CZECH NYMPH, OR BRITISH BUG?

Source: FFaFT February 2004, pp. 48 - 50

JEREMY LUCAS praises a method and a fish that UK anglers have adopted to produce a renaissance in our sport.

The line tip, drifting along with the pace and tug of the stream, hesitates. This is no leaf, or ranunculus, or rock; a fish has mouthed the Nymph. I lift the rod sharply upwards. Immediate, swirling, corkscrewing resistance. A dive and lunge out into the river; my heartbeat racing, the rod alive in my hand. Soon, the gleam of silver, an enormous dorsal, fanned in the current ... a grayling, fully 40cm, lies flank skyward on the surface beneath me. I cannot conceive of a fish more beautiful than this. I grip the Bug between cold numbed fingers and twist. The grayling rights itself and kites off, bound for deep, dark water.

Grayling fishing in Britain has metamorphosed over the last 15 years. I remember when this wonderful fish was considered more the domain of so-called coarse fishing, a lowly quarry for the flyfisher compared with trout and salmon. How attitudes change, often for the worse; but in this case, so, so much for the better. Why the change? Fly-fishing, as with all areas of fishing, is considerably more sophisticated and 'worldly' nowadays. Also, our rivers, while struggling in terms of maintaining wild trout stocks, and relying heavily on stock fish, have in numerous cases actually improved as grayling fisheries. And even without any improvement in grayling stocks, flyfishermen have certainly become better able to capitalise on this sporting resource.

The Eastern European influence, principally the fly-fishers of the Czech Republic and Poland, has been enormous. This has stemmed from International competitions, such as the annual World Championships, where British fly-fishers have received numerous lessons in (mostly) river Nymph fishing for grayling. When I was first involved in international competition I recall fishing side by side with outstanding Czech and Polish fishers. Our learning curve was exponential, as was theirs when it came to lake fishing tactics for trout. These were exciting times when Eastern and Western approaches to flyfishing were losing their strictly heterogeneous, stylised qualities and there was a wonderful cross-fertilisation of ideas and methods. We were dismantling our own Berlin Wall. The beautifully imitative Polish woven Nymphs and the classical Czech Nymphing style became infused into the British river fishing psyche, and we have never looked back. It has also resulted in the unlocking of the potential of British grayling fishing, with fly.

The competitive element

I initially retired from competitive flyfishing on a high, following the World Championships in Norway and the Rivers International on the Tweed in 1994. I had a wonderful run of luck, frankly, and had enjoyed myself enormously. There were aspects of the competitive side of the sport which I did not like, however, so I decided to call it a day, and just carry on with my own fishing. I figured, after all, that this sport should be a simple, enormously pleasurable and recuperative pastime. I still think that, but with additions. And these additions have much to do with that aforementioned learning curve. In competition you learn at a phenomenal rate, and more impressively than in non-competitive fishing. That is important to many of us, which is one of the reasons why I have chosen to compete again. I'll tell you about the other reasons another time.

Set up

The fundamental method of Czech Nymphing is easy to describe, but very difficult for the uninitiated to really believe in; it often sounds like an esoteric approach which works on very specific types of water, and when the grayling may be tightly packed in a shoal. Well, yes and no; but first the method for which you need a longish rod, say 9.5-ft to 10.5-ft, with a fairly soft, or through, action, for a #5 or #6 line. The line is not too important actually, because you cast very little of it for this method. It really would not matter if you used a #9, because only a few yards will extend beyond the rod tip; although, aesthetically, who likes the idea of using a heavy line with a soft rod? The latter is necessary, because most people will find that they 'bounce' a lot of grayling (lose them within moments of hooking them) if they use a tip action or stiff rod.

Leader set-up is crucial. Typically this will consist of about 12 feet overall (may be as short as eight feet), and consist of two droppers. The first dropper is a mere 20" or so above the point fly, with the top dropper 20" above that. Level leader material is used throughout (though some exponents are experimenting successfully with nonstretch lines and braids between top dropper and fly line). Most Czech Nymphers nowadays use fluorocarbon, typically between 3lb and 8lb BS; I nearly always use 3lb or 4lb, and tend to step up to 5lb or a maximum of 6lb only in heavy and coloured water.

Ideal water

Though Czech Nymphing will work on most types of river environment, it is at its best on that special type of water towards the head of a pool, just as the rough, rapid water begins to fade into a deeper, slower run. Nymph fishers will recognise the "crease" between faster and slower water as the ideal. It is certainly at its least effective in the very deep, slow-moving parts of pools, where other Nymph methods or dry fly will nearly always provide better approaches. The fundamental method is to cast, or roll, the Nymphs upstream and slightly across, no more than a few yards, to track them under or close to the rod tip, watching for any line movement to indicate a take. You nearly always need to wade, sometimes beyond your waist, to achieve the best position, remembering that the method's effectiveness decreases dramatically the longer the line that is cast, or as the distance between rod tip and Nymphs increases.

British variation

The variations and nuances on this theme are many, and lead to stylised approaches indicating types of rivers and anglers alike. A common variation, in Britain, is for anglers to cast more across than upstream and allow the flies to halt and swing down below them in the current; and very effective this approach can sometimes be, though it is certainly not classical Czech Nymphing. It is more like our traditional North-country Spider style, albeit with heavy Nymphs, or what the Americans call "high stick" - because of the rod being held at such a high angle. Eastern Europeans will typically recast as soon as the Nymphs have dead-drifted more than a yard downstream of them. They strike, quite hard (which is something that seems not to come too naturally to British Nymph fishers), at any visible indication of a take, and sometimes at no indication at all, merely that instinctive feel of knowing when a fish should have mouthed the fly.

You know you are performing this method well when during the course of a day you hook a few grayling as a result of striking when that ‚sixth sense' tells you a fish has mouthed the fly.

Takes

Grayling takes can be very fast indeed. I think they often suck in and eject a Nymph rather like roach and carp. They have a mouth structure that should allow them to do this. The number of fish you catch by sighting their takes far out-numbers those that are actually felt. Or put it this way: if most of your fish are felt on the take (as if you were using what coarse fishermen call a bolt rig), then you are missing many more that have gone unnoticed. If you come from a background of watching for takes while Nymph fishing with a floating line on stillwaters, or those lovely takes on the 'hang' while drift fishing, the subtle grayling takes to dead-drifted Bugs are registered more readily than if you rely on feeling for takes. I consider that three out of four, possibly five, grayling I catch on Bugs result from an active strike to an indication of a take.

Detection

Another common extension to the method incorporates some form of buoyant take-detection, a strike indicator. I do not like these, firstly because they look crude and certainly interfere with the control I need over my Nymphs as they drop down the current, and secondly because they are usually not allowed in competition under International rules. The most we are allowed is a short fluorescent sleeve at the tip of the fly line. And this actually is perfectly adequate for the detection of even subtle takes. Usually, the line tip just stops briefly in its passage, or begins to draw away upstream. It might be the river bed, weed or a fish. Or an autumn leaf!

Bugging

British competitive anglers have been hugely influenced by the Eastern Europeans, and the success of the Czech Nymphing method on many of our rivers has been disseminated beyond the realms of competition. If I meet another angler on the winter banks of my home water, the River Eden, he is most likely to be using a variation of the Eastern European approach, the variation being an adaptation which leads to better results on the particular type of grayling holding water we have on Eden. This last point is arguable, and believe me, it is argued among aficionados of this method. When my friend Stuart Minnikin, who recently qualified for the first time for the England Rivers team, visited me for some fishing on the Eden, he commented on my swinging of the grayling Bugs in the water downstream of me.

"Why do you do that?" he asked. "Because here on the Eden I catch a lot of grayling by doing it," I explained.

"That's not real Czech Nymphing, though," he elucidated; "and it doesn't work so well on the Ure."

And there lies the point; I have adapted the Eastern European approach to meet the needs of a particular water. I won't even call it Czech Nymphing - if you like Bugging will do.

Unbeatable

I think we are bound to carry on developing this 'bugging' approach to grayling fishing, though I also suspect that we will revert increasingly to classical Czech Nymphing: a dead drift on a very short, tight line from upstream to no further than a yard or two downstream of the angler's position. On the right sort of water (those pool heads and pacey runs) this standard, unadulterated approach is completely unbeatable, quantitatively and qualitatively superior to any other method or variation. It is on the 'non-ideal' water, such as very rapid flows or, conversely, deep and slow sections, where variation is warranted. And, let's face it, there is a lot of water in this country which falls into the latter description, and which holds a lot of grayling.