
It’s hook launch time – again! We’re come close to ending 2020 (I think most of us look forward to that), but we decided to just go ahead and throw a proper New Year’s Bomb(er) to you.

It’s hook launch time – again! We’re come close to ending 2020 (I think most of us look forward to that), but we decided to just go ahead and throw a proper New Year’s Bomb(er) to you.

Pink Jig by Håkan Karsnäser on FW554 CZ Mini Jig.
Yes, another hook release – believe it or not. We’ve been busy! This time it’s a new jig-hook. We of course already have a jig hook – the FW 550/551. So what’s the big difference, I hear you ask? Well, that takes about as long time to answer as it does to ask the question. Hook length!
Continue reading “New Release – FW 554/555 CZ Mini Jig Hook”

Photocredit: Fly Fishing nation – @flyfishingnation
Yes, it’s that time of year. We know all you salmon flyfishers are waiting for the next season and some of you are probably already going through the boxes, checking the flies, deciding on new patterns, which to keep and which need to be replenished. At least I know a few of us here are Ahrex are – OK, one at least. Me.

Photocredit: Fly Fishing nation – @flyfishingnation
Salmon season is over and in general I think it’s been a fair season over most of Northern Europe and the UK. Instead of taking a look at season statistics, huge fish, happy stories, stories of the lost fish, I’ll turn you over to Stephen Carella, who in this nice story takes a look at something important that sometimes happens when you go fishing. Making friends – an important aspect of flyfishing.

It’s autumn, October, and sea trout this time of year can be very picky and difficult to catch. Fishing can be frustrating, since the fish will often hang around for a long time – often completely uninterested in any offerrings.

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.

What defines a Spey fly? Two distinct features – the low brown mallard wing and the long, flowing hackles, often from a heron. So can you justify adding the “Spey” in from of a fly, which you modify using a long, flowing hackle rather than a more traditional cock- or hen hackle found on most traditional wet flies? And what if the long hackle isn’t even a heron hackle? I’ll steer clear of that discussion for now.

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.

Mathias “Tuben” Ibsen with the stuff we have been dreaming for… Silvershining salmon from the opening day of the salmon rivers.
I’m writing this on Thursday April 9th, which means that there is exactly one week until the opening of the Danish salmon season. By the time you read this, there are only six days. I’ve mentioned this before, but we’ve had the wettest winter since we began recording weather data in the middle of the 19th century, so I’m quite convinced that there are plenty of salmon in the rivers.

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.