Back in September I posted the result of my quest for a catfish and I spoke of a coach I had met called Nick Watkins who had helped make my dream come true. On one of our coaching days near Winchester he had mentioned that he had yet to catch a grayling and as he was camping near the river Itchen I gave him a few pointers and he caught his first one, although only a small fish. I had promised him a trip to the Lower Itchen Fishery but our various coaching commitments made this impossible until yesterday. Nick wanted to bring a friend of his, Rob from Brighton, who had never caught a Grayling and we arranged to meet at Winchester services on the M3.
I owed Nick a favour for his Catfish expertise which helped me achieve one of my goals and I was determined to help him catch a big Grayling. I awoke yesterday morning with flu-like symptoms and really didn’t want to venture out into what was a very cold and frosty morning, but the boys would already be on their way and it had been so difficult to organise a day that suited us all, that I made my way to the meeting place. At the service station I watched Nick eat a cooked breakfast without being able to face one myself (a measure of just how rough I was feeling) and we were on the fishery by 9 a.m.
The ground was frozen solid and the banks were white with frost but I was confident we would catch Grayling and we started to set up the tackle. Neither of my guests had done much river fishing, both being of “the carp persuasion” but Nick had a match rod he uses for coaching and had bought a cheap centrepin on my recommendation, he had even wound the line on backwards the way I suggest. It’s a wonderful thing to have disciples.
Rob had no such tackle and I lent him a centrepin and a fifteen foot match rod and once I had shown them how to set the float up I put them in a couple of likely swims and showed them the basics of trotting a float in very fast water.
Nick caught on first trot down as did his mate Rob.
Nick’s next grayling was a little bigger than his first.
Grayling are very strong fish and very difficult to hold and Nick soon had his first lesson in Freestyle Grayling Wrestling.
They also fight very hard on the hook and nearly always have to be nursed back to normal before release.
Towards the end of the afternoon I moved Nick up to the top of the fishery and managed to find him a shoal of bigger fish.
This fish weighed exactly two pounds and in terms of a percentage of the record is equivalent to a twenty five pound carp.
This is the fish I was looking for for Nick, it weighed two pounds five ounces and is a very large grayling indeed.
Both anglers enjoyed themselves and learned a lot despite me not being at my best due to the bug that was by this time ravaging my system. I did very little fishing myself but my day was made by the success of my two “carp fishermen”.
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