50 Shades of Grayling

Right now, grayling are the species du jour.  However, during my childhood, grayling were considered to be a pest, taking up resources for trout.  I’ve always thought that they were beautiful creatures with their De Stijl, colouring: slate grey flanks with a large black and red fin.  Nowadays, ever eclectic fishermen are constantly on the hunt for truly wild fish. These pretty creatures, which have never been stocked, fit the bill perfectly. As ever ahead of his time, they were also Charles Ritz’s favourite fish and considered them most difficult to catch;

“If I had to classify fly fishermen, I should place the grayling fisherman in the first rank, then the trout fishermen of the chalk streams and, finally, the trout fishermen of other rivers”.

Charles Ritz,  A Flyfisher's Life

1st Shade
The first fish I ever caught was a grayling. I was maybe four, five, six or seven years old. I remember it well. My father had placed me on a wooden footbridge on the River Itchen. I was using the same rod he used as a boy and I had been told to be careful with it. He had tied on a Butcher for me; it’s an old fashioned sea trout fly tied with silver, black and red. I let my line float down stream and watched it glint amongst the emerald floating blankets of weed. I felt the fish take the hook. I remember my parents telling me to keep my rod up as I played it. I remember feeling really pleased with myself when my father netted it. It was my fish. My first fish and I had to eat ti and so it was duly despatched and barbecued the next day.

2nd Shade
I caught a really big grayling this season. I’m not normally one for boasting because I struggle sometimes with people who do because I don’t often believe them.  I’ve broken all my own rules as I have been telling everyone I know how big it was. I don’t expect you to believe me.  For all its size it was an easy fish to catch. After a gentle take and a hard, long fight in a fast current my father was able to net it into my inadequately sized scoop net. He also measured it. It was 21” long.

3rd Shade
Another big grayling. I caught this on the Eden with Mr Chips and NCA.  It was a hard earned fish on a difficult and hugely wet day.  In this instance, I remember the fish less and the fishing more. I had been guided skilfully all weekend and had failed to catch a fish. In the fading light NCA and I spotted the fins and tails of an active fish in a steadily rising river.  I sneaked a cast up to it and uncharacteristically didn’t bottle it and miss the rise.  Strangely, this grayling felt like a big trout it felt shakier on the line than it should. When I caught it, I could have have been a little disappointed, I was after one of the famously vicious Eden trout. I couldn’t have been more pleased and neither could have my companions.  It had really been a team effort to get this rather shoddy fisherwoman to catch something.

The Other Shades
I admit that I have been known to target grayling with the express purpose of removing them (but not killing them) so that I can get at a prized trout. It rarely works. On the whole I don’t like catching grayling, they feel too precious somehow. When they are young, they feel so skittish and flap so much it’s a bit like catching a pretty moth and trying to release it outdoors without crushing its wings.  When grayling get large and old, they shoal up together like war veterans in a rest home.  I can’t help but think they deserve their peace.  I’ve been trying to express how odd grayling are.  They are wild and precious but can be annoying getting in the way of catching their flashier, blonder cousin the trout.  To look at they appear to be at once ridiculously delicate but also solid and steady.  Grayling have many shades, they are hard to explain or understand.  Perhaps, this is why, piscatorial gentlemen of yore called them ladies.

The title of this post was courtesy of Philip Miles.  Top photograph and grayling caught and photographed by Dave Smith. Bottom Photograph by  Matt Eastham.  All hold copyright of their words and images. 

On Perfection

Wikipedia defines perfection as,“a state of completeness and flawlessness”. I think this has something to do with Pi and circles and maths. 

When most of us think of perfection, I think we think of perfectionists. You know, the fastidious types whose desks are tidy and whose pencils are sharp and who run their lives by Excel spreadsheet. I am rarely like that. I have my moments though. I am hypercritical of bad grammar in others; I know my blog is littered with mistakes but grammar matters. I wish I could apply such a critical eye over my own writings. I also am really fussy about saucepans and plates in cupboards. Everything has its proper place. I am fussy about hanging pictures, the fonts on labels and tea pots in display cases. It’s my job to be this way. I am a curator, being fussy about detail is what we are good at. I bring my work home sometimes; once I made my housemate re-hang all of his pictures in his bedroom. This is the pursuit of flawlessness. However, a correct sentence, a straight picture and a beautifully placed teapot, though flawless in execution, lack a certain completeness on their own.

To explain further, imagine this scenario. It's a true story. Place yourself on a warm, cloudy day on the banks of a southern chalkstream. Gin clear water filled with feeding fish. Gin clear water containing the biggest trout you have seen for years. It’s at least 6lbs, it’s probably 8lbs. It shouldn’t be in that castable spot. You look ahead and realise its proper home is tucked into the near bank, under a bush, impossible to get to. It’s on a holiday, the one day a year where she will expose herself to some sun. Fat Mrs Haversham leaves the attic. You walk past, you come back and watch her. She’s eating nymphs very near the surface but not quite on it. You tie on your scruffy version of a Wyatts DHE. When you grease it, you feel a bit like Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Predator”, psyching yourself up preparing your weapons for the big guy. It’s tense.You begin. One gentle cast behind it to get your judgement right. You go for the money cast. They never work first time. Well, not for me. For once, it works. The fly falls gloriously, floppily and with deadly accuracy. You watch the fly, you watch her. Her mouth opens, it’s about the size of a saucer. Her mouth opens for me, for my fly. You flinch in surprise, the fly moves. You hear a “sploosh” like someone dropping a champagne bottle in a bathtub, confirming its size like a slap in the face. She’s gone back down, without your fly. So, flawlessness without completeness.

Whilst I participated in this indulgence, my mother was teaching my Physicist how to cast. He is brilliant. Somehow, he seemed instinctively to get the "pause". The "pause" which all fly fisherman know, is an essential part of casting. The "pause" following a back cast, is the difference between a staright line and a nasty tangle. He talked physics at me, explaining the theory of casting, he used the word "synchronicity" which I liked, whilst executing a series of pretty decent casts. I have never felt more proud. He’s a long way off flawless, but the fact he caught a fish, played many and has mastered the theory of casting makes me feel like I am on the path to completeness.

 

Fluvial Lesbianism and Performance Anxiety

I’ve been having an affair with a woman, well a female. I’ve been sneaking out furtively when I can. Packing up special outfits and equipment and leaving work quickly. I’ve taken to texting the Physicist with excuses as well. “I’ll talk later”. “I’m out, not sure when I’ll be back”. “Don’t call me, I’ll call you”. Before we panic, I’m talking about the Pretty Ditch, my club water.

She hasn’t been kind to me. I’m just not used to her. I’m trying to get to know her, what she likes and what she needs. She’s just fickle and ever changing.
Her high sided banks are either overcrowded with trees or thick with nettles and flowers. I find myself grabbing on to over-hanging branches; straddling them as I try to scramble up muddy banks to avoid a dark, deep hole. She runs slowly, then, turn a corner and she is riffling quickly over rocks. Her bed is sometimes silty and sometimes gravelsome. On rare occasions it is lush and covered with weed. Her fluctuating nature, is my excuse, my reason for having so far managed to catch only a grayling and roach all season.

I wish I could say that I was more successful and more pleasing to trout on other rivers. I blanked on the Eden and blanked on Driffield Beck. Admittedly one day it was scorching hot, the other day is was bucketing down with rain and blowing a gale. At Driffield, I fared better and was rather proud to have risen about six fish in difficult conditions. I also lost one good trout when I tied a knot badly. It was the end of the day and my fingers were bloody cold. I seemed to have suffered from a sort of fly fishing premature ejaculation. I was nervous and striking too quickly; beginnings without ends and excitement without orgasm. I'm worried I’ve lost my fishing mojo. Luckily this poor performance didn't put off my man of dishonour (male maid of honour) who joined me fishing for the first time. Bizarrely, he was riveted by the experience and vows to join me again but wearing a waterproof and wellies. I am afraid he spent the trip damp and hungry. Seemingly, unlike females, men are easy to please.