Saltwater - Ahrex Hooks

The platoon of misery

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.

This artickel is written by Danish photojournalist Søren Skarby

Høtyven

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.

Fly Fishing Show in Lancaster & Fly Festival in Kolding

*“The Italian Gang” – Luca Barosselli, Enrico Fantasia and Fabio Federighi at the Danish Fly Festival.*

Such a blast ! Last weekend we participated in two different fairs – a huge thank you to all those who came by our stands and greeted, talked hooks, flies and shared stories from the waters, we enjoy being at fairs and meeting other fly fishermen and fly tyers.

Cry Wolf

Countless saltwater flies have been named the key to success when it comes to catching sea trout in the salt. This time, however, the wolf is actually coming. Martin Votborg is the originator behind The Wolf and has been fishing it and tweaking the design for over 20 years. He says without any uncertainty that The Wolf catches sea trout all through the year.

By Peter Lyngby

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

Boston Harbor striper on the fly

Fishing for stripers is incredibly popular in the US and we were lucky enough to meet one of the many skilled fishermen who enjoy this species. During the International Fly Tying Symposium in November, we met the talented guide and striper-fisher Joe Cordeiro, whom we persuaded to write a little about his fishing for what can be called the USA’s national fish – the striped bass og just stripers.

Keep an eye?

*Ultimate Candy Mackerel by Giovanni de Pace*.

I was invited to tie flies at the annual Black Friday event at Nordic Anglers’ show room last Friday. When I tie flies at events like these, I always focus on tying patterns that don’t take too long. Maybe with a focus on something relevant for the season and if I can fill a vacant space in my own box, even better. I tied a simple sand eel imitation (well, many), gave some away, talked hooks with some of the customers and even took home a few flies.

Rounding off

… the Swedish sea trout season. Unlike in Denmark, where fishing for sea trout along the coastlines is open all year, Sweden has a season opening January 1st and closing September 15th, of course to protect the trout migrating to the rivers to spawn. We received a little report from Mr. Trout, Peter Alexandersson, who’s had a good season. Here are his words on the 2022-season and a series of pictures.

Predator and prey

Most predatory fish change behaviour over the season. They are found in different places and feed different times of the day. Why? They are predatory and follow the behaviour of their prey. So I suppose, in a sense, that you can say they have only one behaviour – they follow their prey. If you’re fishing for predatory fish, and I suspect most of us are, the key to catching them is often to understand what they’re feeding on and the prey behaves.

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.

A talk with Bob Clouser

*The Clouser Minnow – tied by Bob Clouser*

As many of you will have noticed, we launched a new hook in the middle of March, the SA 210 Bob Clouser Signature. An excellent all round hook for saltwater flies, but designed around the specific wishes for the perfect Clouser Minnow-hook that Bob himself had. It was a great honour and pleasure for us to work directly with The Man himself and an even greater pleasure that Bob and his spouse, Jackie, were very, very pleased with the result.