 Hi everyone, in this vlog I'm on Dorchester Fishing Club stretch to the River Froome, the most Wesley chalk stream that we have in England, and home to the British record Grayling. My aim for today is to try and beat my personal best, which is a pound and a half, and I'm going to be fly fishing for them. I have had a three pound two ounce fish, but that was trotting with maggots during flood conditions. The first thing I noticed as I jumped out of the car was all these things, all these little bugs, they're everywhere. And having seen those little beetles I've grabbed my attempt at, well I suppose they'd be Kochibundu, so peacock curl underneath and foam on top, maybe that'll catch. We've had a lot of rain recently so I've got some Flexiworms and it's September, so you can't really go without a Daddy Long Legs pattern. The lockdown period gave me a chance to try some various bugs, shrimps, also some classics like the red tag, gold-grouped hares here, and some drys, so it's like an F fly variant, Adam's Parachute, and that's a shrimp on a barbie. I have a guest with me today and he's a complete purist. He was offended when I asked him if he wanted to borrow some polarised glasses. Good on him I say. The other one that came here used three flies and all caught three or four pound fish on a regular basis. It'd be too pressured. If I blank today I'm actually doing those fish a favour aren't I? Somehow we'll try and get the line upstream with this monstrously long leader, which I may have to shorten actually having just tied the flies on, into a tree, it's not a star. Well this was my banker spot, plenty of minnows, some nice gravel, perhaps I spooked them, perhaps they weren't here in the first place. With it being so low and so shallow we'd think they would hold up in the deepest pools, whereas the trout you'd think would be in the shallow water where there's no oxygen. Perhaps they're hidden away, perhaps they're not feeding. Oh no, all those doubts have started. I've spotted a fish but I think it's a trout. Let's have a go at it anyway. Yes, he's on. I'm not going to win any prizes. A for swinging it in. B for touching it with dry hands but if I'm quick. My guest mark has seen nothing rising and comes back and tells me he's decided to call it a day. As he sat down, two huge grayling was spooked, the first big fish that I'd seen all day. So buoyed by that sighting and the fact that I no longer had someone upstream of me spooking fish, my spirits were lifted and I made my way up river quickly. These fish are so spooky, the grayling are tucked underneath all the ranunculus, not showing at all, and the trout that are about spooking within me getting 20 feet of them, 20, 30 feet and they're gone. They're seeing me before I can see them. Yeah, I think I need to shorten the leader down and present a fly to them in the traditional manner. So that's what I'm going to do. A little bit smaller, a little bit more subtle and a little bit more natural looking. I was kicking myself because I'd made a big mistake by insisting on a Euro nymphing approach, shortening the leader and using the fly line to carry a lighter fly had almost instant results. Anyone that follows my vlogs knows I've got a bit of a thing for adipose fins. There's it's adipose, I'll have to keep it real. Caddysnymph, so there's it's ballast to keep it anchored and there's it's home. Finally, I was into a good fish and it was a grayling. Just as I got the net ready to slip under it, it threw the hook. I couldn't help but think I'd probably had my one and only chance and blown it. Bloody size of it. Get in! Biker Rumba, that's enormous. I don't know who needs oxygen or me or him to hook out. What an absolute lump. What a fish. Now I can go home. I couldn't have asked for a better ending than that. If you enjoyed the vlog please subscribe, press the notification button. If you didn't, well maybe you'll like the next one so press it anyway because I'm an all-rounder and I don't just fly fish. Thanks for watching.