Feedback & Reports

Midwinter madness! -4c when I turned up at 9am. Ice freezing in the rod rings for the first hour. Managed to locate a few shoals of grayling, had 2 or 3 from each spot before bites stopped. Trotting maggots accounted for most with 4 grayling and an OOS trout on the euro nymph fly outfit. Lyepole is a beautiful beat, difficult access in places with barbed wire everywhere and limited fishing with no wading allowed at the moment. Having said that enough to go at for a winters day if levels are ok. I fished at 0.56 on the Byton gauge and it was a good height and clear. I called it a day after a snow shower slowed sport in the afternoon. Overall a bitterly cold day but rewarding. You can always rely on grayling when it gets sub zero!

2 Trout, 16 Grayling

Lovely day, good weather, river running about 6" high, but lovely and green. Fish were very localised, but when found, came in numbers. 10 Grayling and about 30 trout between me and my mate Andy. Bigget Grayling approx 10oz, same with the troot.

30 Trout, 10 Grayling

Float tackle and maggot

1 Grayling

River level 0.68m at Byton. Conditions good for Trotting tactics with maggots. 4 Grayling up to 1.25lbs and 2 Brown Trout plus a Minnow.

2 Trout, 4 Grayling, 1 Other

Trotting maggots.
Byton gauge 0.56, coloured water.

5 Trout, 4 Grayling

A good day on one of my favourite beats. The river level was quite low but the grayling were shoaled up in the faster runs. All the fish came to Euro nymphing tactics. The most successful jig was a red tag.

What has happened to the “new footbridge” ? I searched but couldn’t find it.

14 Grayling

Some decent sized grayling- the stamp of fish has improved over the last few years. Euro & duo. A few small hatches but no risers

2 Trout, 7 Grayling

Grayling up to 12 inches and oos trout up to 11 inches on mix of pink beaded nymph and spider. One taken on the surface. Water slightly coloured and 0.41m on the Byton gauge.

4 Trout, 6 Grayling

You’ve got to love the Lugg.

As with all the best beats, it’s not the fish or the fishing, but the being and the breathing. The valley through which the Lugg lightly roams is one for the memory. Sunlit, wooded hills rise steeply either side of wide meadows rich with grazing. A scene unchanged and unchanging.

Yet the river itself is fickle. Despite its timeless progress it behaves much like a teenager. Prone to mood swings, rising and falling rapidly with the weather. Left to itself at times it will just drift casually by, but when roused its pace alters and it races over well worn rocks, gouging out the pools where in quieter hours fish might choose to be.

You will try these pools if you see them. Some you might not see. Some you might not try. But try you must for it may not be the first or even the seventh cast that lures the lady of the steam from her lie. Look now as she tumbles your line and loosens the hook you thought was fast. And then she flies, a flare that first dazzles then dissolves into the depth you didn’t think to be there.

2 Grayling