River Test - Grayling

This was the one I'd been waiting for...the chance to target Grayling on a southern chalkstream and the destination was the famous River Test.

Three of us made the long journey south and a finer day you couldn't wish for, no rain, no wind and extremely mild for the time of year.

The river was running low but looked everything like I'd imagined having read all the many articles written about this legend of chalkstreams...manicured banks, fishing huts, quaint little foot bridges spanning across the crystal clear waters...you get the picture.

The walk down river was enough to get the juices well and truly flowing with shoals of Grayling easily spotted amongst the weed beds also the river was full of some monster trout which had obviously been stocked for the privileged few who were able to fish here during the trout season.

The day started slow with only the smaller specimens coming to hand, in between the Grayling the inevitable capture of some of the 'out of season' trout certainly got the heart pumping a little and any caught were carefully returned.

It gets quite frustrated when you can see these large Grayling in front of you but they don't even flinch when you carefully pass one of your 'killer' bugs passed their noses. Fortunately towards the end of the day as the light began to fade these fish became less wary and succumbed to my fly pattern.

The day ended all too soon and on the drive back we all reflected on our 'chalkstream' experience...the overall verdict was how soon we could book our next one!