Enoka’s First Grayling

[John Bailey]

On Monday just gone Enoka’s first grayling came from a tributary of the Wye and fell for a Squirmy Wormy, if that ranks as a fly, which I slightly doubt. But which certainly doesn’t stop me using them. Anyway, she played it well and held it even better. Placating a fresh-caught grayling has proved impossible for many, and goodness knows how many photos have been aborted as a result. We let it rest in the marginal shallows, and after five minutes it made its own mind up and drifted into the current and away.

Enoka thought the fish weighed two pounds, which I cautiously doubted. Eight ounces with a fair wind perhaps. About what I expected, to be honest. All species have waters where they grow bigger than average, of course, but I have always found this more marked with grayling than almost any other fish.

Over many years, I have caught many thousands of grayling of a pound or less from endless rivers in Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Wales, the West Country, and even the so-called Wessex rivers. Yet, every now and again, I have found myself on rivers that have given up monsters… the Tummel, the Frome, the Lambourne, and the Test are good examples.





Is it down to food? Obviously, very big grayling need rich waters, I suppose. It was always considered that some Scottish grayling grow big on a diet of salmon eggs, for example.

Is it down to genetics? There are Derbyshire strains of grayling that appear to have done very well when transported South.

Do stretches of the same river come into prominence, and then fade away with surprising speed? I ask this because of Wye experiences. I have known beats produce “threes” for a year or two, before losing them and holding typical Wye fish of a pound or so thereafter.

Does that mean that you can never write off a river, or a particular beat of a river? Can a year class of grayling come through and do especially well for a short period, before dying away and leaving the water to “normal” fish once more?

Do you just fish for any grayling that might come along? You enjoy every one for the jewel it is but, with luck, every now and again, you strike it lucky with “twos” and even “threes”.





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[John Aston]

You need the right environment - chalk or limestone being a good start , but not essential . A river low in invertebrates , caddis especially , will not , in my experience , produce anything like the size of fish a fitter river will . In Yorkshire , I have fished for 40 years on Pennine rivers like the Tees , Swale and Ure and caught hundreds of grayling on them . My biggest - 1-13 from the Swale, and that was a monster , at least 3 times bigger than average. I am convinced that an increased frequency of ever more violent floods over the last 20 years has severely affected grayling recruitment and growth . You can normally tell if a river has big grayling potential by looking at a grayling of any size . They don't live long - about 4 years I believe - and the typical Tees grayling is long and slim . Elegant of course but in stark contrast to rivers with more benign flow and better insect life .

Like the rivers of the North York Moors , where even a half pound grayling can have shoulders like a prop forward , signifying abundant food and fast growth rates. We have a sort of Goldilocks system of rivers - spring and rain fed , extensive limestone and few big floods. I've had over 40 2lb plus grayling from these rivers - simply because they are there, not because I'm a better angler than those who stick to the Pennine rivers. You cannot catch big fish when there aren't any there ....

My club has over ten miles of river and we keep accurate catch records , broken down into a dozen areas (ie beats- that will get the class warriors going ). I cannot overemphasise how important this is accurately to monitor trends in catches . The most interesting finding was following an enormous, headline making , flood in 2005 . Rises of more than a metre are very rare but the 2005 storm created a wall of water up to 5 metres , which took out bridges , killed stock and damaged roads. It also released scores of thousands of escapee rainbows.

The season's total number of grayling caught plummeted to 30 % of the norm, but the trout number was double that . A year later most of the rainbows had been removed or died.

In the next 8 years, grayling numbers were slowly back to normal, then exceeded it and the number of big fish was unprecedented . It's still good but nothing like that peak .

What's it all mean ? I think it means that , even more so than longer lived species , grayling can capitalise very quickly on an opportunity, such as reduced competition , and that a river without the shoals of smaller grayling which some Dales rivers have (or had ) has much more potential to grow big grayling.

Gorgeous fish , not always very difficult to catch as long as you can locate them. Not every winter grayling lives in the deeper , slower pools and runs ...

 

[sam vimes]

I've not had a grayling bigger than 1lb 12oz in a good three decades from either Swale or Tees. The best I've managed in those three decades is 1lb 15oz from one of the small tributary becks. I'm under no particular illusion that I'll ever catch anything exceeding 2lb from my local river catchments. Perhaps a much reduced overall biomass might mean that chances actually improve marginally. I won't be holding my breath.

Sadly, it's not just maximum sizes that are being squeezed by a combination of lack of bait and a lack of natural food. I'm afraid that I'm of the opinion that the overall number of grayling is also much reduced. I'm not entirely certain why, but I'd suggest a combination of predation, poor recruitment, increased average water temperatures, increases in significant flooding incidents, poor flow rates/reduced oxygenation in spring, summer and early autumn.

 

[bullet]

I'm of a similar opinion. My local River, which I've fished for 35 years or so, doesn't produce the numbers or the quality of Grayling it once did.