Saltwater - Ahrex Hooks

River Ythan’ Seatrout

The alarm rings, and at first, I wonder where I am. It takes a few moments before I remember that I’m not in my own bed but in a bed, in a small room, in a tiny house in the village of Newburgh in Scotland. My confusion can partly be explained by an early flight the day before and the fact that the clock shows only 3:45 a.m. However, it doesn’t take long before I’ve twisted out of bed and started getting dressed, realizing that I’m about to go sea trout fishing in a setting that is nothing short of spectacular.

By Håkan Karsnäser

(this artickle has been published in the online magazine “In The Loop Magazine”)

Baboon – the red butt shrimp fly

Frequent users of Instagram and YouTube know that Morten Hansen, also known as Coastfly, likes realistic imitations of shrimp. None the less his favourite shrimp fly is simple and features no feelers, shell or eyes. Follow along as Coastfly explains how he ties his Baboon Shrimp.

Ever present

We’re heading into the cold season and when fly fishing for sea trout in Scandinavia, most fly fishers turn to provocative flies. Chartreuse, orange and especially pink are important colours. This really is a development that began taking place in Denmark in the late 1980s, particularly in and around Mariager Fjord in the middle of Jutland.

Snow and pink

Outside the office windows the inevitable sign of winter has dressed the landscape in white. It’s been snowing the last few days, which of course means that temperatures are dropping. It takes a while for the water temperature begin cooling down significantly, but with frost both day and night, it’s certainly under way. Dropping temperatures are not the best conditions, but cold water is not a problem as such. For the fish of course. It might be for the two legged creatures chasing them.

New hook – PR376 90 Degree Aberdeen Jig

We’re usually not slow to let you know abut new hooks, but it seems that other blog subject have been more important, because we actually snuck in a new hook in the Predator series. It’s getting cold and once in a while, especially as it gets even colder, you sometimes need to pick up the fish on the bottom. On the bottom there’s usually a lot of debris, so fishing an upside-down hook can be a very good idea.

Three Flies

We have decided that we’ll start running a series of blogs with the same theme – Three Flies. These won’t be the usual “if you could only have three flies…”, but more as an inspiration to those starting fly fishing or venturing in to new species and locations. We’ll try and mobilise some of our Ahrex ambassadors and ask them about three essential flies for their fishing and local conditions. Since we’ll depend on the good will of our ambassadors and others as well, they won’t be regular entries, but ones that we’ll run every now and then. They’ll be seasonally relevant as well.

I’m not in love

It can sound a little strange but you’ll never hear me say that I love fishing, trout or something like that. To me the phrase love is reserved for human beings, my loved ones. That said, there’s a few things around fishing especially fly fishing and fly tying that are so close to my heart that it resembles love. Sitting in the evening sun with my fishing buddies, they are among my loved ones, catching a strong trout or spending a whole cold winters day in front of my vice, brings me a joy I can’t live without. The latter got a twist. I’m, if not in love, then pretty intrigued by a feather.

This artickel is written by Danish photojournalist Søren Skarby

Sea Trout Fyn

I don’t think it’s a surprise to many of our readers here that the sea trout fishing on Fyn is exceptional. That is a result of many factors coinciding in many ways and that has brought thousands of thousands of sea trout fishers to Fyn over the last three decades.

Sea bass

Fishing sea bass along the west coast of Denmark is becoming increasingly popular. It’s not new – it was in the mid to late 1990s that I first heard of a couple of pioneers targeting this unusual species. They can be found along the entire west coast, but the fishing seems to be best along the northern shores.

HOLY MACKEREL

The question is not how to fish, but why you do it. The author and his fishing buddies do it out of necessity. It’s more important than life and death to them to escape the human world, step in to water and wave a stick. Left on the shore is their misery and worries. Standing in the water they find freedom, healing and occasionally a fish.

Battles are lost and won with tongue in cheek and always celebrated with mountains of cake and an endless stream of fresh espresso coffee. To the band of brothers it’s more important who you fish with than how big the fish is; except for the ones lost.

You may not learn a lot about catching more and bigger fish, but reading these stories is like holding a mirror up in front of yourself getting a little wiser. The small why is a big one.

Please remember you can find many of the articles as podcasts on our PodBean channel here:

This artickel is written by Danish photojournalist Søren Skarby