Catch Fish with
Mike Ladle

Information Page

For anyone unfamiliar with the site always check the FRESHWATER, SALTWATER and TACK-TICS pages. The Saltwater page now extends back as a record of over four years of (mostly) sea fishing and may be a useful guide as to when to fish. The Freshwater stuff is also up to date now. I keep adding to both. These pages are effectively my diary and the latest will usually be about fishing in the previous day or two. The Tactics pages which are chiefly 'how I do it' plus a bit of science are also updated regularly and (I think) worth a read (the earlier ones are mostly tackle and 'how to do it' stuff so if you are new to fly fishing or spinning these are the ones for you).

18 November 2008.

Grayling.

It's years now since I took Nigel grayling fishing and he caught his first grayling - a beauty. Since then he's 'got the bug'. In fact he's caught many of these fine fish and there's no doubt that he can show me 'how it should be done' these days.

Anyway, he said that he'd had a couple of decent sessions recently and wondered if I fancied giving it a try. When I got to the river he was already fishing. He had both sweetcorn and maggots for bait and (putting me to shame) he was fishing with a thirteen foot coarse rod and a free running centrepin reel. That's the way to do it!

I joined him in his swim (we are very friendly when it comes to sharing spots) but as I anticipated he was first to hook a fish. I wasn't too bothered because I wanted one or two pictures (I'd like to say that I wasn't even trying to catch one but it wouldn't be true). The only bad thing about grayling is that they're greedy and tend to swallow the hook if you're not careful so a disgorger is a must. Also, Nigel tells me, barbless hooks are not much cop because the fish wriggle off them.

We fished for a couple of hours and Nigel had several fish on his trotting tackle. I only caught one tiddler. Sweetcorn seemed to be the best bait although the fish were a bit thin on the ground so I don't think that the numbers were statistically significant. None of the fish were huge. From my point of view - 'could do better!'. Must have another go soon.

Nigel's first ever grayling.

The pin!

In the net.

Beautiful fish.

Bait.