Dee-lightful Day

Yesterday I treated myself to a day's grayling fishing on the Dee with Arthur Wellersley who was on holiday in the area and he kindly invited me for a day's fishing, after some badgering. After getting my directions sorted I took an early morning drive to meet at 9am in Llandderfel, and parked next to the most glorious bridge with some lovely water running through it - pictured below. I instantly knew this was gonna be a good day, even without fishing, just taking the time to pan the view was spectacular, full of autumn gold and reds, a truly beautiful venue to spend the day fishing.

Arthur arrived soon after so we got tackled up and got cracking with both duo and check nymphs purely for exploration purposes really to see how the ladies fancied it today. We both quickly learned they weren't going to throw themselves at our feet, which added to the day as we both chopped and changed to work out some form of success. Eventually it was obvious heavy nymphing wasn't the answer today, in fact the fast water produced very little but as things warmed up, we began spotting fish taking off the top. I began catching fish in the tail ends of the pools using my Bradshaw's Fancy with a Partridge and Orange which gave Arthur a giggle, probably my fowl mouthed working class accent getting all traditional on his ass. Joking aside the method soon caught plenty of fish mostly on my Bradshaw's including this well fed beauty below who I homed in on under some trees on the far bank but after tugging her way to the fast water forcing me to hold my breath for a while, I gratefully received my rewards for some tricky casting, and to be honest I could have gone home totally satisfied right then.

We decided to sit and have some lunch while observing a lovely smooth stretch of river and noticed a nice fish rising along a food lane out in the middle of the river. We sat for a while discussing our approaches to the rising lunker that persisted in tempting and teasing us throughout lunch. I gave Arthur the honours who decided on a black f-fly type pattern and with me drooling, he eventually got up to make his cast while I was like a cat on hot bricks stood behind him. In true textbook style on the 3rd cast this wonderful grayling came crashing through the surface taking the fly with it - Bingo!. It doesn't get any better really as Arthur had sat and observed the fish before making his decision on approach and carrying it out resulting in a belting grayling. Below is Arthur playing it around the smooth water before eventually bringing it to his net, needless to say with a smile after his perfect 10 minute masterclass, mind you I should claim a little piece of that fish for my moral support.

We fished a little further downstream where I caught a couple in some huge swells on a bend, dry fly fishing on a glorious sunny autumn day on the Dee is something I won't forget and will no doubt experience again in the near future. Things became quiet for a while but before leaving Arther demonstrated his "eat a sandwich approach" again, bringing another nice lady into his hand. We decided to have a walk back and try a couple of hours a few miles upstream and although it proved a lovely stretch to wade and looked very fishy they weren't playing ball, mind you Arthur had some sport with tiddlers in the shallows but the deeper holding water offered nowt, which was confirmed by an angler who'd had nothing all day. We sat chatting on the bank for a while taking a well earned rest before making our way back to the cars and bidding our farewells. Reflecting on the days fishing during the long drive home, today was a most memorable one and totally worth the effort, here's a couple of pictures below that I wont forget in a hurry and thank you Mr Wellersley for inviting me to spend the most Dee-lightful days fishing with you.