Rainbow trout - Ahrex Hooks

Troutman Hex

The fly tying season is well underway and everywhere flies are tied and the boxes are filled for the upcoming season and for the adventures out by the water.

We have just passed Christmas and started the new year when a package arrived at the office – a nicely decorated package box containing a belated Christmas present from the USA with contents that really impressed us. Two nice decorated boxes containing some very nice, brightly colored and especially foam flies – the famous Sam’s One Bug that have been developed for bass fishing in the USA.

*Even the box was decorated with a beautiful drawing of the Sam’s One Bug*

*What an amazing package from Wade Bleven – son of late Craig “Sam” Blevins.*

The package came from the late Craig “Sam” Blevins son Wade Blevins, who is working to continue the story of one of the most famous foam flies for bass. We’ll turn the word over to Wade Blevins:

Rounding off Hökensås

As you know from last week’s blog, a handful of us were at Hökensås Sportsfiske last weekend. Søren, Martin and myself together with some friends, Kirsten, John and Klaus and we had a great time. We enjoyed the fantastic nature reserve that houses the some 25 lakes that Hökensås Sportsfiske manages. And of course the high quality fishery and fish. Stocked lakes, yes, but far from easy. We ended on Sunday with dead calm conditions, which made the fishing quite difficult for everyone (except Håkan and Marcus, of course). I spent the better part of the day, wasting time I’ll never get back trying to catch a trout on a dry fly.

Hökensås Trout Safari

About a month ago we posted a blog about this years Trout Safari at the Hökensås fishery I Sweden. You have seen dozens of pictures from the place. It’s Håkan’s home water and a place where Morten likes to bring his camera. Small forest lakes with rainbows and a varied fishery. A great place for beginners as well as the experienced. Here you can gain your first experiences casting and fishing a fly as well as hone your skills on specific techniques.

Nymphs

Mayflies, caddis, damsels, stone flies and other water insects appear in a variety of sizes, colours and shapes. What they all have in common is that their nymphal stage lasts a year (for some more), while the winged, adult stages are very short in comparison. Logic dictates that the nymphal stages of different water insects are far more important as a good source on a yearly basis than the winged, adult ones. Many of us prefer catching trout and grayling when they’re visibly rising, but nymph fishing is just as fun and will catch fish when the dry fly doesn’t.

Weighted softhackles

Soft hackles, also commonly called spiders, are traditionally unweighted flies fished on, in or just under the surface film. Simple flies most often consisting of only a body and a hackle, every now and then a rib. They can be as deadly as they are simple.

Caddisflies

The sight of a beautiful trout or grayling rising majestically to the surface inhaling an insect is the highlight of many flyfishers dream – the sight that drives us off to the water again and again.

Phryganea Grandis

Many flyfishers are looking for the time when the big mayflies, E. Danica and E. vulgata, start to hatch in late spring and early summer. The image of a big newly hatched mayfly dun swirling down the stream or standing on the surface of a small lake, is for many of us the true picture of what flyfishing is all about. And it is great fun to see, when also the biggest fish lower their guard and start chasing those big flies. But in Stillwater, there as time that are even more fun to experience and that’s when the big Caddis flies begin to show, running the surface to safer ground.

The Mayfly

Not mayflies as such – but the mayfly, the E. Danica and it’s stillwater relative, E. Vulgata are hatching now – or will be in a matter of days. Writing a blog can be many things and repetitive to a degree is one of them. There are seasonal highlights that deserve a spot on the blog every year and I believe we’ve covered the big mayfly hatch every year since the blog began.

Pop-pop-pop

There are many fly fishers and many have different tastes and preferences. Salmon on the hitch, grayling on a deep nymph, trout on streamers and so on. But I think all fly fishers enjoy visible, vicious takes on the surface, whether on a foam beetle or a popper. Right now is perfect pop-pop-pop-time.