Flyfishing FWSW

That sudden heat had to come with a price = thunderstorms.
Luckily it came at the end of my fishing session.
It poured for a while but I was already safely at the pub.

The rare perch (in my stream) chased a dace I had caught on the dry fly.
I switched to a streamer and made a few exploratory casts in the general area where I had seen the perch.
Found the perch and this time it chased the streamer, got the fish.
Missed two trout in the afternoon but hooked a good one just before the rains started.

A good day.

Friday cold and rain, today hot and sunny.
Lots of mayflies about but not a lot of surface feeding fish.
Checked out the chub haunts and only found fish at a few spots.
No luck catching the big ones but happy I spotted a few very decent fish. Gonna try again when the weather is warmer and more stable.

With the improving weather I visited my chub hotspot, not hot yet.
Tried several spots at different rivers but I guess still to early.
I could only muster small roach and chub on most stretches.
Even the removed weir was void of big fish.
At the newly “restored” section of the feeder stream I noticed a lot of surface activity and an abundance of mayflies.

Used a dry fly to see what was hitting but it turned out to be small bleak
instead of the hoped chub.
My last option was to fish the nymph and that brought a somewhat larger
chub to hand.
With the weather getting warmer and mayflies abundant next weekend could be interesting.

I once again visited the Harz mountains, a tad early in the season.
The organizer of this trip had set the date to May 2nd. probably forgetting the fact that the 1st of May was a public holiday in Germany = crowds.
The other drawback this year was the fact that a cold snap was forecast with the possibility of snow and off course low temperatures.

I had hoped to toss dry flies with the cane rod to rising brown trout but with the cold weather I thought that nymphing would be the only viable option to catch fish.
Fishing was not always easy and sizewise I did not get into any large fish but on a positive note we checked out some spots we had not visited in all those years we visited this area.

My best fishing spot turned out to be the very industrial section of the river along a quarry where chalk was produced, noisy and dusty as hell but amazingly a lot of grayling in that section.
The mining and heavy industry of today and the past had sure left enought traces in the landscape.
If you could collect all the iron hardware dumped in the river you could make a pretty penny.

The trip lasted four days with the first day being the warmest.
After that the temps plummeted and finally light snow and hail fell with temperatures close to freezing.
Despite the weather fish where still active now and then so it was not that bad afterall.
Wished I could have stayed a bit longer as the trout became active in the afternoon and some fish where rising.

It was quite cold day with rain in the afternoon and again very windy.
The morning was sort of ok and I could spot some dace in the surface and
drop a F-fly in their path resulting in a few hookups.
I could not spot any trout and nymphing yielded only a small roach.

As I received good intel on the whereabouts of trout I tried the spot I was told about in the late afternoon when the weather had calmed and the rain had stopped.
The first trout spotted me first and took off.
Trout nr. 2 was rising a few times under the bank so I knew the location of the fish.
Casting from shore was impossible due to trees and shrubs so I had to enter the water.
I carefully positioned myself for the cast and dropped the dry fly in the current letting it drift towards the spot where I suspected the trout was.
The trout nailed the dry fly hard and after several jumps I could land the last fish of the day.

Quite a different picture than last week as the temperature had dropped 10 degrees and it was raining most of the day.
Tried nymphing in the village but got hardly any bites, also could not spot the fish like I did last week.
Two small dace where all I could muster and despite trying several locations I could not get the fish to bite.

Wind and rain chased me off the open spots into the woods but also had no luck there.
I ran across the stocking crew from the fishing club and helped them with stocking fingerling brown trout in some of the sheltered shallow section in the forest.

Since the fishing was not that great the only thing left to do was to get dinner at the pub.
As it was a tad chilly and wet outside the fireplace was lit, at least I could dry out.
On the menu today aspergus cream soup, parmesano burger and cherry cake …

There should be less rain tomorrow so I am going to try again and see if I can get some better fish to the surface.

Another hot spring day and this time I arrived early on my fishing location.
The windy weather continued and there was minimal surface actitivy in the morning.

A deep fished nymph yielded several roach from some pools.
When the sun was out the dry fly did take some dace but again debris
on the surface made the fish picky.
Lost one trout on the nymph but sight fished for another and hooked it in the end.
Quite a pleasant day to be fishing the stream.

Picture of the day was that of what I now know is an Andean goose, no idea how that bird ended up here.

It was a warm and quite windy day with a lot of insect activity .
I spotted a lot of grannom and hawthorn flies so I tied on a CDC F-fly and went looking for rising or surface feeding fish.
There was a lot of debris on the water and the fish which I spotted where
rather picky.
I managed to catch a few dace but a lot of offerings where bluntly ignored.
There where some larger fish in the slow moving stretch I fished which I
believed where trout as they behaved differently than the dace.
One of these fish was on stationary near the opposite bank I fished and
went for the F-fly as it came into view, unfortunately not a solid hookup.

With the arrival of the crowds I choose a more secluded spot and switched to fishing a small nymph.
I could spot a lot of fish behind some debris and caught several roach from under the submerged brushes.
Again I spotted a trout and got wind from the local anglers that the stretch had been recently stocked.
I ended the day in the forrest where surface activity dictated the use
of a dry fly.
Dace where feeding actively in one spot but I missed almost every take because these fish where so fast in taking the fly and rejecting it.
At one spot I missed the take of a larger trout but when I returned a while later and had a second go I got a good hookup.
The warm weather has been good for the fishing and I expect to see more
activity in the coming time.

It was pretty cold in the morning, temperature near freezing.
The white herons where freezing their backsides off in a pasture on my side of the border … all that white and sunshine was too much for the camera so the pics turned out pretty bad.
At the stream it was windy and cold and fish where not active.
All I could muster was a small roach and a dace.

In the village I spotted some carp in the no fishing section and had
a few bites on the nymph but nothing stayed on.
When I moved to a new spot I noticed that I was missing the tip section of my rod, probably lost on the way somewhere.
I tracked back but could not find the tip section so the fishing session was over.

I did put out a call to the local flyfisherman in case somebody finds it but my best hope right now would be the spare part warehouse of Orvis for a replacement.

The weekend was weatherwise pretty miserable but next week the warmth will return and as I had spotted one swallow today hopes are high for good weather.

Out and about on this sunny warm en sometimes windy day.
The only thing that sucked today was the brook lamprey I encountered at the stream.
The decision to fish the urban setting did pay off as I found plenty of fish, just a shame I missed that larger trout that took my indicator.
The line kept running so I set the hook hoping the trout had taken the nymph .. appearantly not … i’ll be back.