Like may fly nymphs and the nymphal- or larvae stage of any insect, the adult part of the life cycle is the shortest. The large mayflies can live for days, the smallest perhaps only for a hours. Caddis are generally the same – the larger species can live for several days, the smaller just a few days. After mating and egg laying they both die and become spent spinners – a stage off the life cycle the fish know well, since they are easy prey, unable to escape.
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The dry fly season coming to an end. But it’s certainly not over and the fishing can still be quite good. There are still insects on the surface – some that come from below and even some that come from above. An important food item for trout and grayling during the fall is sedges – or caddis.
Continue reading “End of the dry fly season”
Our friends at Hökensås Sportsfiske have been organising their popular Trout Safari events for a long time, and they usually sell out very quickly. In the last weekend of October, we have partnered with Hökensås til to put on a Trout Safari together.
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Most fly fishers know the style of flies called Matukas. They are a style – originated in New Zealand; a matuka is not a fixed pattern. In fact, their proper name shouldn’t even be matuka, but rather matuku. Matuku is the Maori name for the bittern, and it was the bittern’s feathers that were used for the first matukas (I’ll from here continue using the now common name).
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In their very origin, streamers are American and it’s of course been decades since they moved across the pond to Europe. And for a good reason. Streamers are excellent fish catchers, catch fish (big ones) that other flies rarely catch, they imitate prey that are on many predatory fish’s menu and they are great fun to fish and tie.
“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.
