Chub, Coarse fish on the fly, Fly-fishing, Grayling, Streamers, Trout spey, Writing

Swinging into the darkness…

Every year at this contemplative time – trout season winding down, evenings drawing in, darkening days bringing back memories of family loss – there’s suddenly nothing I’d rather be doing than swinging a fly downstream.

Ultralight switch or trout spey, it’s often called now, though the latter is something of a misnomer when grayling and chub are what we’re searching for, whilst avoiding obvious trout and salmon spawning areas.

Like so much for me, it started on the Wandle: long-lining Amber Nymphs into black, chub-haunted pools in Wandsworth with my fishing buddy Rich Baker, lit by street lamps over the Mapleton Road bridge.

Later there were grayling: on the junction pool of the urban Tame and Mersey, one autumn day, refusing everything but Pale Watery spiders and hairwing emergers, dead-drifted way downstream and twitched at the precise psychological moment.

Then more chub on the Wandle, sipping Cat’s Whisker stickleback imitations in Morden Hall Park. Big ones, too, on the Somerset Frome, which love a slow-swung rabbit-strip crayfish on quiet winter days.

Of course, this is all a far cry from the steelhead fishing that it sometimes evokes. Similarly, though, it’s versatile and perfect for covering water, probing places you’re not inclined to wade – most of all when swelling flows make footholds in freestone rivers dicey at best, and lethal over slippery bedrock.

Similarly too, downstream hookups are notoriously insecure, and you’re not just fighting your quarry but also the weight and drag of the line. This can feel especially strange if you’ve spent much of the season with barely-there close-contact ultralight lines and mono rigs, and it’s by no means the most efficient way of actually catching fish.

Yet that’s not always the point. It’s more about turning things round, deferring gratification, fading with the season, accepting that the fish won’t always connect, and leaf hatches will get in the way.

And why you’ll sometimes find me holding these moments, swinging into the darkness…