Eden Grayling by T K Wilson (1) c.1952
NOWADAYS anglers are fully reconciled to the presence of grayling in the Eden, and an increasing number look to her ladyship to provide them with sport during the late autumn and winter months when the resident trout are occupied with family matters, and no longer fair 'game. It was not always so.
Until 1880 the Eden was entirely without grayling, and could the Westmorland yeoman farmer who undertook their introduction have foreseen to what extent they would thrive and multiply in his beloved river he would undoubtedly have emptied the tank of fry that were sent to him on to his manure heap.
Few rivers that were at all suitable escaped the grayling stocking fever that swept this country during the seventies and eighties of last century. Until then, if one excludes the Ribble, the species had been indigenous to certain eastward flowing streams only, and it is fairly safe to assume that the monks of Sawley Abbey transplanted Thymallus into the Ribble from the adjoining Aire or Wharfe.
The notion that grayling would prove a worthwhile addition to the Eden was conceived by a certain Mr. Thompson, of Seaton Carew, who frequented the higher reaches a good deal during the trout season, and then transferred his affections to the other side of the watershed, where he fished for the grayling of the Yore with equal enthusiasm.
For local interest in the project, Thompson relied on a farmer friend and companion on many a fishing outing, and while the man on the spot was not so sure that the introduction of grayling would not prove deleterious to the well-being of the trout, he agreed, because of their long friendship, to be a party to the experiment. At dusk one evening he took the tank of fry that had reached him, and with one mighty heave tipped the contents over the churchyard wall at Musgrave into the river.
If he had any misgivings they were probably dispelled by the winter that followed, a winter in which snow fell three days and nights on end without cessation. When the thaw set in a mighty flood came tearing down the Eden, sweeping away bridges and causing untold destruction.
If he fell into the error of concluding that the interlopers of his introduction had finished up in the Solway there was some excuse for the assumption. The late William Nelson, whose uncle he was, records in his delightful book Fishing in the Eden that he often stayed with the old gentleman afterwards, and though they fished the river day and night thereabouts, in his uncle's day they never came across a single grayling.
Another century had got underway before I commenced my own close association with the Eden, but from my maternal grandfather, Timmy Oglethorpe, of Culgaith, and from the Lowthian Brothers, Tom and Dean, I was able to gather details to connect up the story.
Though in after-years their progeny pushed upstream to populate the reaches into which the originals were liberated, it was in the deeper water around Ormside and Appleby that the pioneer grayling settled down to the serious business of establishing their kind.
Whether the big flood carried them there, or whether by then they had already dropped downstream on their own accord will never be known, but in the years that followed the movement of the expanding grayling population was mainly a downstream one.
By 1890 they had gained a footing as far as Kirkby Thore, and three years later anglers were catching odd ones at Temple Sowerby. By 1896 they had not only gained a footing in much suitable water thereabouts, but they were represented in the Winderwath water to well below the Culgaith tile kiln.
In Henry Cadman's Harry Druidale I came across confirmation of the presence of grayling in this latter well-known stretch of the Eden, which had then just been taken over by the old Yorkshire Anglers' Club. He records that he fished the Winderwath water on 6th October 1897, in the company of Dr. Richardson and his brother, the Doctor killing eight grayling and two trout, his brother three grayling and two trout, while he had seven trout and one grayling.
From Ormside to Culgaith the length of the Eden is somewhere round about eleven miles, and one meets anglers who doubt whether the originals could have increased their numbers in the short space of seventeen years to the extent credited by local tradition. It should not be overlooked, however, that the stretch under consideration is of a type highly suited to the requirements of the species, being rich in alternating streams, glides and pools, as well as in food for their sustenance. And when housing conditions are suitable, grayling reveal extraordinary fecundity and colonising powers.
During the years that I fished the Eden regularly grayling were caught as low down the river as Armathwaite, and upstream as far as Musgrave, and they also turned aside from the parent stream and made themselves at home in the first mile or two of several tributaries, including the Lyvennet, Crowdundale and Marton Beck, but to the best of my knowledge they never became anywhere so predominant as to oust the trout for possession.
When as a lad I frequented the Temple Sowerby stretches of the Eden, season permits to fish the river from the old Julian Bower Bridge to the main road bridge were to be had for a few shillings. Most of the men folk did a bit of flood angling, and when there was a " watter " you would find as many as a score pulling them out from the backwashes and the gaps between the willows.
Chub in those days, as now, were regarded as "vermin" to be pushed down the nearest rabbit hole, and while grayling went into the creel, generally speaking they were regarded as not in the same class as trout, and not a great deal better than " skellies." One or two visiting Yorkshiremen came specially to fish for grayling during the winter months when her ladyship was at her very best and full of fight, but the natives put away their rods at the end of the trout season.
From Ormside downwards you may look for grayling of a pound and over from any of the favourite haunts. In the September of 1936 when the river was running in after a flood, I had a dozen on the maggot at Kirkby Thore Beck End that weighed just as many pounds, and in the October of the following year on the gilt-tail worm, after losing the grandmother of the shoal, I finished up on the Bolton Willow length with six that just tipped nine pounds.
During the war years I spent much leave after her ladyship on the Red Scar and Bet Roger lengths at Temple Sowerby. On one memorable Boxing Day, with only an hour to go, I started swimming down the run into Bet Roger, and located a shoal first time down. Before I had to call it a day fifteen of them ranging in weight from three quarters of a pound to a pound found their way into the creel.
My best Eden grayling, a two-pounder, was taken from the Culgaith side just below the Crowdundale mouth. Thereabouts and right down the Winderwath Helm on the other side, there were always " thumping " big grayling in residence, but most of them moved elsewhere when a mild pollution started coming down the Crowdundale. Now this has ceased one looks for the return of the species to the old haunts.
At the present time the best of the grayling fishing in the Eden is upstream from Bolton, for in the reaches below neither the trout nor the grayling have yet recovered from the great slaughter to which they were subjected at the beginning of 1951, when upwards of 150 cormorants migrated from the Solway and fished the river day after day for six weeks on end.
In the last hour or so of a late autumn day good baskets of grayling may be had on the fly from the tail-ends of the deeper streams, but once there is a nip in the air trotting a worm or maggot down the deeper glides pays the best dividends. To do the job successfully you need a centre pin reel, free-running rod rings, and a fine monofilament nylon reel line.
Grayling feed in shoals, and on the larger Eden you may try the old spots where at some time or other you have done well, and fail to get a response. Her ladyship may not be in residence or she may be in fickle mood. If persistence is not one of your strong characteristics, you will not always relish this hide and seek business, but there is no alternative. Red-letter days among winter grayling have to be earned. In the words of my old friend Harry Carr, an old hand wise in the ways of grayling, "you must keep on keeping on."
(1) "Trout by All Means" by T. K. Wilson 'Great little book by a thoroughly down to earth, practical fisherman. As the title suggests, all methods of catching trout are comprehensively covered, be it fly, worm, minnow or creeper (gadger). Not one for the purist! His wide experience and common sense are in evidence throughout.' The late T.K. Wilson of Skipton caught many big roach. He was also a great brown trout angler, having two books his credit. His book 'Trout By All Means', first published in 1966, is an excellent read.