We settled in for our farewell breakfast on the last morning. I looked a little bit like a bloated pig, infact quite a lot like a bloated pig. We bid farewell to Richard and Jane and headed off to the Wye for our final day’s fishing. Despite some overnight rain, the river looked in good sorts. However overnight we had winds up to almost gale force and it was nothing to do with the beans from dinner. The wind on Friday was very, very breezy and this would make float fishing difficult.
Still we wanted to make the most of our final day. Having seen that magnificent grayling come out on that first day, we all had high hopes that this stretch could hold some very big grayling. So we all made our way down to the river full of excitement and expectation. I dropped into a lovely slow glide. Fishing a small red worm, I trotted down the run, heading to some sunken bushes. The swim was about 4 feet deep and ran over gravel. As the float approached the trees, the tip disappeared. The strike met with a solid resistance and then a couple of thumps. This felt like a very good fish. I struggles to budge the fish but eventually it started to move. A couple of quick thumps indicated to me this was a big grayling. I nervously applied a little pressure to start to guide the fish upstream. Again a couple of head shakes and this time the hook hold failed. I was gutted. That was a good fish.
The problem with grayling is their delicacy at biting sometimes. They also gyrate whilst being played and this results in a lot of lost fish. I’ve tried both barbed and barbless and I’m not convinced there is a great deal of difference between them. Still after losing two more good fish I opted to swap the barbless for a barbed. This helped and I landed a couple of much smaller grayling. The wind had picked up and we also ended up with a couple of very heavy showers. Still we persevered. I think Kev had the best day taking about 15 or 16 grayling and again he took the biggest fish, which weighed in at 2lb 2oz I think. The rest of all caught a few with some nice size fish, but nothing exceptional.
It was finally time to set off for home. It’s about a 5 hour trip so would involve a stop or two. Dan opted for the first part of the trip down to Ross. Of course it’s all country lanes at this point of the trip. Dan was doing his impression of Sterling Moss. After 3 near death experiences I was grateful to take over, despite my nerves being shot to pieces! Mind you we had a good laugh, although I think hysteria had set in.
Looks like you had a great few days on the famous river Wye Nathan! I love the piece of water in the first part, great dry fly fishing water.
Those two Grayling over 2lb are crackers! Not often you see one over 2lb and its a pleasure to see!
May have to treat myself to one of those breakfasts….
LikeLike
Hi Kieron. We had a great time. There are some very big grayling there. I do think that the really big ones come out to coarse anglers fishing the float. I guess it’s to do with the free bait going in and maybe it switches them on to the feed.
Overall it’s just a really nice place to fish and you don’t see too many other anglers either.
Hope your fishing is going well.
LikeLike