13/11/2026 - Bit of fun in the sun

Woke up to the first hard frost of the year and a global Microsoft outage. The latter made work a bit tricky and showed how reliant we have become on large tech companies and their digital systems to keep things running, but at least it forced me to do some boring admin that I'd been putting off. 

However, after stupidly working through lunch I'd developed a thick head, blurred vision and had had enough of staring at a screen, which hadn't been made any easier by the fact it was such a stunning day outside - bright sunshine, not a cloud in the sky and hardly a breath of wind. I'd also replenished my maggot supply in anticipation of a trip out at the weekend, so the decision to take a break and use up some of my flexi-time to nip off to the Derwent for another short session with the float rod was an easy one, some much needed vitamin D being a bonus. Got togged up in an empty carpark, disturbed a kingfisher at the footbridge then walked upstream to the wood again to find the river gin clear and even lower than last time. 

However, as it hadn't put the fish off before I still felt confident of catching a few. In fact I always welcome bright conditions for my grayling fishing given they are sight-feeders, their unique, pear-shaped pupils adapted for sharp, close-range vision. Waded out until it was over my knees then started to run the float downstream in the dappled sunlight. Had been feeding some loose maggots for a few minutes when I started seeing some fish flashing under the surface as they intercepted them, so when the float disappeared next cast I immediately assumed dace. However, was surprised when it turned out to be a small grayling. Same thing happened next cast. Seemed I had a group of feeding fish right off the end of the rod tip, so started flicking the float upstream and letting it run back towards me. 

Had ten more grayling in this way, the float disappearing as it drew level with my position, which allowed me to quickly draw them downstream and away from their shoal mates. The only thing was that I bumped half as many, possibly because of the way they were taking the hookbait into their mouth. Therefore wasn't surprised when the bites tailed off and I reverted to trotting downstream again. Had three more grayling from further down the run before the chublets and dace moved in, the float starting to bob and dither as they reduced the maggot to a empty skin. When I hooked a bleak about as big as my forefinger I decided to up sticks and leg it down to the sand bar for a last few casts. 

However, when I got there I couldn't believe how low the river was and having shallowed up at least three times to try and stop the float from dragging I called it a day and headed back to the car. The sun had already disappeared by now anyway and it had turned distinctly chilly. Still, another productive and interesting little session with 15 grayling, 5 chub, 4 dace and a solitary bleak coming to hand. Looking at the forecast for the next few days we seem to be due some unsettled weather and even some rain (shock!), so we'll wait to see what difference that makes.

I'm really enjoying these short trips and I fancy checking in on those Trent grayling again at some point.