Posts Tagged ‘Grayling’

River Ayr Grayling

Tuesday, January 25th, 2011

I spent a few hours last Saturday on the Ayr fishing for grayling. Despite the freezing fog, I managed a couple of nice fish but failed to find a feeding shoal so it couldn’t be described as an action packed afternoon. All the same, I enjoyed trotting maggots down the pools and runs in search of them. On light tackle, these fish are really hard fighting and I can’t understand why more people don’t venture out when the only alternatives are either pike fishing or rainbows at stillwaters (nothing against either but it is nice to be on the river in winter too). As usual, the fish were returned alive to the water.

A nice grayling of just over a pound in weight from the Ayr

A nice grayling of just over a pound in weight from the Ayr

Winter Grayling

Wednesday, November 24th, 2010

We spent a few hours on the middle River Ayr this morning collecting samples for a project. It was a beautiful day and we were all relieved to be out of the office for a change.
With the hard frost and low water levels, our thoughts turned to Grayling fishing which seems particularly under valued here in Ayrshire. There were a few fish rising in the deeper pools indicating  the likely areas to find a shoal of these hard fighting fish.
The grayling of the Ayr aren’t very big (a good one would be about 10″) but they are good fun on light tackle. Fly fishing, particularly Czech nymphing can be very productive but so too can trotting a bramble worm or a couple of maggots on light tackle and tiny hooks.
Whilst many salmon anglers once viewed graying as vermin and killed them, nowadays thankfully, catch and release is the norm for those that seek out this sporting wee fish during the winter months.
Given the right weather, I’ll be out there this weekend having a go.

Stuart