Grayling

[Ian Sewter]

Two Simple Questions:

How do I stop hooking trout (I have tried various baits including bread!)

How do I stop Grayling falling off (I have tried various hooks, rigs and rods)

 

[Alan Rose]

Two Simple Questions:

How do I stop hooking trout (I have tried various baits including bread!)

How do I stop Grayling falling off (I have tried various hooks, rigs and rods)

Occupational hazards I’m afraid Ian. As to the first, try and find stretches with fewer trout. As to the second, what hook are you using? They have a habit of falling off!

 

[Chris Jones]

How do I stop hooking trout (I have tried various baits including bread!)

You don't. Trout will take anything that grayling will and more. The only way to avoid them is to fish where they aren't present.

How do I stop Grayling falling off (I have tried various hooks, rigs and rods)

You'll never stop it from happening completely. On bad days, you may lose as many as you land. The best you can hope for is minimising losses.

Rod choice can have a big effect. The trick is to find the balance between stiff enough to set a hook successfully at range and soft enough to not bounce fish off during the fight.

Another big factor is hook choice, both size pattern and wire gauge. Many coarse/match anglers will reach for smaller hooks when fish are being finicky. When grayling fishing, I largely reject that dogma. If I find that I'm losing/bumping more fish than I'm happy with, I increase the hook size/gape. A wide gape size 14 or 16 is my usual starting point these days. I'll thread a maggot up the shank of the hook and hook another one (on a 16) or two (on a 14). If the fish prove to be finicky and I lose/bump too many, I'll go to a single threaded maggot and/or increase the hook size. I regularly use 12s and have been known to go as far as 10s.

 

[Ian Woods]

You don't. Trout will take anything that grayling will and more. The only way to avoid them is to fish where they aren't present.



You'll never stop it from happening completely. On bad days, you may lose as many as you land. The best you can hope for is minimising losses.

Rod choice can have a big effect. The trick is to find the balance between stiff enough to set a hook successfully at range and soft enough to not bounce fish off during the fight.

Another big factor is hook choice, both size pattern and wire gauge. Many coarse/match anglers will reach for smaller hooks when fish are being finicky. When grayling fishing, I largely reject that dogma. If I find that I'm losing/bumping more fish than I'm happy with, I increase the hook size/gape. A wide gape size 14 or 16 is my usual starting point these days. I'll thread a maggot up the shank of the hook and hook another one (on a 16) or two (on a 14). If the fish prove to be finicky and I lose/bump too many, I'll go to a single threaded maggot and/or increase the hook size. I regularly use 12s and have been known to go as far as 10s.

I think my favourite hooks for barbel are the kamasan animals, I had a few fish come off the other day whilst using drennan acolyte superspades, but that stopped as soon as I replaced them with a animal hook.
Rather than being off putting I think the shinny hook is more of an attraction than a deterant.

 

[Richard Isaacs]

Any isema pattern type hook is very good for keeping grayling on( I like Kamazan animals a lot aswell) but they are notorious for being able to wiggle free.

Micro barbs are essential and I like a size 16 hook the majority of times.

I don’t have the luxury of having them on my door step anymore and drive an hour north for my grayling fix.

Spliced tip rods are my personal favorite for grayling fishing.
regarding power and length that very much depends on the size of the river and distance I can trot.
Small rivers and becks and chalk streams particularly short trotting runs an acolyte ultra or titan 2000 would be ideal 11-13ft and if I was to go to bigger rivers with trot distances exceeding 30 yards then I’d step up the rod stiffness. Avenger 2000, sphere river, acolyte plus/spec 13-15ft

Sadly it’s usually the former for me now fishing Just small becks for fish of about 1-1.5lb unless I travel a good 2-3 hours in any direction.

You can’t avoid the trout completely but you can help reduce the chances by being conservative with the loose feed.
Grayling fishing for me is about very small quantities of loose feed but keeping it very frequent.
Any more than this and it just ends up being a bigger trout magnet.

 

[Neil Maidment]

All good responses. You will hear anglers swear by micro swivels to connect the hooklink, fine pole elastic shock absorbers and various hook patterns/sizes as ways of increasing the hook up ratios. If those anglers are more confident and positive when using them, that's great, it works for them. But I've been fishing for grayling on Southern Chalk Streams for decades, tried everything and, for me, never seen anything that consistently increases or maximises the catch rate. I just fish in a way that I'm confident with and have caught more than my fair share of grayling.

I've generally not been confident with using corn but that has changed over the last couple of winters or so. On my local Upper Dorset Frome, trout have not usually been too much of a problem although they're always present, I just don't introduce much loose maggot. However, this season (started 15th Oct) reports of loads of small trout and tiny grayling as well as numbers of stocked trout made me think for my first trip a couple of days ago.

I did take a pint or two of red maggot but also corn. The maggots remained unused as I had a superb 2lb+ grayling on trotted corn very quickly. I stuck with corn and had four more grayling, two of which were also 2lbs+ with the biggest one weighed at 2lbs 13oz. No trout or small grayling at all.

I was using my Acolyte 15ft Plus, 8grm Dave Harrold Missile balsa taking an 8grm olivette + 2AA bulk & 1BB with a single grain of corn on a wide gape barbless #14. I fed 3 or 4 grains very occasionally and sparingly in five separate spots. One other angler on the stretch said he was plagued with trout, minnows and tiny grayling all on maggot.

I bounced a couple of fish, including what was probably a Frome giant which took the corn on the drop (8grm+ bulk!?) right in front of me. The float never settled and the flashing gyrations looked huge!

 

[Ian Woods]

Any isema pattern type hook is very good for keeping grayling on( I like Kamazan animals a lot aswell) but they are notorious for being able to wiggle free.

Micro barbs are essential and I like a size 16 hook the majority of times.

I don’t have the luxury of having them on my door step anymore and drive an hour north for my grayling fix.

Spliced tip rods are my personal favorite for grayling fishing.
regarding power and length that very much depends on the size of the river and distance I can trot.
Small rivers and becks and chalk streams particularly short trotting runs an acolyte ultra or titan 2000 would be ideal 11-13ft and if I was to go to bigger rivers with trot distances exceeding 30 yards then I’d step up the rod stiffness. Avenger 2000, sphere river, acolyte plus/spec 13-15ft

Sadly it’s usually the former for me now fishing Just small becks for fish of about 1-1.5lb unless I travel a good 2-3 hours in any direction.

You can’t avoid the trout completely but you can help reduce the chances by being conservative with the loose feed.
Grayling fishing for me is about very small quantities of loose feed but keeping it very frequent.
Any more than this and it just ends up being a bigger trout magnet.

Curious Richard as to what hooks you use? After using multiple different types of hooks over the years I have always found animal micro barbedand drennan superspades, again micro barbed to be the best hook patterns to keep hold of grayling, and my go to sized hook in them has usually been a 14s. In my previous post I stated that I had been using drennan acolyte super spades before tying on the animals, but I meant to say that I was using 12s acolyte "grippa hooks" the other day .
In the right situation and if the fish are of a decent stamp I may go bigger still.....using those actual hooks of course as we know how much different hooks can vary in size.
The other day I was using up to 12 or more maggs on the hooks, but would vay the amount down to two. I only had 5 or 6 mediocour sized grayling but lost a much better one as I reached for the line to get hold of it. I had quite a lot of trout which appeared wether I fed a few maggs or if I lobbed out handfulls of maggs. Line wise, I used 4lb sensor and a 4lb 12ounce prestons bottom for a spell but soon reverted to the sensor straight through. In the years past i've nearly always used 6lb sensor straight through to the hook and the next time I go I will go back to fishing like that. Reasons that I will do that are, theres no need for a swivel to try amd stop the lower diameter line twisting on the retrieve, the fish are most definately not put off by the line, and you never know what you might bump into, so it's a no brainer imo, 6lb sensor straight through to the hook is the way to go for me.
Rod choice for the day was a 14ft spere waggler, which imo was idea for the purpose of targetting grayling on quite a large river.

 

[Richard Isaacs]

Curious Richard as to what hooks you use? After using multiple different types of hooks over the years I have always found animal micro barbedand drennan superspades, again micro barbed to be the best hook patterns to keep hold of grayling, and my go to sized hook in them has usually been a 14s. In my previous post I stated that I had been using drennan acolyte super spades before tying on the animals, but I meant to say that I was using 12s acolyte "grippa hooks" the other day .
In the right situation and if the fish are of a decent stamp I may go bigger still.....using those actual hooks of course as we know how much different hooks can vary in size.
The other day I was using up to 12 or more maggs on the hooks, but would vay the amount down to two. I only had 5 or 6 mediocour sized grayling but lost a much better one as I reached for the line to get hold of it. I had quite a lot of trout which appeared wether I fed a few maggs or if I lobbed out handfulls of maggs. Line wise, I used 4lb sensor and a 4lb 12ounce prestons bottom for a spell but soon reverted to the sensor straight through. In the years past i've nearly always used 6lb sensor straight through to the hook and the next time I go I will go back to fishing like that. Reasons that I will do that are, theres no need for a swivel to try amd stop the lower diameter line twisting on the retrieve, the fish are most definately not put off by the line, and you never know what you might bump into, so it's a no brainer imo, 6lb sensor straight through to the hook is the way to go for me.
Rod choice for the day was a 14ft spere waggler, which imo was idea for the purpose of targetting grayling on quite a large river.

I like the hooks with the isema design patterns for most of my trotting mate.
So animals, super spades, garbolino xs, owner 50444 all good wide gape hooks with slight unturned points and shortish shanks.

I do like to use a swivel between my main line and hook length. Big fan of the drennan quick change ones in size 14

 

[Tom Casey]

Had a session today on another local river , has I was walking to my first peg I put up a flock of 8 Egrets . I've never seen more than 2 on the rivers I fish , made my day . On the fishing front I had 3 large grayling , 2 0n corn 1 on meat plus 2 smaller fish and a trout on maggot . The meat caught fish was the largest at just shy of 2lb . Could hear the hunt in the background .

 

[Ian Woods]

Had a session today on another local river , has I was walking to my first peg I put up a flock of 8 Egrets . I've never seen more than 2 on the rivers I fish , made my day . On the fishing front I had 3 large grayling , 2 0n corn 1 on meat plus 2 smaller fish and a trout on maggot . The meat caught fish was the largest at just shy of 2lb . Could hear the hunt in the background .

Nice one Tom, sounds great bud .