Home of Dovedale

I think this photo taken by Adam Stafford is one I will cherish, Dovedale is my own water and in a setting to die for..

Into a 2lber 

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

Fishing is cool

Here is a little video of my friend Steve Cullen catching a good sized grayling from the lower Dove.

Steve did not know I was recording and thought I was snapping a few pictures away.. The lad is a joy to fish with because he loves it and it shows from the very first second!! 

 https://vimeo.com/115076361

Grayling Hunting with Steve Cullen

its looks cold and it was... a brew sorted us out 

For the past two sundays Steve Cullen and myself have been out in search of big grayling on my own Dove water..
last week saw a 2.15 hit the net so anything to beat that was unlikely..
For a change we decided to fish parts of the river i have never bothered with as sometimes its too easy for myself to go and find fish in pools i know too well.
This was a god send i and it felt like as new river to me as we started to hit Grayling in new found pools..
It was again hard work but our persistance paid off with 5 fish all well over the 2lb mark that fell to a tiny red tag size 18 fished with a heavish point fly..

Time for a brew it was freeeezing

Cullen with a huge fish taken in flat water

kelly Kettle moment good for the soul,

Today i was being filmed by Howard Sooley a film maker from London, he has done a few sessions with me to try and capture the magic of fishing, not a instructive video but one for non anglers and anglers to see what feeds us...hopefully it will come across well.

my section of the Dove does not hold many Grayling but what it does however is hold massive grayling so the thrills from getting even one take beats catching hundreds of small grayling in a session..

I was flogging the Dove to death early doors with not a single take for my efforts, Howard was in the background filming  away and i knew what was needed to revive me....a good kelly kettle coffee!!

A Tesco cheese sandwich and a fire up of the kelly and i sat on my famous log with Howard as we admired this little bit of heaven..
Surprising what a break can do for your mind and i went back out with a new approach with a unweighted soft touch shrimp and a 2mm tung bead point fly just to take it under the water and drift a natural 'wafted' sts in a graylings path..
It all went to plan and my indicator stopped and i saw the big silver flank of the grayling turn on its side..
2lb 3oz of Dove Grayling in the catch and release net

Soul revived

GP