Everyone knows what a trout looks like but for many visitors to the Cotswolds, the grayling is not so familiar. In fact, many of our fly-fishing clients catch their first ever grayling here on the River Coln and what a thrill it is to see a specimen lady of the stream with her unique sail-like dorsal fin.
Grayling are members of the salmonid family but they spawn at a different time of the year (late spring) from their trouty cousins, and that means they are in season when the trout have largely packed up feeding for the year to prepare for spawning.
They differ from trout in several ways: they generally live in shoals and they have underslung mouths best suited to picking caddis nymphs and shrimps out of the gravel on the river bed. At times, trundling a nymph right along the bottom is the best way to catch them but they can also be extremely free rising, taking flies from the surface. October and November are the best months for targeting these fish on a dry fly as they look to make the most of the intense but short-lived olive hatches that characterize the autumn months. Hooking a grayling on a dry fly isn’t easy as their small underslung mouths and the distance they rise up from their deep lies make takes easy to miss. A quick strike is essential but the good news is that a missed fish may well rise again, and there will be several other fish in the shoal that might take your fly.
We offer grayling days on the River Coln throughout the autumn and winter, so if you want to catch the lady of the stream, get in touch!
Blue Zulu Fly Fishing 