Fishing the Grayling

THE peculiar and indescribable charm and fascination of grayling fishing has been realized by those few whose tastes lie in the direction of this preeminently winter pastime. The fish, indeed, has been designated the 'Lorelei' of the river, and rightly so. But there is this all-important difference between the German siren and the grayling: the former by her silvery voice enticed the unfortunate boatman to his doom, but the grayling, through the all-alluring interest it excites in the breast of the angler, falls in the end a victim to its own enchantments.
Once a grayling fisher always a grayling fisher may be well said of those who affect this branch of the piscatorial art, for when the die is once cast, when the cold-weather fly-fisher has foregone his old loves, the roach, chub, and pike, for a new love, the grayling, the passion not only endures but grows upon him as season after season comes round; and it is not surpassing strange that this should be so.