A cool start for December with the air temperatures in the minus range, interspersed with wet and windy weather. When conditions have been stable for a few days the grayling have been responding well. The cold and frosty conditions with low water are ideal for this species, when the rain raises levels or there is a thaw it puts paid to sport for a while until the fish can readjust. Bait fishers have been extremely successful once the feed has gone in and attracted a shoal, trotting a float down a seam with a centre pin reel is rewarding. The fly fishers have to work pretty hard to locate a shoal of grayling first to get results that sometimes means on occasions searching a wide area. Once the fish are located it is a relatively easy task to extract a few before the grayling either drop back or move on to pastures new. There seems to be quite a few grayling with cormorant damage this year, some with some nasty puncture and tearing wounds. These birds will take grayling of all size classes and they increasing in numbers and are getting to be a real nuisance to fisheries.
More wet and windy weather is arriving from the west today on the 14th, this will raise water levels tomorrow and milder temperatures for the next few days are expected. Drier weather is predicted on Sunday and Monday, we will see.
It is also time to think about and plan the fishing’s for the next season. I intend to have a couple of changes for next year, the Annan on a Monday for one and the rest of the week on the lower and middle Eden. With the weather patterns being as they are of late, is the middle river going to be a safer bet or will it revert back to normal seasons and the lower river may well be the better option? It is always a dilemma making these choices after being washed off the lower river for the last three years which has always proved to be very productive in the past. Sometimes it is safer to sit tight and hold on to what you have rather than make a decision to go elsewhere, then lose your original fishing when the times are good again.
