After some fairly exhaustive research trips around the Winchester area for more fishing opportunities, Geoff and I finally gave up and headed off to a stretch of river that we knew well. Conditions have been tough recently and we knew the Itchen had been running high and coloured. We finally arrived at the river around midday and were pleasantly surprised to find the river looking spot on; a nice smooth pace and just a tinge of colour.
I headed to the top of the fishery and tackled up. The usual set-up would suffice; 14ft float rod, 3lb mainline and a 16 hook-to-nylon. I opted to use a 3g Bolo style float and had the option of red maggots or sweetcorn. I ended up trotting a swim that dropped off into a deep glide under a bridge. In fact it was the M3 flyover! Noisy but productive. I seem to have a thing for motorway bridges at the moment!
First trot through produced a bite and they kept coming. I trickled in a few maggots every cast and after around 30-40 minutes I banked around 8 grayling, 1 trout and at least half a dozen small salmon par. I then decided to drop downstream slightly into a beautiful glide on a slight bend. There was a good depth of around 4ft and an easy pace to the flow. It looked perfect. First cast; grayling on. More followed and in fact by around 4.15 I’d had 31 grayling to approximately 1lb 4oz, with the average around 8-10oz. Not monsters, but on a cold day it was very rewarding sport.
I decided to move downstream further as the afternoon wore on. My last swim was a long glide which then narrowed by an overhanging tree. Again it had a good depth and a nice smooth flow. Yet again immediate results. The grayling here appeared to be of a slightly better average size, closer to a pound. 10 more grayling followed to around 1lb 4oz+. I must have lost 12-18 grayling too, probably down to the barbless hooks. I find micro barbed tend to loose fewer grayling, although some days it’s hard to keep them on any hook, they all seem to be made of rubber. Still that’s the fun (?) of fishing for grayling. The trouble is loosing the biggies tends to hurt a bit.
Gay Pigeons or a scene from the Birds!
Geoff had also fared pretty well. He had managed to take 26 grayling to around 1lb 8oz and had averaged fish to around the 1lb mark. By 5.00pm it was bloody cold and we decided enough was enough. It had been an interesting and productive day in search of new venues and getting the rod bent again. Those 2lb+ grayling are still proving to be rather elusive though.
The River Angler 
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