Grayling fishing on the Derwent

 River Derwent, Derbyshire

The Derwent is a stunning river with slow deeper stretches holding coarse fish like barbel and chub to its faster clearer paces home to hungry brown trout and my target species the lady of the stream aka the grayling. The river season was fast approaching to a end so wanted to leave it on a high by visiting a river I've never fished before.

 Classic grayling run shallow, clear and weedy

Its by chance that I even ended up fishing on this piece of river its privately run and no day tickets are issued but I had been in touch with the club to film the fish and plentiful amount of wildlife in the area. Kingfishers, dippers and goosander all put in a appearance on the day. I was then offered the chance for a guest ticket and quickly took them up on it!

Trying out the centerpin was great fun 

I recently had been given a centerpin as a wedding present (not my wedding!) and was having great fun discovering how to us it and made trotting on the river a doddle, though my casting has much to be desired. The weather was superb bright sunshine and no wind made it almost feel like summer!

Traveling light

I'm not a tackle tart and happy to use second/ well used gear as long as it catches fish so I won't be going into to much detail on what reel/rod I'm using on these blogs however the end gear I will. I opted for a size 18 barbed hook, 4g loafer float with the weights spread up the line big ssg at the top and getting smaller sizes below so it shows well in the current with a 4lb main line straight though to the reel. This is really my kind of fishing which is light gear moving from swim to swim finding the fish and in some cases spotting them.

First capture a greedy brown trout 

The first fish of the day was a brown trout and on this light gear gave some great sport, although theres more skill in fly fishing for them I don't see why we shouldn't target them on bait with light tactics they put up a great scrap. However it wasn't what I wanted to slipped him back.

a PB brown trout around 3lb + 

About 14 trout followed most over 2lb and put a good bend in my float rod all afternoon, putting on the polarises I could spot some monsters lurking in the gloom some of which must be pushing 6lb. I chucked my maggots towards moby dick but his little cousin got int first and took the bait which still turned out to be a PB for me.

Roger into another Derwent brownie

Roger Walker was my host and incredibly helpful with which spots to try and how to go at the fish. He caught quite a few trout also.

My first grayling in over 8 years 

While trotting the float down it bobed under and I hit into it, not pulling as dogged as the trout I thought it was a dace but sure enough it was my intended quarry the grayling! I've never been a angler obsessed with size of fish (its why I never carry scales with me) just looking at the fin perfect colours and textures of the fish is what its all about for me. That being said...

 Showing off its gorgeous dorsal fin

I hooked this whopper not long after and was rather chuffed with myself! I thought it was a trout for a while then saw the huge dorsal fin and panicked to get the net!

 Another PB 1lb 12oz 

Not a monster by national standards but a good size for the Derwent and I was really pleased with it also.

The colours of these fish are phenomenal 

Catching the fish reminded me of filming them not to far away