I have fished an awful lot of grayling rivers, I have also seen some mammoth fish spawning on the Teviot, the home of colossally big grayling. However, nothing comes close to the grayling that I saw on The Driffield Beck last week.
This river has more big grayling than I've ever seen, anywhere!
The big one, that moved to a pink shrimp and again to a size 20 PTN but took neither, was huge. I have seen several 4lb grayling and have even been lucky enough to catch one, this fish was much, much bigger. A big black male fish that was at least, 2ft long and about 4 inches across the back. It dwarfed several grayling swimming near by, one of which I caught that weighed just over 2lb 6oz.
In my mind there's now no other river in this country that has so many big grayling. Seriously, I thought the Tweed and Teviot fish were big, but these things!!
Does anyone know of a better river for big grayling?

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steve,
check out this link, http://www.riverannan.co.uk/
scroll down to bottom of page, and look at size of grayling there. Was even bigger one caught last year but returned, not weighed. Sister river nith has simillar sized fish, have caught 2 this year over 3lbs on nith whilst sea trout fishing at night!!
regards
bert.

I heard of a fish caught on my 'local river' that went over 5lbs. It was caught on a mepp and was as black as coal. This same river also produces some very special brown trout.

Walker

Well, in keeping with the thread title, how about the river Melgum? An Isla (Tay) tributary which yielded the official British grayling record of 7 lb 2 oz in 1949.

The British Record (Rod Caught) Fish Committee, in one of its attempts to ignore history, chose to start again with this species.

http://www.graylingland.com/news.html?47

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The upper Manifold in Derbyshire. Small stream, but with some big holes.

I've told this story before..................

I fished there several times a few years ago in low water and bright conditions. I was spectacularly unsuccessful and was wandering, as you do, looking for a rising fish I could cast to without being seen.
I found a small deep run and from the overhanging bank and behind bushes catapult-casted a #16 GRHE into it, vertically dowwards. As the fly was sinking this grayling rose from the depths, sucked in my fly, ejected it and sunk back down.

It was the size of a submarine.

Perhaps not, but it had to be 5lbs +.

DB

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That wouldn't happen with a Pridex

Over 10 years ago now,I was once a member of Leek and District AA and their water on the river Dove @ Dovedale... Upstream of the stepping stones, you come to a weir.. before you actually get to this weir, there is a high rocky area where you can peer over the edge and look into the river... very difficult to actually fish this part (deep overhanging etc etc) But, the size of some of these monster Grayling is awesome!! In the same mould as Stevie commented on!!

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Before you cast the fly, make sure you can handle the fish! Vuoi imbrogliare? Poi Non competere! (If you want to cheat, then dont compete)

I can vouch for the grayling in Driffield Beck. I too saw one in there that was absolutely massive. certainly 5lb plus, but as soon as i aerialised the line, he was gone. It seems there's lots of rivers holding big fish. why then do we not see these monsters on the bank>?

becuase they arent monsters when they are on the bank.

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http://141207.blogspot.com/
http://www.haddonestate.co.uk/rivers/rivers.php
http://www.thepeacockatrowsley.com/fishing.html

LOL - probably.