Not over until the Fat lady sings

The Grayling season is near the end, with the high water levels throught the winter it has got to be one of the hardest times i have experienced in fishing.. I can count on one hand how many times the Dove has been near ideal conditions.
I decided a month ago the stop thinking of grayling and get on the vice and do some homework on my early season trout ventures.
But today within a few weeks of the grayling season closing it looks like there is going to be a mad flurry.
Today i got my fix big time!!

Jelly Bean Caddis Dry Fly

Through out the Grayling season i have been messing around with the deadly but horrible squirmys !!
while using this weird material i started to stretch it around a body of a fly and noticed the amazing translucent effect this gave off.
so before long i was experimenting with the weighted tungsten bugs and the effects were amazing for such a easy fly to tie.
So while out bugging i did notice that the flys never seemed to go down to the depths of the river as good as a hairs ear type fly and then on returning home i threw a length of this squirmy material into a bowl of water and was amazed to see that it floated like a cork!
That was then when i thought what a good dry fly this mad stuff would be..
There are plenty of other materials on the market that can give a good transparent effect but as we all know but  they are a pain to use and sink !
so what are the advantages of using this material for the jelly bead caddis?
1. it floats
2. soft touch feel
3.dirt cheap
4.water proof (wont drown your fly)
5. gives a sick effect that hopefully the trout will love!
6. very realistic
7. very easy to use
8. using different squirmy colours and threads the limit is endless what effect you want

When i showed my mate Scott Webster he was laughing his head off as he said it looked like you could pop it with your fingers and goo would pop out !!
So below is the Jelly Bean Caddis emerger, i hope you have ago and come back to me with your results..
have a mess around with different threads and coloured squirmy.
Will it be better than any other Caddis dry fly? i dought it but its one cool mother fooking looking and easy to do..
Live the Dream
GP

Materials
Hook...Tiemco 212Y size 13 or 15 (funky fly)
Thread body...globrite "12 green (veniards)
Thread ...Roman moser (funky)
wing post ... flo yellow tiemco aero wing (funky fly
squirmy... glo green (funky fly) tan is cool too
attenae ... mallard bronze (brando fly tying)
CDC ... wild natural (brando fly tying)
Thorax...Harline uv lavender (funky fly ) or use squirel dubbing
wing...deer hair natures  spirit X caddis deer (funky)

jelly bean caddis emerger

whip down shank with globrite "12 (i will not say touching turns as thats for geeks)

Tie in half a aero wing at the point shown  on hook

make a nice little post!

build up thread on rear of hook to add a 'hump' like the natural

Tie in some squirmy... stretch the unwanted end off and trim off..

wind up stretching the squirmy to create the sick effect and tie off at post

fold back wing in F fly shape and tie off

Now start with some roman moser power silk and tie in the Mallard antenna

tie in some wild cdc (4 plumes tips) dont trim or looks shite

dub in some sparkle here to create the effect of a bubble, use squirel too if needed 

scruff up the thorax with a needle and tie in some deer hair for wing

finished fly ... looks like it will pop!!

fish view!! how can it fail!! slurrrrpp bang snap

some nymphs below using squirmy

Big Scottish Grayling and Lorne !!

7.00 a.m butty shop (Scottish)

' What are them square things Duck they look lovely !! '

The whole shop looks at me like a alien and the women says it's a square sausage! 

Euan Miller walks in like Liam Gallagher and says 'IL Hev a Lorne' 

Anyway they were fooking lovely and why the hell don't we have them in England!!

I follow Euan as he takes me blindfolded to a scottish freestone river. I am bolloxed after a 4am start but look to my left while driving and have that buzz only fisherman know as I see a river that is so different from my Limestones flows..

Here the rivers look like they are going to swallow you up spit you into the sea..they look barren as hell but and not for the Gentleman May Fly water thrasher.

Euan was 'proper' he did what only a few do, and I got the same treatment by someone who took me the Froome..while I am on a away session off my home waters i never ever do anything other than listen and take advice from the Locals, never once question there methods or flys, I have learnt to fish so many styles this way and it catches me more big fish ..:/ I was set up with 3 of Euans flys , shown his style of fishing and put into the spots..

The fishing on these places is a breath of fresh air for bugging, no trees around me, a bottom so smooth you can just bounce you flys around the stones without losing 20 flys a session!!  But where they are lovely they have there down side.. There are massive pools and searching for grayling around these places i imagine can be soul destroying on a hard day .

Euan walked me straight to a spot and pointed right to the zone ... 4 casts in with a 4.5 MM. slowing the droppers down I hit the one thing a grayling fisher loves ' the old moving log' 

4 minutes into the fight I was gobsmacked by the power of this grayling, the Scottish flow is powerful and the fin goes up and your in for some heart pounding stuff ..

My first ever Scottish Grayling and right big thumper ..

Thankyou Euan, a man who would rather watch me catch more than himself ..'proper'

The Scottish dream

LTSD

Grayling fishing when they are 'on'

'Hooking moving logs that come alive'

I say this above as this is what has happened to me on the Dove, i have proberly said this a thousand times on my fishing posts but today has been one of them days where i could not really go wrong,its been a day that you remember till my fishing days are over..why? 

Because throughtout the year i spend months struggling my way through catching Grayling or trout just for a chance of that special fish..everybody has there dream in fishing, some like to be just on the banks, some like to catch only on drys, some like to catch bag fulls of fish.. some like at bit of everthing.. i am a specimum hunter and i have always been that way and i will never change, so many people are quick to say what it the 'best way' to fish.. there is no right or wrong way to fish, if its making your heart pound then its right for you, dont ever think your a better angler than the lad trotting a worm on a river, he is getting the same buzz you are..

A big clear Dove and the grayling were so heavy on the feed it was quite astonshing, today they were hitting the top dropper on a two fly set up, some will say your covering differnent depths of water in this method, i dont belive this and if a grayling takes your dropper its reallly hard on the feed as grayling never hold station off the bed..hence the fish swimming up to your fly.

every time i fished likely pools either at the back end or down the side of a rifle my indictor was stopping dead and i was hooking what felt like logs drifting downstream until i saw the big silver flashes of huge grayling..today the big males were out on the feed and i became greedy for all my blanks and took everything i could...

One big special fish graced my net after a scrap that left me in bits, i knew it was big as it lumped downstream with no eratic movments, i did not mess around and gave it full side strain only for it to hit the fast flow and raise its big sail!! a grayling angler will tell you are in the shit when this happens, you can do nothing other than to chase it which i did !!

weighed how they should be on my digital salter scales it did the 3lb bang on..not as though this was really all that mattered today, i caught massive graylling all around the river and loveds every minuite of it..

i still have to same fly in my box, a well worked nymph given to me by Steve Cullen a few weeks back...it took every single fish on the middle dropper!! it will now go down along with my soft touch shrimp..

Does it get much better, i dont think so....

I am off to the Tweed and Tevioit with Adam Stafford in a few days so i hope my Dove skills can do ok on there holy rivers... a tweed grayling is one of my goals..it never ends!!

LTD

The bubble in the rise

The question that many anglers often ask is how to spot a grayling rising?

Well being on the river studying fish as often as I do you get to observe certain ways of rising fish..

People often say about the bubble left by a grayling which is very true but trout can do the same affect too so it's not a sure sign.

I often target grayling as my preferred fish for the dry fly as the satisfaction is much more than a trout due to how much your presentation needs to be spot on.. Without going into detail a persistent rising grayling  in my view will be become more preoccupied with the given hatch than a trout which can be tempted without matching the hatch (sometimes)..

A grayling will hold station in a feeding lane at the river bed and can see so much more than a trout that sits inches below the surface..

Therefore drag and the right choice of fly has been critical for me..

Last evenings fishing was all that I needed to get my hatch fix of grayling..

The BWO spinner falls are becoming less and the river did not have the prolific hatches of these spinners but never less there was enough to find around seven rising fish in the last hour which I managed to land 3 grayling and 2 trout with Richard Wards poly prop spinner..

Both trout were hit on first attempts and the grayling put my fly presentation to the test with 3 or four attempts..

The proof is there for me, any dry fly man I see catching 'proper' grayling on the dry is doing his job well..

I am out most nights this week getting my fix so plan to start updating my blog on a more regular basis..

Podcasts are going well and I have some real treats up my sleeve so to any readers or listeners get yourself off the couch on get these last few months of dry fly fishing before its too late

Nice one

Glen

 

OMBRÉ of the river Dove!

Ombré known by the French anglers for grayling meaning 'shadow' 

My Dove record graced my net earlier this week, a 49cm 3lb plus fish taken on a stripped quill F fly..

The love for these fish is becoming part of me..

Living the dream