Czech And French Nymphing

Czech And French Nymphing By Oliver Avis (Aged 13yrs)

It was Saturday night, I had tied some flies (in what used to be the family dining room) and got everything ready for tomorrows day out on the River Wharfe in Skipton. I had my leaders tied up and more importantly my 15 metre French nymphing leader untangled from last weeks fishing trip.

The day arrived, I jumped out of bed at 6am (and then realised I needed my 1 minute beauty sleep) I was ready, I went down stairs to help my mum load the car up with my fishing gear. As keen as ever we set off on our one and a half hour journey to the river Wharfe. There is always something special about the Wharfe something I was later to find out. We eventually arrived, I slipped my waders on, set up my rods and we were off to the river.  As I approached the river I noticed it was a bit high and faster flowing than usual. So I tied on some heavy bugs to replace the lighter ones I already had on. The first rod I was to use was my Hardy Marksman 10ft 4wt. This rod was my Czech nymphing rod. On this I tied a nine foot leader of 3 pound flourocarbon with three flies all close together so they would fish near the river bed, hopefully where a bonus Grayling or Trout may be lurking. I was using a size 14 Pink Czech Nymph on the point (with two tungsten beads to help the flies reach the depth required), a tungsten beaded size 16 pink tag on the dropper and a tungsten beaded size 18 hares ear on the top dropper.
I crept slowly towards the river and tried a cast close in something that many people would not have done. Just as the nymphs got below me the line made a slight twitch and hey presto! First cast and a superbly spotted Brown trout on the pink shrimp.

Brown Trout

I then moved further into the river covering all the water before wading it. I changed the point fly to a size 14 tungsten beaded pheasant tail jig-nymph as the pink shrimp was continuously hooking up on the river bed. This seemed to do the trick as the nymphs were just rolling on the river bed, not snagging it. A couple of minutes later and whack! The line shot upstream and I was then hooked into another nice Brown trout, this time on the middle dropper, giving me confidence.

I fished the pool systematically to cover every bit of water and hopefully every fish. I caught some more brownies before I decided to try another pool.  I eventually worked my way up the pool into the fast deep pockets where I thought they would be a few fish bigger than average. I switched back to the heavier pink shrimp and changed the top dropper to an olive/green czech nymph designed by Oliver Edwards (one of his essential patterns). A couple of casts later and my line paused to which I responded with a smooth tightening of the line. Little did I know that attached to the end of my leader was the fish of my dreams. As it took off down stream stripping line off the reel I knew it was bigger than average. After 10 minutes of struggling to gain line with this monster fish (I didn’t care about me almost joining it a couple of times). I had it in close to the bank. It then rolled on the surface and my heart almost stopped. I saw the unique dorsal fin of a huge Grayling. After another couple of minutes of the fish darting in and out of the flow, shaking like a leaf I carefully slipped my net under what was definitely a new personal best. The fish was subsequently weighed in the net and after deducting the nets weight, to my amazement the fish was 3lb exactly. It was then released to fight another day. Shows that one minute extra in bed helps after all! The huge Grayling took the Oliver Edwards Czech Nymph.

3lb Grayling

After this I took a little break having a packet of crisps (the low-calorie ones, you’ve got to stay in shape to land these beauties).
I then set off out swapping my Czech nymph rod for my Greys Streamflex 10ft 3wt loaded with my deadly 15 meter orange French leader attached. My French leader is basically a long length of tapered fluorescent monofilament. To my French leader by means of a perfection loop, I attached 10 foot of 3 pound fluorocarbon attaching 3 flies with the droppers evenly spaced on the last 4 foot of the leader. The flies I used was the same point fly as the Czech nymphing set up, a size 14 tungsten beaded pheasant tail jig-nymph, on the dropper I used a size 16 tungsten beaded pink nymph and on the top dropper a size 20 copper beaded hares ear. I worked my way back to the pool (unfortunately forgetting the rest of my low-calorie crisps, which my mum eventually ate).I had nearly reached the spot where I caught the large Grayling catching a few small trout on my way upstream. Finally, I reached the pool having a short amount of my French leader out of the rod tip I started to fish. I was casting everywhere upstream and around me covering all the water, extending my French leader when I needed to so I didn’t have to wade much. After a few casts I hooked into another decent fish which took off down stream (and took me with it). About five minutes later leapt a colossal Grayling….on my line!!!!! I was once again shaking like a leaf as this magnificent fish opened up that sail like dorsal fin and used it to good effect. I was slowly but surely gaining the butt section of my French leader back. Hoping to keep the fish on I started walking towards it following it downstream as it clearly wasn’t budging.

I was about a foot away from this nice grayling when I slipped my net under it. Breathing a huge sigh of relief I then noticed a tiny trout on the middle dropper, which then spat out the fly shot off into the river leaving the fly and the Grayling in my net. The Grayling (approx 2lb) wasn’t as big as the first so I didn’t bother weighing it. Just a quick photo and then straight back.
I then went back to the same spot, again fishing every bit of water leading up to the pool. As I reached the pool I noticed a fish swirl on the surface. Knowing that a fish was there, I flicked my flies where I saw the fish, the leader went tight and low and behold another beautiful grayling was on the line, and this one was no tiddler either, but it seemed to go upstream rather than down which helped me land it. As it had to fight me, and the current. A few minutes later the beautiful Grayling kindly of about 2 pounds graced my net.

After this grayling I went on to catch another of about 1 pound in weight. We then decided to call it a day because my mum had some serious gardening to do (trying to get an extra cast has never been so hard!).