What Goes Around Comes Around

Well, here we are again, the end of yet another trout season. Hard to believe, isn’t it? (Not as hard to believe as the number of trout seasons remaining at my age, but we won’t go there, okay?) One compensation for the season ending is that grayling fishing begins almost exactly as the trout fishing winds down.

Grayling are great fish, and right now some of the best fishing of the year is just beginning. I mean, it’s not exactly hot fishing on my home waters, but it never is. My local rivers are notoriously tough places anyway, so a good day is measured in a brace of nice fish and the overall sense of satisfaction you get when you do the difficult thing well, with maybe some degree of grace.

Unlike trout, grayling can be quite co-operative even in the sparsest of hatches, although the good hatches are pretty well done by now, the remaining ones rather skinny affairs of tiny BWOs and spurwings. There are some sedges about, but I’ve never really got on to the little stonefly hatches that appear in the Scottish lore and, in my experience, terrestrials are not worth bothering with up here – unless you count a good old peacock-bodied Red Tag as a terrestrial.

Grayling are still looking up at this time of year and can give superb, if short, bursts of sport to small spiders fished just sub-surface, as well as to small dark dry dries and emergers. On some days it pays to put a team of weighted Hare’s Ear or Pheasant Tail nymphs through the runs, but when they are ‘on’ they will rise in the relatively warm water. A team of wet spiders fished across and down is good medicine right now, but the beautiful autumn afternoons are perfect for grayling on dries, a lot of fun after the summer doldrums. You don’t want to wear yourself out fishing too hard for them though. Until the fish start to feed, the river can seem soul-destroyingly dead. Take it easy. Often it doesn’t show until after 4:00 o’clock, but there is usually some surface action around noon on good days. Bring a flask of tea, it’s worth hanging on till the evening air turns cold.

There’s a slight feeling of dread that accompanies the approach of another winter. My anti-dote for that is to tithe my modest income in a totally irresponsible manner for some winter ‘destination’ angling. It helps, but if that seems a little too rich for your blood, give some thought to those beautiful early autumn grayling days on the old home river. Anyway, cheer up, another trout season will roll around again soon enough.