Big Grayling - Attempt No.9 (River Dee)

I've had time for a short session on the River Dee today because the girls have gone to see the outlaws. My old man comes with me to check out the beat, which is the same one as last week, when I had 9-10 small grayling on klinkhammers.

This week the method of attack is a bit different using a set-up I've put together on the last baby feed shift. It's a very long braided line (15 ft)with black permanent marker stripes and a three czech nymph set up with the holy trinity - hydropsyche; peeping cased caddis and rychophilia. Hardy are on the case with the repair of my main rod so an old 8wt Malcom Marshall reservoir rod has the cobwebs blown off it and is brought on off the bench.

There are no fish rising and I wade upstream through the same productive run as last time over an hour or so and whilst there are a some bumps I am not convinced any were fish because the cased caddid has a bb shot on it's head and is hanging on the bottom quite a bit. A second run through and the caddis snags up leading to a break and all three nymphs gone - 9lbs Stroft leader has landed barbel for me and is very very thin but if you get the knots even slightly wrong it's good night Vienna.

Shorn of my one and only leader with droppers on goes an old tapered dry and leader and first cast with a klinkhammer produces a rise from the same run I've just meticulously covered with the nymphs. I'm downstream dump casting and the presentation is drag free leading to rise after rise.

A couple of salmon parr are "landed" before a slashing rise produces a better fish which dives into the current and has the stiff 8 wt in half and takes line. A few aerobatics and a nice male grayling of about 1.25 lbs is in the net. Time to go and more lessons learnt - the Klinkhammer has to be the first line of attack until the air temp cools and I need to tie some much bigger ones because even the shop bought size 12s are getting drowned a lot in the stronger riffled water.

Off to Scotland tomorrow night to try to beat my salmon PB of 7.5lbs. Fingers crossed...

Mr Fish