I was a bit late on this Sunday so there where already plenty people out and about
when I got at the water.
My first port of call was the spot where I would always guaranteed catch some roach.
Normally you could see the fish cruise in the shallow water but now the spot
seemed void of life.

Like so many day in this so called summer the wind was blowing in force.
Lots of debris covered the water, half the time the nymph I fished would be entangled
in blossom debris before it sank in the water.
Normally I would get hits near the Willow tree that covered the stream but on this
day the opposite bank was the ticket for the first couple of fish.

I had tied up some weighted buzzer type flies lately that worked pretty well with the fish.
The only drawback I noticed was the fact that the tinsel would be chewed off by the fish when they
hit the fly, the next versions will get a coat of bug bond.

The roach I caught where on the small side and I wondered where the big ones had gone.
When my indicator went down I felt something more massive swimming away with my
fly and was already thinking I had caught one of those really big roach.
To my surprise it turned out to be a brown trout, a rare visitor on that stretch of the stream.

I fished the spot thoroughly but no more fish came to the surface.
At a pool further upstream I noticed more fish but all where small and not interested in my flies.
I spotted two trout but they only only followed the fly probably protecting their lie rather than
intending to eat the fly.

Further sections upstream had fish but with the low water the fish would scatter before
I even was in the position to make a decent cast.
I was about to move to more secluded spots when I noticed upstream from a weir a pike.
The pike was very slowly moving in the middle of this slow flowing stretch of the stream that
had quite a population of tasty roach.
Unfortunately this was a sort of village green spot where lots of people would cycle along the
path that paralled the bank.
With no room to make a decent cast and so many people about I decided after a few failed
attempts to let the pike in peace.

My next stop was a spot in the middle of the forest where I had spotted trout on the last visit.
I saw a rising fish but could not determine which species.
With no room to cast I just flipped a little nymph into a bend and was rewarded with an instant
strike, Dace.

The dace where rather small though so I went on and looked for the trout.
I noticed that the stretch in the forest boasted a lot of mayflies, many of them
where landing on the water – and safely flew off again.

There was still a trout present but it spotted me first and retreated to a pile of debris in the
water.
I tried to coax it up with a streamer but failed, it would not come out to play.
When I tried the nymph I got constant hits of very small dace that where just nibbling at the fly.
After a while I got a hookup from another trout but it slipped of the hook.

While other parts of Germany where almost submerged my little stream had a definite shortage
of water as the banks become more exposed every week.

It was late in the day and as I had not eaten yet it was time to visit the pub, first though I would
take a look from the nearby bridge to see if any trout where visible.
A view from that bridge only revealed that some dace where milling around, I left them in peace.
After my well deserved break it was time to hit the road again.

In the morning the skies where blue with clouds but late afternoon the cloud cover got more thick.
It almost looked like it might rain allthough the weather people had not predicted that.
With the mayflies in mind I scouted some more upstream sections for rising fish, I saw none.
When I arrived at the last spot I would fish the first sprinkles fell, the forest sheltered me and
the stream from the rain but it was already pretty dark.

I probed a deadfall that lay in the water, there had to be a trout lying in hiding there.
A segde was carefully placed at the the edge of the tree and a trout shot out and tried to
get the fly – it missed however.
On the second attempt it just swam under the fly, I could see the bulge but the fish
hesitated.
More attempts followed but no response from the fish, still I knew it would take the fly at some point.
In the end perseverance paid off as the fish finally took the fly and I hooked it solidly.

Getting the last fish of the day on a dry fly was so they say the icing on the cake which I already
had at the pub to be precise 🙂
I took a last look at the green fields, smelled the fresh air and thought that I was privileged to
have such a nice place to fish close at thand.