My new 'soft touch shrimp' Grayling and Mullet

Over the last year I have pondered on a experience nymphing for grayling on the Derbyshire Wye...

Grayling fishing is something I love and there is nothing like catching these fish on a dry fly but as the weather really pinches and the flys stop hatching you must get down to where they are feeding and there is nothing better than using a fresh water shrimp pattern...

These little bugs are a amazing species and in alkaline rivers in the Derbyshire dales they flourish through the winter months giving the grayling some excellent food source

Walking around the middle beat Of the wye I spotted around 5 small grayling on a gravel dip heavily feeding on drifting nymphs, this was a perfect chance for me to watch the behaviour of feeding grayling... I sat and watched the shoal calmly dart left and right to intercept the offerings, this was going to be very easy for me I thought to pick a few of these fish out..

I was using a czech nymph method with a team of two flys.... Watching the takes was going to my goal to see how they reacted..

I flicked the team of flys 10 ft infront of the feeding fish and got a lovely taught line, as the flys approached the fish one of them darted to the left and inhaled my shrimp, before I could lift the rod the grayling exhaled the fly so quickly I was totally shocked!! I then cast again and watched these fish inhale and exhale a fly without any indication on my indicator whatsoever.. It eventually struck as I watched the take and managed to land a fish but it struck me how many times a dead free drifts on unsighted fish you never even know what has happened below the surface!! Even a taught line was not enough to see a take so I drove home wondering what could be done to over come this..

It's quite obvious that grayling and trout see millions of these shrimps over the seasons and know exactly what they are looking for, there are lots of very good shrimp patterns about that do the job very well but the grayling were spitting them out instantly because of one reason.... They knew by the feel that it was not the real deal......a big heavy hook with a brittle harsh feel was enough for the grayling to know instantly it was not the real deal.

I set out to make a 'soft touch shrimp pattern' that was transparent like the natural, and it only dawned on me a few months back when I was sealing some external outside sockets in my electrical job...

Silicone sealant in clear was what I needed, I could shape the shrimp with dubbing and then guide it over the fly creating the ribbing effect as I went and also teasing out to create a soft touch all around the fly where possible..

Last week I went to the river Dove to test my new pattern and was gobsmacked by the results!

I fished a team of two and took 5 decent sized grayling out of the same pool on my new pattern so was buzzing my head off...

I will do a step by step on my next blog post of how to tie, but here is a picture of the fly and materials used... Please give it a go if you get chance as I think you will be amazed by the results and let me know your results...

Materials

Pointons soft touch shrimp

 

 

This fly can can be used to make a exellent mullet shrimp too with the eyes on as pictured above..

 

Tight lines

 

Glen

 

Glen Pointon 07973951352