Sometimes one has to spend a little time thinking about the subject of a blog entry. That’s not the case today. May 1st is the day when pike (in fresh water) is once again given free and we’re allowed to fish for them again. While some are left in the office packing orders and others are behind the computer writing blogs, Morten is of course on the lake, fishing for pike.
Imagine an English gentleman and his wife, in a beautiful, big Jaguar with two 17’ Falcon split cane fly rods strapped to the roof, driving down a small access road to a majestic, Norwegian river and you have an image of inventor of what is one of the most succesful flies of the 20th century.
Dry fly fishing is fascinating and I’m quite certain that all fly fishers agree. Watching a fish slowly and confidently sip down an imitation is, for me at least, the pinnacle of fly fishing. But alas, trout don’t always rise. In fact I suppose it’s correct to say that most of the time, they don’t. If you’re a die hard dry fly fisher, you wait (and perhaps cry a little) and you stay home during the cold months. I personally love dry fly fishing for trout and grayling, but I don’t stay home during the cold months, and I don’t (always) spend a day at the river, waiting for the 45 minutes at noon when the temperature rises just enough for a short burst off insect hatches.
Photocredit: The Flyfishing Nation
At the time of writing this, there is exactly two weeks until the Danish salmon rivers open on April 16th and naturally, my mind has been drifting towards salmon flies. This blog will be about salmon flies and so will the next with some recommendations on good flies for Danish salmon. But for now, I’m not thinking so much about flies for Danish salmon in particular, more about salmon fly traditions.
April 1st is just around the corner, and that means spring. After a winter with more rain than ever recorded before in Denmark, it’s been really strange that within a few days, we went from rain-rain-rain-endless-rain to clear skies (and frosty nights). None the less, even though fishing has been good all winter (pike and sea trout in the salt) because of the mild winter, the salt is certainly waking up and beautiful sea trout are being caught all over.
With the Covid-19 virus spread all around the globe, and many countries in different states of lock-down, some even under curfue, these are indeed strange times. In Denmark most workplaces are either shut down or kept running with a minimum of personnel. We are still here at Ahrex HQ – and we are well under government recommendations in terms of number of people in one location and we have plenty of space between us.
It’s Friday the 13th (!!!) and that means roughly two weeks left before pike are protected for a month or more (in Denmark, April 1st – April 30th in freshwater, April 1st – May 15th in saltwater – be sure to check your own areas and waters). So if you have the urge, maybe it’s time to get out there and see if you can find a couple of hungry pike.
At his time of the year the trophy for the coastal flyfisher is silver-coloured.
Over 20 years ago, I was visiting a small fly shop here in Denmark called “Fugl & Fjer Fluebinding”. Directly translated that means Bird and Feather Flytying. The shop was run by my good friend, Jens Pilgaard, and was essentially a specialty shop for materials for classic salmon flies. I didn’t tie classic salmon flies back then, but Jens’ shop was always a treat to visit, because one would always stumble over something new or strange to tie onto a hook.
It might sound a bit pretentious for a company as young as Ahrex to tell it’s story now, but we get a lot of questions on when, how, where, why and who when we’re on shows and from retailers and distributors. And prompted by J. Stockard, I decided to ask Søren and Morten some of these questions and let them tell the story.
Last weekend we attended there British Fly Fair international, which was, as always, an excellent and very well organised event.
