GRAYLING FISHING. 127 



CHAPTER IX. 



GRAYLING FISHING. 



THE GRAYLING (Salmo thymallus). 



THIS fish, too, is not nearly so widely distributed as it 

 deserves. Seeing how delightfully it prolongs one's fly- 

 fishing season, even up to Christmas if the water be in 

 order and the weather open, and when the fish themselves 

 are in the finest condition, it has always appeared to me 

 a most desirable fish to have in many of our trout streams. 

 Grayling take a fly well, the same flies as are used for 

 trout being suitable for grayling. The addition of a turn 

 of gold tinsel, or a little tag or tail of red or orange floss 

 silk, being a great additional attraction to grayling. 

 There is a famous fly in Derbyshire called " the bumble," 

 which succeeds admirably with grayling. The bodies are 

 made of different coloured silks, orange or pink, with 

 spirals of peacock harl up them, and hackles of silver grey 

 or light dun, or of sandy red, and no wings. As they 

 vary a good deal in the bodies, I cannot give a close 

 description of the dressings. Grayling may be taken, and 

 a good bag even made, when none are seen to rise at the 

 natural fly. At such times the angler should try the deep 

 still reaches, and fish well under the banks. Grayling rise 

 very quickly from the bottom in such places. Grayling 

 will often rise, and refuse even two or three times, and 

 then take after all, which trout rarely do. The play of a 



