Photo: Matt Guymon / Freestone Rivers Photography.
If you’re fly fishing for trout and grayling, you won’t get far without a good imitation of both mayflies and caddis. In the books and online there are literally hundreds of specific patterns and styles to choose from. Some of them we’ve featured here on the blog and some on our YouTube-channel, but I don’t think we’ve ever touched on the X-Caddis and the Sparkle Dun.
Continue reading “Essentials”
“Wake me up when September ends” is a song by Green Day, but if you happen to sleep through September, you’re missing out. Septembervej is a great month for a lot of reasons. But one of them is the Daddy Long Legs. They are busy right now, because it’s getting late for them to mate and lay their eggs. Much like mayflies, they don’t live for long after they emerge from the pupa, although a mayfly would think they live forever. Some mayflies live for just hours, Daddy Long Legs for up to two weeks.
It’s the middle of August and some of us (myself at least) are looking forward to cooler weather and autumn fishing. Autumn is by far my favourite time of year and has plenty to offer in terms of fishing. One thing that some tend to overlook is the fact that hatches of both may flies and caddis can pick up a little and offer some surface action. At this exact time, I’d concentrate my effort in the evenings and early night. Just as sea trout, big browns like big flies fished just under the surface (just letting you know).
Continue reading “Burned Wings”
Late summer, early autumn and proximity to water leaves one certainty in life. Midges! Som love them (very few), some hate them (most) and some endure them (fly fishers). As fly fishers we must love them. Yes, sometimes there are so many that it’s impossible to do anything. You can go prepared – bug stopper clothing, repellant, mosquito net over the head and that helps. But dole always find their way in anyway. Especially the “knot” that most Scandinavians know. The smallest creature on the planet that can drive a seasoned anglers to insanity!
Continue reading “Midges”
Sometimes we are asked if more hook models are needed, as we already have a justifiable number in our range. The answer to the question is both no and yes. No, because the hooks we have already developed cover the vast majority of situations that we fly fishermen can be exposed to. But the question can also be answered with yes, as new fly models are constantly appearing, but also ways to tie the flies on the hook.
Håkan Karsnäser has written this blog about the subject “small flies, big hooks”
Continue reading “Small flies, big hooks”
It’s the middle of may and the most important hatch of the year is on. At least in Northern Europe. There are plenty of hatches in the World, where huge insects hatch that can bring the big ones to the surface. In Europe, it’s the Ephemera danica and it’s slightly smaller still water cousin, Ephemera vulgata.
Stoneflies are truly fascinating insects. The fully developed form as we know it today is up to 250 million years old. They are widely distributed and unless you’re fishing on Antartica, it’s likely that there are stoneflies in a river near you. There are over 3000 species registered across globe and they come on all sizes. Some of them are huge, some are very small. If you happen to be an insect nerd and enjoy chasing small critters and can’t wait for the season to get started, there’s actually a lovely small stonefly, Capnia bifrons, that hatches while there’s still snow on the banks.
Photo: Matt Guymon / Freestone River Photography.
By far the first insects to appear on the scene when spring arrives are the stoneflies. They start moving even before all the snow and ice is gone. Ice fishing anglers can sometimes be visited by small stonefly nymphs, which crawl out of the holes in the ice they are fishing in. Especially if they are fishing near an outlet of a lake or near a flowing water. Because flowing water is the home of stoneflies, they are adapted to living in and near running water.
Continue reading “Stoneflies”
Today we’re pleased to let you know about a movie that our friend, Markus Hoffman, made about his summer fishing in Northern Sweden. It’s a beautiful movie capturing the essence of what it’s like being in the wild of Northern Sweden. Not only fishing there – also just being there.
I’ll let Markus tell you a bit about the movie and recommend you watch it. I really enjoyed it.
Continue reading “The Riverbank”
Most of us probably have too many fly tying materials. Do we really need it all? Certainly not, not least because some materials are good for many different flies if you are a little creative. Finding substitutes for original materials became necessary already around the turn of the century, because many materials became hard to get.
