Halelulia! (Truggs Version)

Spent the day at Dovedale today with R Kid and first things first, the river was running clear although slightly high. My set up was a 10ft rod using czech nymphs, which I managed to hook a good sized grayling on instantly, true to form though it pinged off just as I lay my hands on the net. Then I hooked a good size brown that was instantly replaced but helped build my hopes up only to mislead me yet again. We worked damn hard all morning and couldn't catch a cold stood naked, no matter what we tried. We both met Roger from the LADFFA thread on the FlyForum who after a quick chat quickly shot off in hope of a lady for himself, even after our doom and gloom story. Below we had a boil up while making our next plan of attack.

Late afternoon came quick and as the light started to fade a little, out they came. First was a small grayling which prevented my 1st blank for sometime so that was me happy, especially as the Ladies were so elusive today and the clock was ticking. I tried to stay focused til the death and then I got my reward with this lovely grayling below. It shook its head violently getting me close to the weir below twice, before I gingerly worked it upstream into my net, HALELULIA!.

This thumper forced me to hold my breath for what seemed like minutes, every time it tugged away at my czech nymph. I must say that even laying in my shovel hands this Lady looked impressive. I struggled to hold the fish far enough away from the camera to get its tail in the shot and so its head was pointing away from me resulting in a picture that doesn't do the fish the justice it deserved. My guesstimate was around 2lb which is big in most parts of Derbyshire but not Dovedale where monster grayling survive for some reason. Putting the fish above aside, I have to admit that today her Majesty wasn't prepared to give anything away easily, in fact she was a tight old cow, and at times it felt like hard work trying to stay in the zone.