Chasing the Ladies with Earthing the Current

Autumnal months present some of the best fishing of the calendar for me. The vibrant change in colours across the landscape fires me up for the opportunities to seek out my favourite game fish once again, the grayling.

I first pursued the Lady of the stream over 30 years ago after admiring their beauty through the pictures and written words of TE Pritt, Reg Righyni, Carter Platts and John Roberts.

The Lady of the stream

I was immediately struck by her physical splendour, a wild, unstocked fish which looked a cross between a barbel and a marlin but in miniature, a British bonefish, and the claim of a different smell (of Thyme?… maybe), certainly not that typical Piscine pong! But my chances to physically behold one were slim to none in my muddy lowland local waters.

I pushed further south to explore the higher reaches of the I first pursued the Lady of the stream over 30 years ago after admiring their beauty through the pictures and written words of TE Pritt, Reg Righyni , Carter Platts and John Roberts.river Rother in West Sussex. It was there that I finally made first contact in a narrow, opaque stream which bordered the then Defence secretary’s country pile.

Fingerling grayling became the target, seeking out any dimpling rise and flicking a dry fly in the vicinity. This was an altogether new challenge, having only recently graduated from hurling a 7WT fast sinking line into reservoirs for stocked rainbow trout.

A fingerling of grayling

Finesse was not yet in my armoury, and I soon found this heavy tackle entirely unsuited. But hey! another chance presented itself to buy more rods, sleeker lines, finer leaders and all the associated paraphernalia necessary to travel ‘light.’

I soon joined the Grayling Society and researched on where to find them in the South of England on a day ticket. Hmmm. Not a lot back then. One eagerly awaited event would be the GS annual day out together with other regional members on some exclusive trout river after the end of September for a fraction of what well-heeled folks had paid the week before.

I even made my first appearance in print in a copy of the Field magazine which happened to cover that day in 1986 on the Test. Well, ok, it was a photograph of the back of me, making what appears a clumsy upstream cast, but resplendent in tweed jacket and a Sharpes cane rod bending deliciously under the effort. I still have a copy of that magazine.

Salisbury and District Angling Club gained a new member around the mid 80s and while I would ignore the trout season completely, I nevertheless spent happy hours later in the year around Amesbury and on the Wylye spooking more fish than I interested.

I do recall one red letter day when I made good with a haul of a dozen fish from one shoal – clearly visible in a deepening pot on the river Avon.

By this time, I had graduated to tying a few rudimentary Sawyer bugs of my own and I remember concentrating hard while drifting these back downstream over the noses of my quarry before gently lifting through the water column and inducing a Pavlovian response just as the texts had said they would.

A growing family and being time (and money) poor, my work life balance eventually forced me to bid farewell to the Wiltshire waterways and my exceedingly rare outings were limited to Christmas trips up to North Yorkshire to visit the in laws, at the same time begging a Hall pass (shouldn’t that be a fish pass?) to drive out beyond Skipton to the River Wharfe at Bolton Abbey or the Nidd at Pateley Bridge.

Perfect in every way

Fishing in Yorkshire opened an entirely new fascination for North Country Spider patterns with wonderful names, simply fashioned from a twist game fowl feathers and a few turns of tying silk. Then there were the fancy flies such as Bradshaw’s, February Reds, Grayling Witches, Red Tags and Treacle Parkins!

And now this season I have once more broadened my horizons, sometimes successfully, mostly not, but trips to unfamiliar places excite me again. Certainly, I have seen my first 2lb – nearer 3lb grayling – in the river Itchen holding station but unperturbed by any of my offerings.

A perfectly splendid salmon parr

I have managed a grand slam of game fish at Timsbury on the River Test – grayling, Brown trout, rainbow trout, and a tiny salmon parr and I have trotted worm in the traditional manner with a centrepin as old as me to seduce the Lady – and my wife does not mind a bit!

Earthing the Current – Winter 2022