A Big Smile!

My guest Andy had heard about the huge Frome Grayling but despite many hours of helping me on the Wylye I hadn’t got round to inviting him down in the winter for a crack at them.

With a small window left in the season and the Frome fining down just in time we set off fishing a likely glide, much of the river wasn’t exactly ‘gliding’ along! but was nice and clear and he was into fish straight away, getting 4 in one spot, really chunky fish of about 1lb to 1lb 6oz.
He moved downstream when the bites stopped and my efforts nearby produced no bites so I back-tracked into his previous spot and got a cracker of 2lb 2oz.

After moving downstream there was a lengthy spell without bites, then I got one of 1lb 14oz and a real solid deep fish of 17.5″ weighing in at an incredible 3lb 2oz (see below).

From Dorchester Fishing Club 2009

Andy had the misfortune to lose his hook on the strike 50 metres upstream of me, so I called him down to fish my swim and to our astonishment he caught a very nice Grayling which on unhooking proved to have another small hook in it’s mouth, with a fresh maggot attached, yes you have guessed it, his lost fish had dropped down 50 metres and he got a second chance at it!!
We covered most of the likely looking spots and I caught no more but was very happy indeed with my 3 fish.

Andy proved himself very competent with a centre pin reel and finished the day with 17 fish, the best being on almost the last cast, a personal best of 2lb 12oz a very hard fighting male fish beating his previous best by 1oz (from the Wylye!).

A big smile covered his face as we made our back to the car”.

Cheers
Adrian