This week I fished on Grafham trout water with the duke. With the zander in Grafham now well-established, fishing for the species at the annual lure fishing trials has taken over from pike. For the Duke and myself it was home from home stuff, the pair of us having pioneered the jig fishing/soft plastics boom that has nw swept across the UK.

With Grafham being big, windswept and deep, the fishing is challenging and on the day in question most of the boats blanked. The zander were found predominantly in forty to sixty feet of water, the method being to drift as slwoly as possible over targert areas, jigging vertically underneath the boat. 

Vertical jigging in this way takes a late of patience and concentration. A few years ago I had some lessons with Dutch jigging master, Bertus Rozemeir on a large water in the Netherlands.

When fishing in water as deep as sixty feet, only low diameter briaded lines will allow you to fish with light, sensitive jigs right under the boat: thicker lines catch the undertow and tend to get blown into a bow. Using the right rod is key too – light, specialised jig rods are the order of the day and I have great faith in a rod I bought in the states, a Loomis ‘Bronzeback.’

 

Despite the slow fishing both the duke and myself caught our fish using long, smelt-shaped plastics fished on jig heads. You can see the jig that Mick was using in the wide angle shot of him with his fish: it’s a lure from the latest range of soft plastics by Fox (soon to be launched over here). Note also the barrel-shaped jig head (also by Fox).

Vertical jigging is one of the most difficult fishing techniques to master requiring good technique and fantastic concentration. We love it!

Here’s a picture of me with a grayling caught from the Glomma river in Norway. The fish weighed around three pounds, an estimated weight based on measuring the fish from nose to fork of tail at 50 cm. A 50 cm grayling is the holy grail to fly fishers. Sadly, the shot doesen’t do the fish true justice but the capture was a very special moment.

On the day in question I was fishing with client and friend, Paul Mersh. After getting Paul set-up and teaching him the basics of nymph fishing for grayling, I rigged up a four weight with a floating line and attached a home-tied emerger mayfly pattern made entirely from snowshoe rabbit’s foot. This unusual fur is very transluscent and buoyant, making it ideal for emergers.

While attaching the fly I saw a big fish rising just a few feet out from the bank in a deep, slack pool. It was taking natural mayflies that were emerging in numbers and I simply knew by the slooping sound the fish made as it sucked the hapless insects in that it was a big one. After creeping into position on my hands and knees, I made a gentle cast and landed the fly in the rings of the previous rise to a natural mayfly.

Sweet as a nut, the fish simply rose in slow motion and sucked the fly in with total confidence. The fight, on the wand-like four weight was heart-stopping with the fish making a series of runs that set the reel spinning almost out of control. With the rod bent into a crazy hoop I finally managed to make a swipe at the fish when it sounded almost under my feet.  

I’ve caught plenty of pike over the years but this one was a little bit special. Fishing with the Duke in Norway, we found ourselves on Mjosa, the country’s biggest inland water. And when I say big I mean big! Mjosa is bigger than Lough Corrib and twice as scary.

While the above fish was caught in the daytime it was by no means typical of the other pike that we caught.

The pike in Mjosa are very unusual because they don’t behave like any other pike that either myself or the Duke have ever encountered. While some of the fish inhabited typical bays and reefs, the majority are open-water predators that lie suspended over deep water. Following huge shoals of freshwater smelt, these pike behave and hunt just like ferox trout. In the daytime they lie deep, migrating to the surface to hunt smelt at night. We caught several by trolling over deep water with shallow lures. Catching fish just a few feet down while trolling over six hundred feet of water in the middle of the night has to count as one of my most memorable and unusual angling experiences! 

I had a great seatrout summer in Norway with productive trips to both the Driva and Vefsna. Fishing both single and double hand fly rods I caught my fish using typical Welsh night flies such as snakes, secret weapons and surface lures.

On Vefsna I had several fish including a mint, sea-liced eleven pounder with several back-up fish in the six to eight pounds category. On Driva I had fish to six pounds plus but I lost an absoloute monster in the middle of the night while fishing a big snake fly on the double hand.

Sea trout fishing is my favourite form of the sport – I just love the magic of casting a fly somewhere out into the darkness and waiting for that heart-stopping thump down the rod. Here’s a pic of one of the Vefsna fish weighing around seven and a half pounds. 

  

Check out the new pages I’ve just added to the site – angling photography (taking good catch pictures) and ‘another aurora experience.’ These were added in October 2008.

Matt