River Witham

River Witham
River Witham near Barkston, Lincolnshire

Monday 6 February 2012

Long awaited Grayling Soc day on the Derwent

Yesterday, Sunday 5th, I managed to brave the elements, including 4" snow to drive over to Cromford in Derbyshire for a day Grayling fishing on the R Derwent, with the  local branch of the Grayling Soc.  About 10 of us managed to get through the attrocious conditions, including numerous abandoned cars to meet up at the Greyhound Hotel in Cromford for a coffee and a biscuit before setting out for the fishing.
Park in the carpark at the meadows, Brian said.  Very good, but which was the car park and which was the meadow?


Well we guessed, tackled-up and headed for the river.  In these conditions I opted to czech-nymph with a leader-to-hand rig on my 10' Streamflex.  The sun came out and made it all so pretty, but with the air temperature not more than 2 degrees above, and the water temp likewise, it was good job I had 2 layers of thermals on.



This fishing was challenging especially on the fly, the chaps trotting bait had much more luck especially as they knew where the deep holes are.  I eventually managed 3 'ladies' in the 10-12" range, 2 on a pink shrimp and 1 on a czech shrimp.


Later in the afternoon walking back upstream, trying to jump-start the circulation in my feet, I decided on a few last casts on a likely looking bend, with a deep area, below the railway bridge.  Lo and behold something fairly meaty headed off with one of my flies and kept fairly deep.  After a few minutes fighting I managed to bring it to the surface and netted a 17" brown trout! Well I was surprised, shouldn't he have been under a rock or bank somewhere comatose? After a quick snap I slipped him back to swim very strongly away.  Interestingly he had quite a chunk of his dorsal fin missing, and one of the other anglers reckoned he caught the same fish earlier on!
By now the sun was going down and it was time to repair to the Greyhound for a hot plate of stew and a pot of tea to warm up.  Lovely.

A smashing day, well worth the travelling.

1 comment:

  1. Nice job catching those top fish. That Brown is awesome and one heck of a way to finish out the day. I bet that warmed you up for a while and helped you forget the cold weather :) Then add the stew and tea and welcome to Utopia :) Great photos and thanks for sharing. Tight Lines.

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