Difficult stick session but a first grayling

I spent most of today fishing a new stretch of my usual river, the first hour or so was spent walking the banks, finding a few areas to fish and trying to spot a few fish. I found a few areas that I will be trying out over the next few weeks but didn't manage to spot any fish.

A beautiful place to spend a morning

I decided to fish the stick on a section that seemed to have a bit of depth and a bit of colour, things started well I had a grayling on my second cast then a perch on the next. The grayling was around 3oz and was the first time I had seen a grayling on the bank, unfortunately I couldn't get a photo as it flipped back into the river before I got my phone out. I quickly added a few dace and small chub to the net but then bites dried up.

The river was clearing and dropping quickly and after the first hour it had dropped a good 6 inches, I struggled in the changed conditions especially when the sun came out. The small chub and dace were very obliging almost to the point of becoming a nuisance as they were only an ounce or two. A small jack pike caused havoc in my swim for a while and helped itself to a few small dace.

The river seemed very low and each time the wind dropped or the sun broke from the clouds the bites would stop. This continued until early afternoon, I then spent an hour on the feeder and straight lead hoping to tempt a chub but I didn't get on touch on either rod. The last hour was spent heavily feeding the stick float line, the dace returned, I then had 3 more perch to around 10 oz on consecutive casts and a few more small chub before I had to call it a day and rush home for the school run !

Best of the bunch, the biggest went 10oz or so

After the grayling I was hoping for a few more, but I will be spending some time further upstream targeting these this winter. Although today's session wasn't the most productive, it was nice being out surrounded by the wildlife, the kingfishers were very active, a female goosander was teaching her offspring to catch fish and I caught a brief glimpse of an otter messing in the margins.