Not the missile – at all, but a hook. A stinger hook is defined by it’s shape (as most hooks), it’s placement in the fly and the way it’s attached to the hook. Stinger hooks are short, have a fairly deep bend and are up-eyed. The up-eye is important and I’ll get back to that. Stinger hooks can be used a different ways. They can be the one hook and a fly or they can be used as a two-hook-setup, most commonly on long flies.
Perhaps the most famous of the classic salmon flies? Perhaps the one with the most variants and modern interpretations? If one ever were to answer that one question that no fly fisher ever wants to answer, the answer could be Thunder and Lightning. Let’s take a closer look at this beautiful combination of black, orange, blue and dark brown, colours.
A century ago it wasn’t uncommon, in fact it was the norm, to fish for salmon with huge hooks. Size 2/0 was a small one and when hauling from boats, size 6/0 up to 8/0 were used. Although the rods were long and made of green heart and the lines heavy, I doubt they could cast an 8/0 salmon iron from the bank. On the other hand, a certain Alexander Grant made a witnessed 65 yard spey cast with a double handed green heart rod. So who knows?
Continue reading “Tubeflies – big and small”
Today we would like to present you with two books, both very recent releases. We all like fish and one is on fish and fish alone and is a quite spectacular project. The other is about flies and we all like flies.
When we started Ahrex we were of course painfully aware of the hooks that needed to be in our program. Salmon hooks were of course among them and since the beginning in 2016, we’ve been expanding the range and we’re not done yet. I’ll present a new hook at the end of this blog, so please read along.
Continue reading “Our salmon hooks”
Do salmon eat nymphs? Yes, at least as younglings in the river, before they enter the sea, they do. But I think it’s common knowledge that once they enter the rivers, they stop eating. How they manage to survive for several months and not least why they take our flies is a subject for another blog. However, it’s clear that salmon do take flies that imitate large stoneflies nymphs and even ones fished upstream and dead drifted past their lies.
Shrimp flies have always been popular for fly fishermen and especially for saltwater fly fishermen they are a “must-have” in the box. The Scandinavian coastal fishing for sea run brown trouts is now one of the cornerstones of Danish fly fishing and the Danish sea trout love shrimp flies. In this week’s blog, we’ll focus on a new pattern that has gone from strength to strength and proven its effectiveness to coastal sea run brown trout.
Continue reading “Høtyven”
Fishing for migratory fish – anadromous species – such as salmon, sea trout, steelhead or rainbows and trout both from the sea and the great lakes on their way to the spawning banks has been the purpose of this new hook that we have been looking forward to introducing to you.
Continue reading “New hook – Anadromous Nymph HR416”
Many, if not most, of the Irish salmon-. And sea trout patterns include two or three hackles and no wings. They are tied on all styles of hooks – singles, doubles and trebles and on tubes. They do well tied and fished both small and large and some of the patterns are even popular flies for loch-style fishing for salmon. Their history is a subject for another blog – here I’ll take a look at the basics of tying them. They look deceptively simple, but there are a few pit falls to avoid.
Continue reading “Irish Style Shrimp Flies”
The Norwegian salmon season is coming to a close, so I’ll round things off in this blog, covering a few tips and tricks on how to fool the sometimes very difficult, late summer salmon. The river holds more salmon now. It’s usually a good mix between the now old salmon that entered the river early in the season and the late runners, which are usually the so-called grilse. Grilse are small, male atlantic salmon, still bright silver, but smaller. There are different opinions when a grilse can be called a salmon – some say over 5kg. I say three, because then I catch more salmon.
Continue reading “Closing the season”