Flyfishing FWSW

My holiday was pretty ok but alas it could not last forever.
Now I still had three day tickets left for the mill pool, in this case Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

The session on Wednesday fell through the roof as one of my friends sold me firewood
which needed proper storing … it took longer than expected so fishing was off.

Today I went ahead to the mill pool and was shocked at what I  saw, the pool full of leaves
and white foam lines on the water.

As it had not rained properly since April the drought had reached epic proportions.
The water had an eerie tannic color probably caused by the leaves.

Normally the river would be flushed by the frequent rains in fall but now nothing.
I found the water level in the pool high, all the leaves blocked the flow at the end of the

pool. Before I could do any fishing I made an opening at the lower end of the pool so
some of the leaves could be flushed out.

It worked out pretty well as after an hour or so some open spaces appeared.
A nymph dropped right under the main weir yielded a variety of roach and dace.

I had figured the last week of the trout season and thus the last week of the mill
pool being open would be quiet but I had not calculated school vacations.
So before long other anglers appeared, I was not sure if the lead bombs they tossed
where intended to hit me standing at the opposite bank or if they were just bad casters.

These anglers where more busy watching their smartphones than the floats they fished.
So the fish got scared and nobody was catching anything anymore.

I decided to move downstream to see if there was a quiet spot to fish and there was but
just no fish to be seen.
When after a while I came back at the mill pool I noticed that the competition had gone.

Peace and quiet at last … and fish started rising.
The overgrown banks where the spot to go as I had numerous bites there catching
a few rudd and at last some pretty decent brown trout.

When the sun was gone I went to pub for dinner, it all worked out fine at the end.

Usually I would be spending my holiday by now in Southwest Florida but the
environmental problems caused by dumping polluted freshwater into the Gulf
and the Atlantic caused a change in plans.

Instead I decided to go to nearby Germany and spend two weeks troutfishing
at the Wenne river.
Maybe a bit too long for the short river stretch but the pampering at the hotel
made up for some of the lesser days of fishing.
I did get the big fish, even caught a few decent grayling and had the most
beautifull fall weather you could imagine.
The down side was the very low river but then again as it had not rained
properly since April of this year that problem was present at most locations.

Another day spend at the mill pool where the action was fast and furious in the first
couple of hours.
The rainbow trout responded well to the nymphs but after a while the bites died down
and I switched to streamer fishing.
The midday action was close to zero allthough the worm anglers who appeared mid day
cleared out quite a few rainbows from the pool.
I had a faint hope of some rising fish in the evening but the crowds stayed too long to
make that happen … too much racket on the banks.
Where have those brown trout only gone …

It is that time of year again … fishing the mill pool.
We where on a roll at the start but soon the action died down, totally.
In the end it we caught our limits and some more, a fine day.

There is a saying here over the border “Reale Welt … Ponyhof” which roughly means
life is not always perfect which could cover todays fishing.

As no meaningfull rain has fallen the local stream is still at its lowest level and frankly
it seems the fish have gone in the upper reaches.
All I could manage was a small roach and the tiniest gudgeon of the season.

In a last ditch effort I fished a slow moving stretch inside a village hoping for rising dace.
The sun was already low in the sky so spotting fish was difficult but I found an army of
dace in the surface and the first cast was a direct hit.
Off course all the racket dispersed the remaning fish in all directions so that spot was
ruined.
The last spot I fished was already void of sunshine and pretty dead so I called it a day
early.

For a change I visited the upper section of my stream and well it still was pretty miserable
due to the low water conditions.
The levels had risen slightly but the water was still murky and almost stagnat.

It was very windy with rain mixed in so the dry fly fishing was not really an option.
As fishing the nymphs got me nowwhere and I could still spot fish in the surface of the
murky water I decided to give the dry fly a shot.

The first dace came from a distance to intercept the fly, a cautious bit but a bite nonetheless.
I tried to pick up some dace from a slow moving stretch that was out of the wind but
I just could not connect to the fish, again very cautious fish.
As I spotted so many yellow jacket I wonderered where they came from and soon noticed
a hole in the river bank dotted with them … nasty critters and a dangerous location near
a public footpath.

Near a brigde I spotted some very large dace but the wind and waves where making
my life difficult, with some luck I managed one fish from the school and that was it.
Other locations further afield only yielded tiny roach on nymphs and a few small
brown trout, guess without a decent amount of water the fishing stay like this.

I went on a late trip to the Harz mountains at the very end of the season. I knew fish where not stocked anymore and fall was around the corner.
The native fish where small and dark colored. Mixed in where hatchery fish of larger size and lighter colors.
I loved the fishery for the native fish in this rugged landscape.