Thank you to accomplished angler Nathan Walter for sending us some of his lovely photos of recent Grayling, all caught on a Drennan Matchpro Ultralight 14ft rod.

Nathan has made a number of trips to the Welsh / English border region, where there are some excellent venues with lots of deep pools, gravel runs and riffles, to fish for specimen Grayling. Some excellent catches have been the reward, with a number over 2lb up to 2lb 11oz. He describes his rod of choice for the campaign as his pride and joy; a Drennan Matchpro Ultralight 14ft, which he teams with a Youngs Bob James centrepin reel loaded with 3lb Drennan floatfish line.

End tackle generally consists of a small stick float with the shot bulked about 18-24″ from a Kamasan B983 hook with the barb crushed and carrying double red maggot, which he rates as a deadly grayling hook. A No 6 dropper shot is used 6 inches from the hook. Nathan likes to wade (carefully!) where possible in order to fish deep runs below large riffles, so that he can just ease the float through, holding back occasionally to allow the bait to flutter up enticingly. Feeding maggots is done “little and often”.

“The Matchpro Ultralight has made such a difference to the amount of fish I bump off. I now have a far greater success rate and I might add this rod has been used with hooklinks down to 1lb 8oz and I’ve taken chub to over 5lbs, dace to 14oz, roach to 1lb 4oz, numerous 2lb+ grayling up to 2lb 11oz and even barbel to 10lb 5oz on a 2.8lb bottom!” Nathan told us. For full details on the rod click here.

Nathan has his own excellent fishing blog here, including an excellent review (in the ‘Product Reviews’ section), on the Matchpro Ultralight rod. This was written after his own extensive personal use of the rod.