We’re heading into the cold season and when fly fishing for sea trout in Scandinavia, most fly fishers turn to provocative flies. Chartreuse, orange and especially pink are important colours. This really is a development that began taking place in Denmark in the late 1980s, particularly in and around Mariager Fjord in the middle of Jutland.
The inner part of fjord is fairly brackish and water replacement is low, so if to heats up a little, it often stays “warm” for a little while. It almost holds sea trout and as every other trout, they get lazy, don’t feed much and become hard to catch. The pink deal really began with a fly called Pinky Pain, a relatively simple streamer with a pink over wing of organza. As in so many other areas of fly fishing – very little new under the sun.
But it’s really not a all what I want to write about today. It is in fact the exact opposite – imitation. I enjoy catching fish, we all do. And sometimes I simply find that imitation is better than provocation. Winter fish are often found in shallow water. It’s amazing how many can swim around that you never see, until you, maybe by “accident” catch one and find out they’re there. That’s because they’re not hunting, just swimming lazily about. In other cases they show themselves and it happens that you find schools of trout that will stay in the same area for a long times. When you see them it’s often because they’re on the hunt.
The reality is that in those situations they ofte not picky a all and will take most flies. But for me there’s a certain satisfaction in catching them on imitations. Some prey is around all year, some is seasonal and one that’s around all year is sculpins (or gobies). Ever since fly fishing for sea trout in the salt in the late 1960s fly fishers have know that and used it. It just happens that a sea trout rarely will refuse that well presented sculpin imitation.
I almost never put weight on mine, because I need to be able to fish in shallow water. If I need them deeper over, well, deeper water I’ll stick on an intermediate line – maybe even a fast sink tip. I usually put on a resin head which does add a little weight.
There are of course several other food items that are present all year and we’ll cover some of them in later blogs.
Since the imitations are important, we also have a good handful of the on our Youtube channel.
STF Baitfish by Jan “Kenobi” Nachtical:
Why not try a mature style fly like this from Christian Krogh:
Here is Rasmus Ovesens Cutt Throat Gobius, a version with a Petitjean Magic Head. Is does well wiithout the Magic Head as well. A relatively old pattern that has proven itself well:
And finally a small nice Redhead Kutling by Svenja Bossen.
