Year: We started December in no doubt that winter had arrived, with hard frosts and sub-zero temperatures lasting through both night and day. What was forecast for the 1st were clouds over the Builth Wells area resulting in daytime temperatures which should have been just about the right side of freezing. What TU got was a clear sky and minus 6 degrees. Now don't those forecasters in their warm offices realise that the difference between plus one and minus one degree is everything when it comes to trotting gear and rod rings freezing or not freezing?
Anyway, despite the cold TU persevered and was rewarded with 5 grayling, 4 of them nice fish up to 1 pound 10 ounces. The temperature had eased just slightly by the 2nd when GM from Usk and DM from Swansea had a large catch of grayling trotting on the Rectory beat. Despite his good result, Dave stated his general view is that drastic drops in temperature don't help with grayling fishing. Actually I think he is right if it's the case that the change to cold weather is sudden. After two or three cold days, it seems to me that grayling get used to the new situation and carry on as before.
The conventional view was always that frosty weather in itself sharpened up the appetite of grayling and resulted in brisk feeding. I would suggest that grayling are merely a species which will put up with most conditions once they have had a little time to acclimatize. I am not sure if there is a minimum temperature below which grayling cannot be caught I remember fishing and catching during a competition on the Dee at Llangollen once at minus 10 , but low temperatures certainly seem to concentrate the shoals.
The times I have almost never been successful are with a rising flood or during a thaw with cold snow-melt water in the river. On the 3rd, still during cold weather, AG from Hereford had 8 grayling from the Irfon at Cefnllysgwynne. On the next day SW from Hereford had 14 from the Wye at Craig Llyn, 10 during the morning on various nymphs and 4 more after lunch on a Grey Klinkhammer during a large dark olive hatch.
So rises continued, even to the 4th December! A couple of days later the high pressure weather came to an end, the winds moved to the south and west and we began to have daytime temperatures between 10 and 15 degrees. In fact the conditions now remained generally mild until Christmas. Following last year's apparent failure of salmon spawning in the Usk, I began to worry whether might also prove a failure due to high temperatures. On the 7th, JM from Staffordshire had 5 grayling on small nymphs from Eyton during a 3 hour session.
