A Winter?s Day

[Traditionalist]

Crunching underfoot, and making an awful lot of noise in the still air, the frozen snow surface breaks through at every step, jarring uncomfortably occasionally, as the distance to the solid sheet ice below it is misjudged, and my feet come down too hard.

About a foot deep in most places, but sometimes more, the going is quite difficult, I am forced to lift my feet very high before each step. I am glad of my neoprene thigh waders. Only a lunatic would go wading in this weather in thigh waders, but they are certainly keeping me warm and dry, even when I sink into the occasional hole or depression under the snow.

My exhalations form little clouds, suspended unmoving in the completely windless air, and rise slowly upwards as I trudge on.

Trees and bushes hanging low with a heavy coat of ice, some already broken under the unaccustomed load, add a rather festive air to the proceedings, somewhat reminiscent of overly decorated Christmas trees. Looking back over a series of fields and fences, the virgin snow, broken only by my tracks, testifies to the fact that nobody else is abroad, or has been for a while. The last snowfall occurred two days ago, and since then nobody has ventured this way. Little puffs of vapour hang in the air behind me, slowly rising and dissipating, looking more than anything like the trail of an errant steam engine.

Just after seven in the morning, and with the sky lightening rapidly, I carry on along the river, stopping occasionally to view the prospects, and then moving on again. After about forty minutes fairly brisk although sometimes difficult walk, I reach my first target area, and commence operations. My gear is already prepared, I had tackled up at the car before starting out, and all that remains is to tie on a fly.

Scanning the fairly wide deep flat with my binoculars from a safe distance, I finally espy a ring at the tail of the flat, in relatively shallow water. It is quickly followed by two further rings slightly further down, and this is repeated several time in the space of ten minutes.

Rises in the middle of flat shallow water, over gravel in the depths of winter? Could only be Grayling. Good, that is my intended quarry.

Try as I might, I can discern nothing hatching. As far as I can tell, no flies or other insects of any description whatsoever, are abroad. Checking deep under a nearby bush in a spiders web, which also glitters with tiny ice pearls, I discover a few smallish grey coloured midges which look fairly fresh. I very rarely fish extremely small flies, and these are smaller than anything in my box, but undaunted, I mount one of my "old faithful?s" in such conditions, a size sixteen hares ear bodied fly, no tail, and with just three turns of short badger hackle.

My flies are invariably pre-treated nowadays, so messing about with floatant is not necessary, and I tie the fly on, after adding a foot of tippet to my tapered knotless leader. Drawing the tippet and leader through my soap soaked sponge is all that is required. Several overhanging bushes to my left preclude getting below the fish and reaching them with an upstream cast, and so I remain where I am, and cast a fair way straight downstream and across with a "wiggle" cast, immediately paying out line as the fly lands.

After about three or four feet the fly starts dragging, and just at this moment it disappears in a ring! Striking gently, with a short pull of the left hand, I am immediately rewarded by a wild plunging and head shaking on the end of my line. After a very spirited fight, a very nice grayling of 45 cm comes to hand. The water is icy cold, although I have not measured the temperature, I doubt it is much over 5?C, and it takes a while for my hands to warm up again after landing and despatching the fish. A warming cup of tea with just a small dash of "sweetener" occupies a few minutes, while I wait in the same position, for further developments.

Grayling, unlike trout, are not easily spooked, unless one does something really foolish, and sure enough, after about ten minutes, a solitary ring appears just below where the first fish was taken. Identical tactics culminate in an almost identical result, and a second fish, practically the twin of the first, lands in my creel. Despite a further twenty minute wait, and another cup of tea, nothing else moves.

Unsure as to whether the fish are still there, and simply no longer feeding, or have decided to seek less dangerous pastures, I change my tactics. The dry fly is snipped off, the tippet removed, and replaced by a piece about three feet long, to which is attached a size sixteen, lightly weighted, brushed hares ear nymph. Three casts later, allowing the nymph to trundle across the flat, with an occasional twitch of the line, the line tip dips, and I once again strike gently with a short left hand pull.

This is a much larger fish, and puts up a very good fight, using its large dorsal fin to good advantage in the relatively fast water. Eventually it also comes to hand, ( traditionally, no net is used when grayling fishing), and is despatched and admired before being consigned to the creel, where it only just fits, being 52cm. A very good fish indeed.

One more fish for my "limit", and I move down a few yards to a break in the bushes, and deploy my binoculars once again. Some thirty feet away, right at the tail of the flat, where the water starts deepening and getting faster as it funnels into the next cascade, I see a small shoal of grayling holding steady in the current. They are not apparently feeding, just finning and remaining stationary in the current. Five fish, all of reasonable size in line abreast, like old warships waiting to engage in battle.

I squat between the bushes watching them for a while, they do nothing at all.

This being one of the few occasions when I have a camera along, I decide to try and photograph the fish. Although I have no trouble whatever seeing them perfectly clearly through my polarised binoculars, I can not see a thing through the viewfinder of the camera, and an experimental click on the shutter release, merely serves to confirm that my luck with regard to cameras is holding true. Nothing happens! I suppose the cold is too much for the accus. The second set of accus from my inside pocket proves no better, and after considerable extremely inventive cursing, fortunately heard by nobody, and which presumably is entirely wasted on the fish, and "lovingly" packing the %""&$&$ useless piece of high tech "$$&% back into its padded waterproof case, ( although a watery grave seemed more appropriate at the time) I reluctantly give up my attempts.

After another cup of tea, and a final long glance at the fish through my glasses, I decide not to try for them. Three decent fish is enough. Dismantling my gear, I walk slowly back through the snow to the car.

Although I did not have many trips this year, and this was only a relatively short one, I was away for less than five hours all told, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and was once again charmed by the pleasures of fishing in a "winter wonderland". I only fell down a couple of times, (I must get some studded waders for winter fishing), and I never got close enough to the river to fall in!

On the way home I bought some freshly baked bread and one or two other things, as my neighbour and I have invited a few people round for supper. My neighbour is enjoying a stiff rum grog, ( as indeed am I ), and keeping an eye on the smoker, where the fish are presently sojourning, along with a few others, while I write this short trip report.

Back out to the smoker now, a few neighbours and friends have turned up for a grog and a bit of hot smoked fish. Just the right conditions for it as well, -4?C, twilight, snow about a foot deep, and still a few snowflakes falling, the trees and bushes lit by our open fire, indeterminate but pleasant music drifting on the air from the shed beside the smoker, we will get the guitars, banjos, harmonicas, and so on, out later, aromatic smoke, and the smell of fish cooking, the distant sound of hunters engaged in a drive, with an occasional horn blast, or gunshot floating over the woods and fields around my house.

A very nice day, and it has not ended yet. Rather a shame I don?t like fish ! Oh well, I can always have a sandwich, and at least I like rum grogs !

Hope you had such a nice one too.

TL
MC