First grayling trip

It was the 11th of October and it was grayling time.
The river level was back to normal and with a light breeze, things were looking good for my first go at the "ladies of the stream".
I knew of some nice grayling holding spots at Wolfclyde Bridge that had produced some descent fish in the past. 
All prepared for a bit of hiking along the river, I set off upstream to the first spot.

                                                  A lovely spot on the Clyde

 My tactics for the day was to use my #3--10ft rod with a large klinkhammer as an indicator with 2 bead head flies below, fished well over depth.
I began at the top of the run and started my way down.
Making three fan casts upstream of my position I guiding the flies down at the speed of the current.
A step down-then the same again.
I had travelled down for about ten minutes without a touch, so I increased the distance from the klink to the point fly with the dropper 20"up the line.
I estimated that the water was about 4ft deep so I was now fishing over double the depth.
First cast, instant success, a nice grayling had latched on to my point fly and after a brief struggle it was in the net.

                                                         Safely in the net

My next fish came shortly after, followed by a nice out of season trout of about one and a half pounds.
I continued on going back up and down the run landing 8 nice grayling, all of which were over the pound mark.

                                          
                                                  On her way to fight another day

I had arrived at the river at 1pm and it was now 5pm.
I had fished for 4 hours, delighted with my afternoons fishing, I decided it was time to head home.
I never had time to fish the other spots--going to save them for another day.

Last day of the trout season

That's it, the 6th of October has gone and the trout season has now ended.
It was nice to get out on the last day and I was lucky to catch 3 trout, not big ones, but a pleasure to catch, as the river had been in spate for nearly 2 weeks.
I am now going to tally up my trout catches for the season and send them in to the club
 (Lamington Angling).
The season started with a bang, I caught on the first day, but things quietened down a bit mid season.
However I didn't have many fish blank days, catching a few grayling towards the end of the season.
So I am now going to give it a few days rest and then start again fishing the river for grayling.
Same tactics as for the trout but I will fish the known haunts of the grayling to try and avoid catching out of season trout.
I will also watch were I am wading to make sure I do not disturb the trout Redd's.
You are allowed to use bait while fishing for grayling but I will stick to the fly- ain't going to be tempted to stick a maggot or worm on when things get hard.
My club waters are open from now until the end of January, then there is a month and a bit rest when the new trout season starts on 15th of March.
We have some big grayling in the Clyde and hopefully I can tempt one this year.
As the river temperature drops the grayling start to shoal up, its just a matter of finding them,so I will have to be prepared to cover a few miles along the river bank.
Lets have some good weather before the winter is upon us. " Fish-on."

                    My last trout of the 2012 season, I must try and take some better shots.

Emerald Isle

As my daughter had come over from Canada to England for a couple of weeks and as she had arranged to pay a visit to her mother in Ireland, I thought it would be a shame for me not to make the effort to meet up with her for a couple of days.
So it was off to Dublin I went, by plane from Edinburgh, just a 50 minute flight to the capital of Ireland, then a hop on the train, 3 hours later I was down in Waterford to hug my daughter and grandchildren.
I use to go over there regularly every year bass fishing but not this visit, my stay would be taken up entertaining my daughter and her family.

                                                   Well! someone has to be first in

In between the visits to the local shops, the seaside and eating out, I managed to escape for a few hours to relax and sample the local brew.
One thing about Ireland is there are plenty of good pubs, all selling excellent beer.

                 However, not everyone likes the taste of Ireland's favourite tipple.

It was an enjoyable couple of days, but was soon over, I am now back in Edinburgh getting my fishing gear ready.
I wonder how the Clyde is fishing?

Brownies are feeding again

I went down to the Lamington stretch of the Clyde last Saturday to meet my friend Andrew Lyon who I had commissioned to do a watercolour of me fishing by the bridge.
Ater posing for the camera for about an hour, I selected the shot I liked and told him to go ahead with the painting.

                          Here I am posing,  just downstream of Wolfclyde Bridge.

He said that the painting should be ready in about a months time.
I'm looking forward to seeing it hanging on my wall.
Anyway Andy left and I tackled up to do some proper fishing.
I decided to go a little bit upstream to a spot I had caught some trout last time out.
I opted to go with the "french leader tactics" using a cast of 3 nymphs--- 2 grhs and 1ptn-- all size 12.
There was still a bit of extra flow in the river, so I pinched on some lead shot to get the flies to fish near the bottom.
Things started a bit slow and in the first couple of hours I had only managed 2 wee trout and a couple of bump-offs.
A quick move to another spot proved productive and I managed half a dozen lovely plump brownies two of which must have easily been over the pound mark.

                                               My last fish
                                              A nice end to my day on the Clyde.

Every day is different on the Clyde

The river had been up and over into the field last week but by Saturday it had settled down to a fishable level, so away I went  to my favourite Wolfclyde Bridge.
It wasn't till 2pm that I arrived, I thought that an afternoon early evening session might be productive.
Three or four cars were parked up, but I couldn't see any anglers in the vicinity, so I opted to do my usual and have a go just by the bridge.
As I was tackling up I was delighted to see our local osprey hovering over the water some 200 yards downstream of the bridge. "Cant be anyone down there" I thought, so  I decided to start by the pillars of the old railway bridge and work my way upstream.
Once again it was the 10ft #3 that I opted to fish with. this time with the fly line on the reel,furled leader and then an 8ft  tippet consisting of klinkhammer indicator  and two beaded nymphs.
As the river was running heavy, I decided to stick on a lead shot, this time between the point fly and the dropper.
Moving slowly upstream from the pillars to the the bridge I plucked out 8 lovely wee brownies of no more than 8" long. Not bad for the first hour of fishing.
The other side of the bridge was less productive, another 2 wee fish and at the death,after changing to a dry I caught my last trout-a bit better this time,  a 12"incher.
Funny how it goes isn't it-last week I couldn't catch a trout, it was all grayling, this week no grayling all trout. Although they were all small fish I had an enjoyable afternoon.
I had only fished for 2 hours, my highlight as always was seeing the osprey and with a few fish as well, it all made my day.

Grayling are on the feed

It was back to Wolfclyde today, its been seven days since I was last down there.
The river has been over it's banks last week and not for the first time, its been up and down for the last couple of months.
I hope the weather is going to settle now, we have had enough rain, lets have some nice sunny warm days before winter is on us.
Where is summer? seems to have missed us up here in Scotland.
Anyway back to today and the fishing.
After my success with the french leader set up, I thought that I would give it another go to see if it would works for me again.
I started just by the pillar of the bridge, fan casting upstream as I went.
Within 5 minutes I was into a fish, it wasnt a trout, this fish was staying deep out in the current.
I soon saw the big fin coming out of the water, it was a grayling and a nice one at that.
After a little bit of excitement on my 10ft  #3 rod I soon had it in the net, a quick shot and back in the water it went.

I find that grayling take a bit of time to recover, so its best to hold them upright  in the water facing upstream.
Give it a few minutes and it should swim away on its own accord.
This one was no exception, I had to hold it for a while before it went on its way.
Wild brown trout seem to just dart off as soon as they hit the water.

I was soon into another grayling just a couple of yards further on, not as big, but it was very lively.
"Where were all the trout?" I asked myself. I had caught them last week but today they were missing.
In the first hour I had now caught 3 grayling but no trout.
The water did feel a bit cold, so maybe that was the reason, all that rain must have put the trout off the feed and the grayling must have  thought that it was the Autumn and had started feeding.
A hundred yards up from the bridge the water starts to get shallower and faster, it can be good but today it was just a bit too pacy for my method and after another half hour without a take I decided to move further up stream.
It was nice to have a few anglers around today ( I was on my own last week) and I stopped for a chat a couple of times as I moved on.
I was now some 500 yards upstream of the bridge and had started fishing the same method as earlier but after an hour without a touch I decided to sit back on the bank, have a bite to eat and watch the other anglers fish away. They didn't seem to be doing any better than me.
I spent another hour in the area resulting in one wee brown trout of about 6" but that was it, so I made my way back to the bridge.
It was now time for a change.
I had noticed a couple of rises, so on went a dry fly to see if I could tempt a fish.
Tried that for about an hour and with only one take without a hook up, I gave it up.
It was now 5pm, should I call it a day or give it one last hour ?
The weather had been that bad lately I thought that it would be a shame to go home so soon, especially as it was now turning into a nice evening.
On went a big klinkhammer as indicator, then 7ft to the point fly and 18" back up the line to a dropper.
Buzz had kindly given me half a dozen of his special beaded nymphs, so I thought now would be a good time to give them a try.
On went a heavy yellow bug on the point and a lighter nymph on the dropper.
My last efforts resulted in another nice sized grayling of over a pound followed shortly after by one slightly smaller.

I finished off with 5 nice grayling today and although the trout hadn't shown, I went home happy.

As I was driving back to Edinburgh I thought to myself.
I wonder why there are so many fish around Wolfclyde Bridge?
I seem to catch more fish there than anywhere else on the Clyde, surely they must get caught a few times throughout the year.
You would think they would be hook shy wouldn't you?
I have posted exactly where my fish were caught  I hope no-one objects to this.
I wouldn't normally divulge the spot.
But its hardly a secret place is it?
Most anglers usually have a few casts by the Bridge when they start or when they finish their days fishing.
Its a good place for beginners to start, safe wading, plenty of space and a few fish.
That's where I started some 4 years ago.

Back on my favourite Clyde

I have been back now for two and a bit weeks and my holiday in Canada seems long in the distant past.
Hot weather, nice food, cold beer and of course my lovely daughter and her family.
I miss them and look forward to going back next year.
Anyway, I am now back in Scotland and I don't think it has stopped raining since I have been back, at least it isn't cold, but the river has been up and down like a yo-yo.
I managed to get out last week, getting a couple of trout on the dry, but it was hard work.
The forecast for today is showers, with a light  SE wind, water levels looked good, so I thought I would give it a go.
No point in going out too early I thought so I set off at mid-day, Jeremy Vine on the radio would keep me company for the 40 minute trip.
I arrived at Wolfclyde at about one o,clock where I had a look at the water from the bridge.
There were no fish rising "It must be nymphs today" I thought.
When I was in Canada I took my annual trip across the Detroit River to the Bass Pro Shop and  purchased another battenkill reel, the idea being that this would be designated to french nymphing.
Its loaded with 20lb Amnesia Mono (no fly line) tapering down at the business end to 17lb-14lb-12lb 8lb then a tippet ring.
On the 8lb section I had put on 4 hi-vis float stops to act as my indicator.
 (set up shown on a previous post)
That was going to be my method for today and because the river was flowing a bit fast, I didn't fancy sticking on a big heavy point nymph, I decided to try a new set-up I had been thinking about for some time.
Buzz (Mark) had tied me some lovely wee nymphs and  I hadn't had a chance to use them,being on the light side the problem I had was how to get them down to the fish?
So I came up with this-- from my tippet ring I added 8ft of 1.4kg mono with two 0.3g split shot on the end.
Then up 16" to a dropper, 16" again to my middle, and finally another 16" to the top dropper.
I then tied on a selection of Mark,s nymphs and I was ready to go.
I thought that Wolfclyde would have a few anglers, but not a car in sight.
"They may all be somewhere else or I suppose some people have to work", I didn't mind.
 I had the place to myself. "Lets start just on the upstream side close to the bridge" I thought".
A little flick up stream on a short line and it all looked good, no tangle, everything landing on the water correctly and the split shot soon started tripping along the bottom quite nicely.
Gave out a bit more line on my second cast and I was into a fish right away, followed by another, a couple of on- offs then some more nice wee trout came to hand.
I was chuffed with myself, my new method seemed to work.
In total I had a dozen trout and one plump grayling in 3 hours of fishing all within 100 yards of the bridge.

It just so happens that John the bailiff turned up as I netted my best fish, a lovely hard fighting brownie of about a pound.
It was great to be back on my favourite Clyde.