11,500 Miles To Catch A Grayling

Nigel originally from the UK but Moved to New Zealand wanted to come back to the UK to catch a grayling in Wales, listening to Nigel talk about sight fishing and fish on average 3-5lbs made me a little jealous and also think I hope he isn’t disappointed with the size of the fish in Wales.

I thought I would show Nigel my style of nymphing which seemed of great interest to him and also said that he could see it working back home in New Zealand, as Nigel worked his way through the first run several grayling around the pound mark came to the net, but he really wanted that special fish and asked if I could show him a spot that would hold bigger fish, I explained that every run will hold a bigger fish but it’s a case catching them can be the problem, as they didn’t get big by being stupid you really need a good presentation to fool them.

As we worked our way through the run a few better fish came to the net all to my little black nymph on the point, a couple of fish in the 40-42cm range and then a lump of 47cm which should make anyone happy and Nigel did seemed over the moon, the fish kept coming and a lovely part of the day was you could actually see fish in the run and watch them feed as well.

We had a walk further up stream to a nice run that sometimes throws up a bigger fish, but today wasn’t the day for this run all that seemed to be feeding was quite small fish, by the time Nigel had worked his way down the run it was around 3pm and as on so many days this year it’s been like a switch has been thrown and the river just dies, but Nigel had knocked another item off his bucket list and I was glad to be of assistance.

Busy Time Of Year

Well this is a crazy time of year for a fishing guide, but the weather has been quite good so things have been looking up, lots of clients and best of all loads of fish.

Also lots of people coming for casting lessons from complete novices to people coming to improve their skills, it’s been a very good year so far with everyone picking it up really quickly, or it must be the quality of the instruction !!

We have also had some amazing weather sun, wind, hot, cold and surprisingly not that much rain, bar for the one day the river rocketed up and coloured but it didn’t actually rain where we were, as we walked up the river the Carno brook was ragging and just above where it flows into the Severn was still clear and on its bones.

One gentle man had flown 11.500 miles to fulfil another item off his bucket list and catch a grayling in Wales, and he did rather well ( more to follow on this )