April 1st is just around the corner, and that means spring. After a winter with more rain than ever recorded before in Denmark, it’s been really strange that within a few days, we went from rain-rain-rain-endless-rain to clear skies (and frosty nights). None the less, even though fishing has been good all winter (pike and sea trout in the salt) because of the mild winter, the salt is certainly waking up and beautiful sea trout are being caught all over.
At his time of the year the trophy for the coastal flyfisher is silver-coloured.
Over 20 years ago, I was visiting a small fly shop here in Denmark called “Fugl & Fjer Fluebinding”. Directly translated that means Bird and Feather Flytying. The shop was run by my good friend, Jens Pilgaard, and was essentially a specialty shop for materials for classic salmon flies. I didn’t tie classic salmon flies back then, but Jens’ shop was always a treat to visit, because one would always stumble over something new or strange to tie onto a hook.
I don’t know how many hooks on the market can be classified as “streamer hooks”, and we often get asked why we have one in our line up when there are so many on the market. And that is of course a valid question, and the only answer is that we had to. We had to have a classic streamer hook – we couldn’t be a serious hook brand of we hadn’t.
Continue reading “Streamers, bucktails and Mickey Finn – part II”
I don’t know how many hooks on the market can be classified as “streamer hooks”, and we often get asked why we have one in our line up when there are so many on the market. And that is of course a valid question, and the only answer is that we had to. We had to have a classic streamer hook – we couldn’t be a serious hook brand of we hadn’t.
We have a saying in Danish, which directly translated goes “Dear child has many names”, which is another way of saying that we have many different ways of talking about the things we really love. Among the simplest of flies – perhaps the simplest of them all, except for Oliver Kite’s “Bare Hook Nymph”, which was a hook with a copper wire thorax, are the softhackles, also knwn as flymphs (flymer in Swedish), spiders and perhaps most correct as North Country Wets.
Continue reading “Softhackles – spiders – North Country wets – flymfer”
As 2019 draws to a close let’s take a look at some of the videos we produced and shared on our YouTube channel this year.
As the water continues to cool down, an age old debate tends to heat up. In southern Scandinavia we’re blessed with many flyfishing opportunities all year round. The first factor is of course that fishing is allowed and the next that waters are ice free, but if both are the case the flyfisher has many choices. Fishing for sea run brown trout – in the sea – is as close to a “national fishery” as you’ll ever get in Denmark, but also pike fishing in the lakes (and some river systems) is open during winter and with that also perch fishing.
Dry flies have one thing in common – they all float. Some float because they are tied of buoyant materials (foam hoppers for instance), some depend on chemical help in the form of a silicone floatant and some are designed to partially float (emergers and of course the legendary Klinkhamer Special). And finally, some are tied so they rest on the surface film as a result of their dressing.
The 10th anniversary version of the Irish Fly Fair is over. The venue was the beautiful Galway Hotel with a great view of the coastline and there was everything a flyfisher (or spinfsher for that matter) could ever wish for.
Stefan “WickedTrout” Larson and Andreas Andersson had been fishing Montana for a couple of weeks before they picked up us in the airport, just as the first snow of the winter fell. We took the scenic route over the Rocky Mountains to Delta, where we fished for a few days in the magnificent Gunnison River, before we headed to Denver for the IFTD show.
