Continuing the series of presentation of core personnel in and around Ahrex Hooks, today it’s time for “the other Swede”, the fly tying Force of Nature, Andreas Andersson. I’m sure most of you already know Andreas (I can at least that his videos are some of the most popular on our YouTube-channel). Andreas is known world-wide for his big-streamer-fly-tying.
Big flies for big fish (and big trout).
I first met Andreas at the Danish fly festival. It was Friday evening. We had been busy all day. Setting up both the Ahrex stand as well as the Flyfish Europe stand. We arrived back in the rented cabin, where a bunch of us stayed. Andreas arrived late during the evening, straight from Sweden. A very long drive. We had dinner, had a few drinks and most of us turned in quite early. We were tired from setting up and needed to be fresh for the next day (you know, we are responsible professionals). And Andreas? He got out his fly tying kit and tied a handful of his big, elaborate streamers. He had an order to fill and needed to warm up for the following day, as he said. And that was after a 6-7 hour drive.
Apart from being a very productive fly tier, he’s also an amazingly skilled fly tier, perhaps particularly so when it comes to spinning (and packing) deer hair.
With precise thread control, Andreas can pack and stack deer hair to make patterns, spots, stripes – you name it. Obviously heavily inspired from the American big trout streamer tradition, Andreas is also gaining quite a popularity in America. His skills make him quite the attraction at shows.
Deer Hair Mouse:
Andreas probably enjoys fishing his big streamers after trout the most (at home as well as in the US). But he also enjoys pike ont he fly and the odd adventure along the Swedish coastlines after sea trout.
Craft Fur Baitfish:
At Ahrex Andreas is the man behind the design of our Trout Predator-series. I previously told the story about how the design began as a sketch on a napkin – you can read it here. His fishing experience and thousands of big streamers had left him with some particular design ideas that ultimately became the Trout Predator series.
Andreas demonstrating at a show how he spins deerhair on a Dahlberg Diver for Rainy Riding.
You can often meet Andreas at the shows we attend and if you’re interested, he’s featured in numerous videos on our YouTube-channel.