The snow brings the country to an almost standstill. In the absence of having any kids with which to throw down a hill on a dustbin lid towards a barbed wire fence, nor the capacity or will to sit at a bench and tie flies, it’s off to Narnia to pester fish… me thinks, me hopes.

Not just for x-ray fish vision, squint free snow blindness avoided…

PTN – The perfect morsel if there ever was one. I chose this in the vein hope of not needing to migrate to any other as fingers fail to cooperate…brrr

There’s a chill in the air, that’ll be hypothermia then. Only the best nets double up as a wind sock…

Gung ho… son of a @#&%$ that’s cold. And so commences the seeking of fish… I seek ye here…

I seeked ye there… ah… gotcha!

uh… tut!

I seek ye everywhere… ooh…ooh… no… yes… aha… yippee

Having nailed a handful of tiny chub in tree covered deep pools, a few of the most rancid rainbow trout I’ve ever seen and a singular unfortunate brownie, my expectations are exceeded. In a rip snorting current I tuck into the first grayling I’ve had out of this river in some 5 or so years. In fact the first I know of any angler in the syndicate, perhaps a corner is turned… I wonder.

The grayling was to be my last, it almost put a full stop on the day… not even so much as a nibble from then on. To be honest my extremities had long since had enough, my fingers were frozen and there was ectoplasm dribbling from my nose… either that or my brains had melted.

It was a great day to be out on the water, the scenery was to die for… come to think of it I nearly did.

Enjoy the weekend whilst there is a white out. Next week will see us back to some sort of normality although I’m not quite sure what that is exactly.

‘Who cares as long as there’s always fishing’.

Due to the lack of water in the rivers and the heat wave we’re currently experiencing … and what with having moved & re-scheduled just about everyone over the last few weeks and no doubt in to the next, with chuff all else to do this afternoon it was but for a rummage in my draws that I stumbled upon indicator material I’d been sent some time ago to give a try… and forgotten – Oops!

With winter seemingly just around the corner and the grayling bug about to set in (am I jumping too far ahead?) I thought this an ideal opportunity to engage thy grey matter and do something with it.

Now what’s to be done?

This is single strand coloured mono, the temptation is to go all ‘Curly Q’ but being more of an inline indicator fan myself I decided to blow the dust and cobwebs from the leader Jig and do some furling. Having used the Jig this year purely for demos it’s been a long time since I’d whipped up anything for myself to use out on the water.

I decided on a 2 strand non tapered indicator leader of circa 5ft in length, It was reasonably hi-viz to start off with but just got more hi-vizerer through the build.

A thing of stunningness… yellow and orange super bright indicator

Pin point and smooth colour transitions

Then without the orange… pure sunshine… ready to have bristle paint art applied

Dropping in at only 0.55mm this loop to loop stunner will start by bisecting my new ‘Frenchy’ set up. Now to use the remainder of some dwindling lengths to make some smaller handy versions.

Where ever you are and where ever the rain is falling, stay safe and if the opportunity lends itself to going fishing – enjoy!