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Radoslav Kiskinov

The smart fish - Grailing

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Hi, everybody,

 

What's up, guys?

 

I have not been writing for a long time. I had some story to share with you.

Firs I want to begin with a flyfishing trip for grailing in Serbia.

I was there for 4 days and spent a goood time for fishing with some friends of mine. The target was one very smart and fighting fish - the grailing.

 

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There, we were fishing on the biggest river I have ever fished - Drina River. It is boarder river for Serbia and now Bosna and Hertsegovina.

 

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The river is very wide about 100 to 200 yards on some places, and is having grailing, brown, rainbow trout and taimen.

 

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Our target was the grailing, we do not have them in Bulgaria, and I had never caught that fish before.

We practiced dry fly fishing.

Because the fish is looking like a hawk, damn looking fish, I am telling you, it is necessary to use thin tippet and small flies.

 

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The grailing is bottom standing fish and have all tha way to go to the top of the flow, that is why it miss the fly some times.

 

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It was very exciting to catch a fish, when you cast at almost all the line distance of 90 ft.

 

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The mouth of the fish is small and down side of the head and some times the hook was going out of it.

 

Oh, guys, I am sorry, I have to stop the story, I need to go now, but will write you when I come back.

 

... to be continued <_<

 

Best regards!

 

Radoslav Kiskinov - The Shark

 

 

 

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Tle last part of the story...

 

Well, we used, as I said, flies tied on # 16 to 20. All the flies were tied with Cul De Canard material for the wings, which is very good for this kind of flies. The flies immitates little caddis and mayflies.

 

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The interesting thing was, each cast was not exactly perpendicular on the flow, but with an angle downstream. So, each time I cast the fly, I had to throw over the line and let the fly go first, and after that the leader. The grailing has very good sight and do not take the fly if the tippet is going first, very smart fish.

 

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Sometimes, early in the the mornings the Drina River is with mist, and you do not see anything but white vapour. You hear the splashing rising of the fish, but you can not see them and just shoot by chance.

Lucho Minev, a friend of mine, made some pictures of the misty river and under water, using his water resist camera.

 

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The Serbian grailing is from the european tipe of grailing. There is arctic one also, which is living in waters of Canada, Rusia, and some countries of Asia.

So, still there are some questions for me about this fish, the way that it misses the fly sometimes, and taking it in excact moment. May be it depends on its behaviour, its tipe of rising for flies, standing perpendicular under the surface scanning the fly careful.

But what I can say for sure is, that if the fish hit the fly, it is getting interesting...

 

Best regards!

 

Radoslav Kiskinov - The Shark

 

P.S. Hi, Redwings1,

You should try this fish, it is fascinating, full of emotions.

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Radoslav,

 

Sounds like a great trip. I have had the fortune of fishing the artic grayling here in the states, on a stream located in the Rockies which has the biggest grayling in the lower forty eight states.

One thing I noticed fishing them in slow waters at close distance, is that there strike/take is very slow and deliberate. It is very easy to pull the hook away from them before they actually take the fly.

 

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I have read Geirach's writing about grayling fishing in high elevation western mountain lakes. He seems to have somewhat of a thing for them. The fish he wrote about seemed to be long forgotten ancestors of planted fish as I remember. They aren't native to the mountain west are they?

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You are right regarding the arctic greyling in the U.S., many of the of the populations are remnants of introduction. However, their lower distribution limit is reported to be in the upper reaches of the Missouri river drainage around the Great Falls region of northern Montana.

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