Grayling In Kite Country

Spectacular scenery and great sport are found by James Beeson in the Wye Valley.

AUTUMN IS MY favourite shoulder season. For me, there is something magical in the change from summer to winter, with the turning of the leaves and the arrival of the first frosts. When wood smoke rises from the chimney as a fire roars in the grate and the natural world outside makes its preparations for winter I feel an urgent need to be outdoors enjoying the fishing fruits of autumn.

The trout season may be over and the salmon year near its end, but many of our rivers support good numbers of grayling – a fish that really comes into its best condition as night overtakes day and mists settle in early-morning valleys. A big wild brown is a dogged fighter, but the grayling edges him for cunning. When a big grayling slips irresistibly downstream and flares that dorsal fin, using the strength of the river against you, it can often end with you reeling in nothing but slack and disappointment.

The River Wye and its tributaries hold an excellent stock of grayling with the best concentrations of fish in the main river above Hay-on-Wye. Doldowlod is almost 30 miles upstream from this pretty market town and above the major tributaries, including the Irfon and Ithon, which are also excellent trout and grayling fisheries. Up here, the Wye is a smaller river with much in common with its tributaries, the trees hang over the stream and small, tight pools provide the perfect habitat for trout and grayling. Doldowlod offers one-and-a-half miles of double-bank fishing divided into two beats: Lower Ystrad and The Channels. The beat is renowned for its grayling with specimens over 2lb caught in most years, and that potential for a big fish is what had led us to travel west into the Welsh mountains.