The trout season is coming to end end, at least if your’re a topwater/dry fly fisherman and many rivers and lakes close down for the winter. But it’s still September and although there are very few mayflies hatching now, there’s still some caddis, but also an abundance of terrestrials – or land insects. They are at their prime now.
The Butcher, proberbly the best known classic wet fly – tied by Håkan Karsnäser.
When fly tiers and fly fishers think about “mallard wings”, I suppose that most of us have the image of a classic spey fly with its low set roof shaped wing of the beautiful (and impossible) brown- and black speckled feathers from a mallard’s wing.
Two words for the same insect – an insect that is quite important to the trout- and grayling fisherman. In fact probably even more important than the mayflies since there are so many more species of caddis than there are mayflies. Like the mayflies they are important both as nymphs, emergers and adults and imitations are plentyful.
On southern Fyn (the isle in the middle of Denmark, which happens to have some extraordinarily good sea trout fishing) you’ll find a rarity – at least in Denmark. No, it is in fact something as ordinary as a fishing lodge. There plenty of fishing lodges around the world, and yet, Denmark Fishing Lodge on the edge of Helnæs Bay on Fyn was the first, full-service fishing lodge in Denmark.
YouTube, Instagram and the internet in general is a vast and frankly quite incredible source of information. It can help everyone move forward in a new hobby (like fly fishing) very quickly and new knowledge is shared and presented at lightning pace. I generally believe that is good and there’s no doubt that the sharing mentality is helped along greatly by outlets like YouTube (and of course, we believe that our own YouTube channel is a good source of information and inspiration).
With only about two months delay, summer has finally arrived (some would say struck) here in Denmark and while that might not be good for most of the fishing, it “is” good for some of it.
We’re proud of our Scandinavian roots, so hooks for Scandinavian saltwater were the first we released. Pike on the fly also has a long tradition in Scandinavia, and I know he’s not going to like this, but it has to be said – Morten was one of the pioneers over 30 years ago and has been very influential in developing the fishing and the flies, so pike hooks were just as important to us.
Our Swedish friend, Joel Skoghäll once again has provided us with some material for the blog that we’re very happy share. This time, a cripple-version of one of the most famous American dry flies, the classic Adams. The fly is a old one – from 1922, where Michigan fly tyer Leonard Halladay tied it on the request of his friend, Charles F. Adams. The classic Adams is a traditionally hackled dry fly with upright, hackle-tip wings. A parachute-version is a well known variation and here, Joel presents a crippled merger version.
I’ll give the word to Joel:
Rackelhanen is an unusual fly, originated by the Swedish trout- and grayling legend, Kenneth Boström in 1967. Kenneth Boström is well known in Scandinavia and originator not only of this quite excellent fly, but also the Rackelhanen fly rod, which is/was a three-piece rod with a split cane bottom section and two carbon fiber tip sections.
A signature is something personal, be it the name you sign under legal documents, an artistic style, an icon, a sign, a seal – something personalised. In fly fly tying it can be a material, a style, a certain technique or a special fly.
