I grew up overlooking the beautiful River Derwent just upstream of Matlock in deepest Derbyshire. I would spend all my spare fishing time on the riverbank chasing the trout and those lovely grayling – the Lady of the Stream!

I moved away from Matlock just over 5 years ago, but each winter I really look forward to heading up the A6 in pursuit of those lovely ladies!


The delightful River Derwent
The beauty about my favourite stretch of the Derwent is that it is rarely fished and you don’t have to rush down there in the early hours to enjoy your fishing. My recent trip was no different as I arrived at the parking area at 11-30pm after a steady drive up from Derby. I was grateful for the later start as we had just experienced a cold night where the temperature had dropped below zero.

TACKLE

My grayling set up is very simple and most important of all is that it enables me to travel light. Keeping mobile means that I can try a nice looking spot and then move on downstream as and when I fancy a change or if the bites have dried up.

The gear I use is a standard 13ft float rod, Young’s Purist Centerpin reel containing 3lbs mainline. Fixed onto this line is a Drennan Clear Loafer with a couple of AA’s fixed just above my 1.7llbs hooklink to a size 16 spade end hook.

Bait today was a pint of red and white maggots and my plan was to try both double and single baits to see which the fish preferred. This bait was tipped into my bait apron, which also contained a few spare hooks, shots and floats – keeping my luggage to a real minimum. It’s quite liberating being able to wander down the river without huge rukka’s and rod holdalls!


Bait for the day
As I made my way down the path to the river the familiar sites and smells soon had me reminiscing back to my younger days spent down the river. Me and my mates would tackle each fishing trip like a jungle adventure. We would strap our rods to our battered old bikes and race along the river towards our chosen swims. Each trip would start with lots of optimism and intentions of all day fishing but our concentration always lapsed and we were soon distracted by one of many other exciting things to do. Sometimes it would be tree climbing, den building, fighting or swimming – Happy Days eh!

Anyway…back to the fishing! My first swim was straight out of a Mr Crabtree book – just downstream of the rapids where the water bubbled and swirled – it screamed grayling.


The Lady of the Stream, the grayling
The first thing I did was to flick out a few small handfuls of maggots just to get the grayling interested before I cast out. I knew that the approx depth was 4ft so I slid up my loafer float and baited the hook with two red maggots. This was then flicked out with an easy underhand cast to the edge of the current, which allowed the line to slowly but surely pull the line off the pin. It was a pleasure following the float downstream especially as most of my fishing time is spent watching motionless buzzers and matching rods whilst carping!

I was just getting to the bottom of the run and my old eyes were straining to see the tiny red tip when it disappeared – a firm strike was met by the unmistakable feeling of a hooked grayling. They twist and swerve using their large dorsal fin against the current trying to shed the hook – which many successfully did throughout the day! After a spirited fight I carefully landed a lovely male grayling of about a pound and after admiring him for a moment I returned it to the water by holding the fish in the fast current. The water was freezing but I was determined to ensure that this delicate fish would swim away strongly and safely.

I stayed in that first swim for about half and hour and it was very kind to me as it gave me half a dozen nice grayling between 6oz and a pound – great sport!


Fletch with yet another ‘lady’
The rest of the day was spent moving in and out of fishy looking swims and I enjoyed some great sport from most of them. In one swim I struck into a much better fish which led me a merry dance all around the swim. After a short while I slid the net under a lively ‘out of season’ rainbow trout of just under 2lbs. This was clearly a stocked fish with its nibbled fins, however it was great sport in-between the grayling. I make a point of mentioning that it was a stocked fish as there are true wild rainbow trout just up the road in the River Wye – a tributary of the very river I was fishing.

In contrast to the farmed stocked fish I later hooked and landed a lovely wild brownie which hungrily gobbled my maggot hookbait. The beautiful red spots stood out on what had turned out to be a grey day weather-wise.

I reluctantly ended my day at 3.30pm after accounting for a dozen grayling and the two trout.

As I strolled back to my car I thought to myself what a great trip this was and it was good to be back home on the Derwent and to spend an afternoon with lots of lovely ladies in my hands!

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