How did everyone get on then?

[S-Kippy]

I suspect you won't be alone in that. Such considerations don't even cross my mind. It caught me some bonus fish that a "proper" float wouldn't have done. That's the only aspect that I'm concerned with, function over form.

Philistine ! Not only do you use a fish slice for a float but you brazenly confessed to legering too. I shall report you to the Grayling Police !

---------- Post added at 20:50 ---------- Previous post was at 20:42 ----------

If it did stand at 7lb 2oz, I'd suspect that either a set of "magic" scales were used or a bad example of guesstimation. The current UK record (Thymallus thymallus) is 4lb 4.5oz, the IGFA world record is 4lb 12oz. No doubt bigger fish will have gone uncaught but I'd be very wary of anyone claiming a UK fish over 2lb bigger than the current record.

It was one of the many records chucked out in the BRRC cull of the [guess] 70's ? I recall a very grainy picture of said fish which might be a very big grayling but is more likely a decent grayling being held towards the camera...or a small pike. River Annan I think.

Very high average size on the Welsh Dee but its a no yobbo zone. No bait fishing allowed...flay only dontcha know !

 

[sam vimes]

Sam, I'm interested to know your shotting pattern, olly and shot and the depth of the river when you trotted the cralusso flatty? Did it pull into your bankside in the flow or stay put where you cast? What bait?
Sorry for the spanish inquisition but I (and others I'm sure) are interested...

Simon,
I should first point out that it's not a flat (lollipop type) float. The Bolo model have a crescent moon profile. The concave side faces towards the bank in use. It also has an interchangeable angled arm at the top of the float. Which you use depends on the direction of the flow. The design is specifically meant to avoid the usual float issue of always tracking back to the near bank. They are much better at staying on track, even in dodgy wind conditions.

I initially bought the Bolo floats for use on the Trent when fishing for barbel. Shotting patterns I've used then have generally involved the use of an olivette of 1g less than the float rating just above the hooklink locked off with whatever shot is needed to cock the float properly. I'll almost always add a small dropper of size 8 or less on the hooklink. Subtle it most certainly is not.

Using it today was part experiment. Although I have caught smaller species when barbeling with them, and had little problem seeing bites from two ounce bits, I wasn't certain that it would be effective. I was happy enough that it would stay where intended despite the poor conditions. The stretch of river I was on is relatively unusual in that it's relatively deep and relatively smooth and steady.

I was fishing the float at between roughly four and six feet deep. I didn't have olivettes with me so it was plain old shot, 3AA IIRC. I still bulked it in exactly the same manner though, no other shot further up the line (I did have a number 8 as a dropper on the hooklink). That makes for a nice easy job to adjust the depth as required. It also means your bait is fishing at whatever depth you set it rather than wafting through the upper levels for several yards of the run through. The float is not much use for shirt button shotting and fishing on the drop. Size eighteen hook and single maggot for bait.

Hope that answers the questions to your satisfaction.

---------- Post added at 21:22 ---------- Previous post was at 21:12 ----------

Philistine ! Not only do you use a fish slice for a float but you brazenly confessed to legering too. I shall report you to the Grayling Police !

Yep, that's me. Go for your life, I'm about as interested in what they have to say as I am the Barbel Police. Still, it'll give me someone else to upset, whether I want to or not.

Strange the way things work though. When I think back to my youth, the vast majority would take their grayling limit on a regular basis. The fluff flingers would pat you on the back for knocking them on the head. They refused to acknowledge them as game fish, damn that pesky adipose. Somewhere down the line they've done a U-turn and tried to claim that they loved them all along. It's a funny old world.

 

[Tee-Cee]

Well, I can tell you that my father caught a grayling over 2,5lbs on a club outing to the Hants Avon back in the early 60's.
It was caught at Ringwood on a stretch to do with that dear man Col. Crow on Lord Normontons(?) water.....
It took an age to land on a 14' Spanish reed rod with split cane to, probably with 4lb line - we thought it possible to fish that water with 'Thames' tackle but soon learnt better..

Anyway, I saw it...........................(didn't mean diddly at the time!)

 

[sam vimes]

Another day, another otter.

Had another dabble on the Swale today. A stretch I have fished in the last month, but a different swim. It's the stretch where I've been catching the mini grayling, the ones about the length of my index finger. Talk of a decent shoal of dace got me interested. Knowing the swim, and knowing that it's nigh on impossible to keep a standard float on the line that the fish tend to be, I opted for the Cralusso Bolo again.

Within minutes I was into a fish, micro grayling number one. A few minutes on and I bumped fish after playing it for thirty seconds of so. It was too distant and stayed too deep to get any idea what it might have been. However, within a few minutes, in exactly the same spot, the float shot under. It went pretty well and only went ballistic as it got close to my fishing position.

A bonny little brown at 14oz.

With the resident brownie out of the way, the grayling got a bit more confident. Two more micros put in an appearance before I latched into something that pulled back.

Hardly spectacular at 12oz, but welcome none the less.

Another micro grayling and a small brownie at about 6oz before another half decent grayling showed up at 10oz.


That killed things stone dead. I couldn't buy a bite on the float so I chucked a feeder about for a little while. The opposite bank is quite overgrown and home to a surprising number of pheasants, which were bolting at fairly regular intervals. Fishing the tip allowed me to divert a little attention to the rustling and squeaking that was going on just a short distance away. Why the pheasants were bolting was a bit of a mystery until I got a good view of yet another otter. This one must have preferred pheasant and staying dry as it showed no inclination to go into the water.

The feeder didn't garner anything but leaves so, as I was getting chilly, I decided to give the float a few runs through before packing up. Second trot through produced yet another micro grayling.

Nine fish isn't a bad result, even if six of them were pretty small. However, it's becoming very obvious that the better stamp of grayling are further upstream than the stretch I fished today.

 

[barbelboi]

I've been delaying my gravel pit roach fishing this week as we've had wall to wall sunshine every day since Tuesday. Couldn't put it off any longer as I don't like fishing weekends (unless it's a fish'in) so parked myself in a bay of a large local pit. The water was gin clear and you could see the leaves on the bottom to quite a few meters out. As expected with not a cloud in the sky I didn't get in to any of the big girls, mainly small stuff (6-12oz) with a few around the pound mark. Early days though and the winter months usually produce some decent fish.

PS Oops, forgot to put some forceps in the pic..............