“Kært barn har mange navne” – a Danish proverb for “Beloved child has many names”. And that of course is also true for the Green Drakes, the largest of may flies that hatch in Europe, an important hatch as it’s the trout- and grayling fly fisher’s best chance for some of the river’s largest fish on a dry fly. The Danica/Vulgata hatch is one of the season peaks we all look forward to.
It’s not as serious as it seems, but it was the general thinking behind the first Intruder-flies Ed Ward, Jerry French and Scott Howell tied, sometime in the early 90ies. They discovered that big flies would illicit aggressive strikes – because the “intruded the personal space” of big fish, without spooking them. To begin with they used them for king salmon and then slowly transferred the style of fly to steelhead fishing.
Unlike in Denmark, where you can fish the coastline all year round , sea trout along the Swedish west coast are protected until April 1st.
Fishing for sea trout in the salt is about as close as you’ll ever get to a Danish, national favourite fishing. Fishing in the salt requires only a cheap, state license and you have access to approximately 7000km of coastline (all of which of course isn’t good sea trout water). The fishing can be hard, it can be easy, but I’ll say it’s always good – maybe not in terms of fish, but a day spent out is always good. It can even be said that the Ahrex brand has it’s roots in this type of fishing – our first series was the NS – Nordic Salt.
The headline might sound a bit counter intuitive, but there’s sense in the madness. It’s still cold, we’re just (in the northern hemisphere) heading into spring. The water warms up slowly and fish can still hold deep, close to the bottom.
Chartreuse Pillow Talk by Hanna B. Vestergaard
In any type of fly, for any kind of species, during most of the season, you can encounter conditions, where it’s highly advantageous (some essentially necessary) to do whatever you can to avoid snagging on weed. Simply in order to be able to move your fly through the water. There are several ways of negotiating the challenge – and only one to avoid it totally, which is to stay home. But – that’s not why we’re fishing, so let’s take a look at some of the options and their advantages and drawbacks.
Henry’s Fork – a name, a place that should ring a bell or two in all trout fly fishers. A famous spring creek in Idaho, closely associated with trout, massive hatches, dry fly fishing and one name in particular. A legendary fly fisher, fly tier, fly fishing guide, hunting guide, tv personality and several flies to his name – and of course that hat. Mike Lawson.
Ole Martin, often called Mr. Møn, has often talked about the island of Møn, situated in the south eastern part of Sjælland (Denmark). The high cliffs and the beaches are beautiful and there’s excellent fishing. Having seen pictures and film from Møn, I had to go. I was dreaming about big, silvery sea trout, but I also had work to do, taking photos and writing, which was taking its toll on my fly fishing dreams.
A real “trout-snack” – photo: Henrik Kure Nielsen.
They are big, they can bite you, some find them quite unappealing and yet, the first big hatches of bag worms are the events all saltwater fiy fishers in Scandinavia look forwards to. There are many, many different species in different sizes and colours, but the sea trout aren’t picky – they eat them all.
There are so many new and exciting flies to try, and many of them you discover in the most unexpected way. That is especially true if we as fly fishers and fly tiers are open to new ideas and think outside the (fly)box.
One of the innovative and very creative fly tiers out there is our friend Brian Ratcliff from England. Among all the flies he’s sent us, especially one pattern caught our attention a little bit more than the rest and we were curious how Brian fishes this fly and how it came about.
Continue reading “Old Man’s Earplug Daddy Muddler by Brian Ratcliff”
