Winter Grayling fishing is the perfect way to extend your fly fishing beyond Xmas! The grayling spawning season begins and ends in spring while the trout spawning season begins in late autumn and ends in early winter. Both these factors make grayling extremely popular for fly fishing during Winter.
The Christmas period is a great time to get away for a 'few hours' and spend a little time on the bank side targeting your favourite species - taking time away to contemplate the year just gone and looking forward to what the next one will bring.
This year the Christmas period is especially challenging for all of us - with the cost of living increasing and the various strikes starting to take their toll. It is the subject of strikes, more specifically the postal strikes which I want to address in this email.
Here we have a unique Winter pheasant tail nymph selection for you from our man in Bosnia. These Tungsten 'Joker' Pheasant Tail Nymphs (PTN's) are specifically chosen to give you the widest possible choice, no matter which water conditions you face (big and heavy nymphs for the higher water levels, light(ish) for the lower ones). These flies will work in any conditions and any style of fishing - but they excel at any of the short-line nymphing disciplines (Euro, French, Spanish etc) - they also make fantastic nymphs for fishing deep on stillwaters.
If you have been following my emails for any length of time, you will be well aware that I have a bit of a thing for fly fishing books - especially when the subject matter concerns Grayling.
One of my favourites is a book written back in 1999 by John Roberts - imaginatively called "Flyfishing for Grayling". So when I heard, earlier this year, that John was releasing an updated book on Grayling - I pre-ordered a copy, then promptly forgot all about it!
Fast-forward to earlier last month, I saw that his Grayling book had been published and bought a copy on the spot.
Then to my surprise, a couple of days later two books were dropped onto our doormat!
If you have been receiving our emails for any length of time, you will know that I regularly fish the Yorkshire Derwent up here in North Yorkshire.
Now, in this neck of the woods, there are very few Stillwaters to fish, and rivers with any decent heads of Grayling are few and far between, so you really have to be keen to find them.
The upper reaches of the Yorkshire Derwent does hold a head of Grayling, but you have to know where to look - and they don't normally appear until the frosts have really taken hold (late December to late February).
I've been toying with the idea of doing this for the last 3 years. It's something that we've done a bit of research into, and to our surprise, found that it has never been done before!
So we've had a firstvery limited run of 100 printed - to test the water, so to speak - and here it isthe 1st ever Fly Fishing Annual- get yours for Xmas @ only £14.99, before we run out:
WOW ... You cleaned us out of Annuals in just over a day - Thank You
With the obvious success of these, we placed an order for some more - the only issue is that the price to us has increased by 50% - I know, we couldn't believe it either, something to do with a paper mill closing in Finland pushing the paper prices up worldwide.
Reluctantly, we've had to increase the price a little. We will absorb the majority of the increase, but it does mean that we will have to add £2 to the price of the Annual - making it now £16.99, including free delivery - we still think this is great value though!
As we are now into the Grayling season proper and the fish are still spread all over the river (as soon as the frosts start to bite, Grayling will shoal up), I thought it would be a good time to do a deep dive into Grayling-specific leaders and techniques.
This week we are turning our attention to one of the most overlooked fly patterns - the humble shrimp (or Gammarus to give it its correct genus). We've quite a few for you to peruse (including some more stunning French ones - from Stan) - at all different price ranges - read the full email for loads of tips for fishing shrimps at this time of year.