James Beeson shares a tale of broken rods, painful experiences and grayling.
The river runs out of the high hills through a valley lined with conifers. Some mist hangs in the canopy of the uppermost trees. It reminds me a little of Michigan, though on a smaller scale. My wife is from Michigan, a child of woods and water. Once we found wolf tracks in the sand beside a river like this one. There are no wolves here any more, but there are grayling. A buzzard takes to the air from one of the oak trees that grow on the river bank, we play leapfrog on the walk downstream and startle a heron. The autumn wind pulls leaves from the trees and scatters them like confetti. As they are carried along by the river the fallen leaves flash gold and brass under water, like the ghosts of fish.
If there is a fish for autumn it is the grayling. The trout season closes at the end of September here, and on the high moorland autumn can come early, as early as the end of August in a short summer. There is always a little sadness when the season comes to an end with those early morning mists and crisp evening chill. There is a natural melancholy to the shortening of the days and the dying of the leaves.
The pool looks like a place where a grayling ought to be, a tight neck of fast water concentrating the supply of food and oxygen before it runs into a deeper holding area and then out over gravel shallows. A beadhead nymph on a fluorescent furled leader is my weapon of choice. It twitches against the current, strike, and a fish is on. In the clear water I can see straight away that it's a grayling, and a big one for this river. The sail of a dorsal fin works the current and, because I'm not fast enough to react, she gets downstream of me in the pool tail. The hook comes free and the fish is gone, down into the pool below and the shelter of overhanging trees.
In the fading light of the evening this is the last action of the day. It's not a victory, it's frustrating to lose a good fish at any stage but especially so in the last knockings. Yet, it's not all bad. There is something to be said for having connected in the first place, getting the presentation right and reading the water. If every time was a success the chances are life would become a little boring - like supporting the New York Yankees. It is a good thing that the fish can win, it proves the skill in the times they don't, and it's a good thing to see them swim away to carry on the business of existence.
Once, a long time ago, I trapped myself in the zip of my jeans. In a care free moment at a pub urinal I was not paying full attention. The interlocking metal jaws of pain closed on that most sensitive of male areas. The act itself wasn’t the worst part. That was having to unzip. The greater damage being done on the way out. These days I only wear jeans with a button fly, and I always de-barb hooks.
I love trout, especially when they run to sea and back, but ‘The Grayling’, or Thymallus thymallus, is a stunningly beautiful fish that is at its best in Autumn. Whereas the trout are only just getting ready to spawn the grayling has already completed its business back in spring. At this time of year they are fighting fit and ready to take a fly. In the Westcountry the depth of winter is usually too wet (it really does rain a lot down here) and the rivers too coloured to fish, but autumn is just fine. On this river you can only fish until the end of October to protect the spawning of the trout, sea trout, and salmon. The nights are getting longer, the days shorter, and there is always the sense that time is running out.
Being a moorland stream the water is cold and clear, which suits the grayling just fine. The river bed is a mix of sand and rock which is part of what reminds me of Michigan. There used to be grayling in Michigan, so many in fact that they named a town after them, but not any more.
The Michigan Grayling were a strain of Thymallus arcticus, the Arctic Grayling. They’re recorded as being particularly beautifully marked and, unfortunately, very easy to catch. Bags of fish in the hundreds were being taken by anglers. It is hard to understand, with boxes and boxes of freshly killed grayling stacked on the station platform awaiting trains to carry them to Chicago and beyond, why nobody thought that such unrestricted slaughter might not be sustainable. It wasn’t just angling pressure that did for the Michigan Grayling, the deforestation didn’t help either. Log jams scoured river beds like a Brillo pad, and the temperature of the unshaded rose. So grayling are gone from Michigan, replaced with planted rainbows and browns that live alongside the enduring Brook Trout.
The big grayling in my river will have to wait until next weekend, the last fishing weekend of the season, when I can come back and try again.
In places, fallen trees lie across the river making a temperate jungle with the overhanging trees that steal flies. The bank side paths are overgrown with ferns and walking through them is hard work. It could be a scene from Last of the Mohicans. But instead of a Native American for a guide, I’ve got Pete.
Pete may not move silently through the woods without leaving a trace, and his face may not appear in the logo of any American sports teams, but when it comes to persuading big fish out of their deep holes he has powerful medicine. And he has a French Nymphing set up.
If you look at a grayling you can see why it pays to fish deep. The downward pointing mouth is perfect for hoovering up invertebrates from the river bottom. They absolutely will come for a dry fly, inverting themselves in the water column, but on this river if you fish high up the trout will hit the fly first and in October that’s not the game. This river is too narrow and intimate to fish Northcountry spiders across and down, careful wading and upstream stealth are the way to go. The only way to get those flies down fast is through weight.
Fishing heavily weighted nymphs just off the bottom is what the French Nymphing technique was made for. It was Pete who introduced me to the method. The fly line is hardly used, instead the steeply tapered leader allows short range upstream flicks. Tungsten beads sink the flies and the lack of line means they swim with minimal drag. For some reason grayling are more sensitive to fly line on the water than trout. Perhaps it is their position on the bottom of the river that gives them a wider window. I have lost a lot of Pete's flies in the overhanging vegetation of this river, but he's yet to lose any patience.
We take it in turns to fish our way through each pool. Pete is first off the mark with a grayling that sucks in the point fly causing the indicator to twitch. Every movement of even these heavily weighted nymphs is transmitted through the indicator. As we work upstream a number of small, out of season trout hit the dropper but we catch four or five grayling among them. The fight from a grayling is quite different, rather than charging upstream or flying into the air, they open that big dorsal fin and use the current against you.
Somewhere on the way to the pool where I caught a last glimpse of the waving dorsal fin of the big grayling, Pete’s rod breaks. The tip snapped. It wasn’t a violent snap, but no less final. I’ve broken rods before and it’s not a pleasant feeling. We switch to mine, which had just been a passenger. A shorter rod with a different profile it takes a bit of getting used to, but once we are re-acquainted it manages the job well.
As we arrive at the pool I prepare myself for the likelihood that my grayling will have moved on to another piece of river. On the second run through with the team of nymphs the indicator dances, I strike and feel the weight of a fish. It’s a grayling, but not the monster I’m looking for. I hand the rod to Pete for his turn. He runs the flies through a little further up the pool, closer to the far bank. The indicator twitches and Pete is in to a fish. By the bend in the rod I can tell it’s a good size, but something about the way it fights isn’t quite grayling. It comes to the surface and reveals itself as a fine sea trout, my old adversary, the silver has largely gone from the flanks as it begins to take on its spawning colours. The rod passes back to me. Pete’s battle with the sea trout may have disturbed the pool but there is always hope in fishing.
The indicator dances again. It feels like another good fish. A grayling. The grayling. She opens that big dorsal fin and glides past me, side on to the current. This time I’m ready to counter, and I have Pete to help me with the net.
Up close she might be a few ounces shy of the full 2lbs, but no more than a few ounces and that is near enough for me. She is a beautifully patterned Westcountry grayling, caught, admired, and returned. The perfect way to end the river season in the last days of October. November is set to begin with gales and heavy rain. Roll on opening day 2014, I’ve ordered my own French Leader.