leak in their house that involved builders having to dig down through their sitting room about 8 feet and it just didn’t feel right to impose when they were going through a really tough time.
So, the house was sorted and as we drove up the A1M it looked like my wish was going to come true. The weather was a balmy 14 degrees C and the sun was shining. I was planning my strategy of fishing nymphs until the Large Darks started hatching and then catching a few grayling on dries.
Then this strange thing happened. We took our turnoff and the clouds rolled in. We got up the next morning and the temperature had dropped 10 degrees. Driving to the river the snow started and the wind got up. When I got out of Alan’s truck I realised I had forgotten my wading boots. This is something I have never done. Pam wasn’t fishing with us today and made the mercy dash with my boots. I am told I looked very sheepish.
We weren’t off to the best of starts. There isn’t a lot you can do about the weather and I like to take everything as it comes. Sometimes you just have to work with things a little bit more when conditions are tough to find the right formula but I think it makes it all the more enjoyable when the line goes tight.
Having said all that, there were some great positives which outweighed everything. I was putting my waders on, looking at a stunning stretch of river that had a perfect blend of riffles, deeper pools and lovely glides. This is Alan and Pam’s home water and I could see why they love it so much.
Despite all the rain and snow the river was clear and hadn’t come up a great deal. Alan and I shared a rod and fished a French Leader rig. It worked and a double 2.5mm tungsten bead nymph on the point started to pick up grayling. Alan showed me where he likes to fish the seams of runs on some of the deeper pools and it worked. We stuck at it longer than most sane people would as the strong downstream wind did its best to dampen our spirits.
Next day could have been a different story. The sun shone and despite the rain through most of the previous day the river was still clear. It had risen eight inches but was perfectly fishable.
Pam joined us and I watched her rig up with a single tungsten beaded pheasant tailed nymph. She prefers to fish with an indicator and uses sheep wool that she finds on barbed wire and dyes it with turmeric to make it more visible.
She showed me a pool she likes to fish that is no more than a gentle riffle but after easing herself into the right spot about midway up the pool we watched the turmeric indicator dip and a grayling was on. It happened three more times and so I thought if the pool didn’t have a name we should name it as Pam’s pool.
We fished nymphs throughout the day. There was a brief ten minute flurry of Large Darks and we just lightened the nymphs up a bit but sadly we didn’t get a dry on and only saw one lone rise.
I could have, I mean should have, taken more pictures but the fishing was good and faced with a camera or rod in my hand it wasn’t a tough choice. Sorry.
I can see why Alan and Pam like this stretch so much. It is their Home Water and they love it, so do I.
