And a Good Friday it has certainly been. I journeyed to the Nadder with Warren in search of both water and fish… only to be confronted with… both… ha! there’s a surprise.

Not to exaggerate but there’s a few million gallons more than I’d been used to in recent months

We made the most of an early start and with no fly activity to adorn some silky smooth glides, we opted for the nymph in the deeper pools. With a brisk breeze and the face feeling warm in the sun, the water however was ruddy freezin’. Warren’s jewels were almost testicle testament to the cold temperature – not that he was willing to share on camera of course.

The water had a tinge of colour from whence we know not. We could see shapes but little definition, one thing was for sure, grayling were in abundance and visibly high in the water on many occasions.

Almost immediately we started pulling fish on ptn’s and caddis imitations… nothing of any noticeable size however, this was about the average… some were that small they were discernable from the fly.

Late morning and well into the afternoon see’s the flight of the Grannom and the rises it attracts throughout the river – accompanied by the odd LDO that fell more into the category of ‘much a do about nothing’. The active fish were seemingly none too picky either… CDC, klinkhammers and elk hair sedge being equally accountable for the notable takes… unfortunately everything was grayling.

We seemed to have hit on a particular generation of almost identical fish with only but a salmon parr and two smaller trout interrupting an otherwise one sided affair. We absolutely cleaned up between us… awesome fun made more the merrier using rods that befitted the catch, 10ft #2 weights… we’d not had so much fun in a long time. Having not had too much success on this particular stretch during winter months in search of grayling, it was fabulous to see so many… all be it at an untimely juncture in this the trout season – Have a great Easter Weekend all

A very mild week in comparison to the more blustery conditions of late make for an opportunity to limber up and blow away the festive cobwebs, this time by way of casting and flexing some otherwise rigid carbon… (practicing on the Avon with good friend Keith Passant)

… mixing the week up with some grayling fishing out on the (Wilton) Wyle today also with good friends Ian May and Pete Tyjas. We were supposed to be fishing but instead whittled away many hours filming and generally taking the ‘pith’. In between out takes we did manage to pluck a few willing grayling ~ Pete below nailed ‘She’ with the pinkest shrimp I’ve ever seen. ‘If we associated Chernobyl with glowing pink instead of green… this was it ~ aaarrrggghhh my eyes!’

My New MX 12 foot nymphing rod christened… (Full review of which will follow in a few months)

What the!… some weird and wonderful afternoon light plays havoc with the lens (The RAW photo)

Amongst the fishy and film interruptions we reviewed the Eat-Sleep-Fish ezine (ESF) launch and how well it had gone, hope you managed to read it. Looking forward we have Issue 2 coming out at the end of January so keep an eye out.

Last and by no means least, I’ve listed up a shed load of fly fishing tackle I’m looking to move on to new homes… if there is anything of interest then drop me a line, perhaps we can barter!