But I had to think long and hard about where to go for my last outing before Christmas… NOT! It just had to be a return visit to the Clyde. The stories and photos of huge grayling have really got to me and I wanted one of my own!
I fished the first chosen run for over an hour and I was straight into the fish. Unfortunately, most of them were small trout. Eventually it was time for a move upstream.
The next run was similar to the first, with a clean gravel bottom and plenty of flow, but a tight bend at the tail slowed the water right down. Grayling country!
And grayling country it proved to be! I was doing OK catching some small to average-sized grayling but still catching too many little trout for my liking. I got out of the water and had a re-think on my rig. I came up with something rather ingenious which would allow me to fish where and how I wanted – simples! Downside was that it was a complete bugger to cast!
Well it wasn’t long before the new rig gave me some success in the form of a nice plump grayling and they kept on coming… Not in huge numbers, but enough to keep me happy and enough to take my mind off the fact that I’d been wading up to the top of my waders in snowmelt for five hours and I was frozen stiff.
Then I hit something a little heavier. The rod hooped round and a bigger fish was kicking away in the fast current. Keeping everything nice and tight I walked slowly back to the bank and played the fish from a slightly more comfortable position. The rod was arched over and the fish wasn’t giving in so I just had to trust the hook hold and wait it out. Eventually I managed to land a real beauty, weighed and witnessed at 2lb 14oz – my Clyde Christmas Cracker!
Time was marching on and the daylight would shortly be gone, but I decided to give it one last run down the pool. Well it was only a cast or two later when my indicator dipped under the surface and my strike met with the ‘unmistakable’ resistance of an absolute monster. The rest of the story can be read on my own blog at www.johntyzack.co.uk...
Happy Christmas and the Tightest of Tight Lines for 2012.
John Tyzack
