Fly Fishing

Marcel_Karssies · Location: Enschede - The Netherlands

Last Saturday my mission was to catch a trout in one of the streams
I frequent in Germany.
It took quite some walking before I finally ended up at the spots that
received the least fishing pressure.
The only living creatures I came across where pheasants and rabbits.

Pheasant nest.

I came along some pretty "fishy" looking pools where casting was difficult.
The only pattern I fished was a black streamer, if there where any trout left than that
fly would coax them out their hiding.

Some of the nice spots.

A week or so ago I spotted the brown mayflies tens of miles downstream,
Now the first lighter colored ones appear upstream.
I should know the names of these bugs by now, I think they are Ephemara vulgata and danica.
The latter species has just popped up at the stream and the fish had not keyed in to this prey yet.
I had several takes of a small brown trout in one spot but I missed every bite, at the fourth time the fish finally had enough and left.
Further upstream I had my second trout contact and missed again.
At the end of the day I had to accept that this would be a skunk day.
The weekend was not over though so I would try another stream the next day.

On day 2 I started at the upper border of the other stream.
We had almost thirty days without rain so only a small trickle of water was running.

Way upstream.

The first section of the stream was pretty empty, I spotted only a few very small minnows.
I started fishing at the infllow of a small brook that originated from a nearby village.
That little body of water had been the escape route of a trout prison break out from a pond inside the village.
At the idyllic outflow of the sewage treatment plant I hooked my first fish, a little rainbow trout.

Rainbow trout.

Just as I was releasing the fish I got a call from my local contact.
He wanted to go fishing and wondered if I was interested in exploring some of the
unknown sections of this stream.
Soon we where travelling towards the boundary of the river downstream.
Most deeper holes had been filled by sand in the last stretch, there where no signs of fish.
We'll there where signs, a trout was rising at in the sections of the neigboring club.

It was pretty tempting to fish in the neighbors section but we behaved and went to a
spot where we knew trout would be hiding.
At arrival we saw that a rather sizeable rainbow trout was actively feeding in a shallow stretch of water.
I decided to give it at try although I was not sure if a streamer was the best weapon of choice for that shallow spot.
It turned out not be, the wary fish ran for cover when the streamer hit the surface in front of the fish.

There was a deep pool not far downstream where a deadfall blocked the flow.
Fallen blossom collected in front of the deadfall making flyfishing impossible.
My German buddy who was mainly a worm-dunker had no problems with the floating carpet.
First a trout attacked his float and then fell for the worm, he hooked a nice rainbow from lastyears batch.
He slipped the fish back in the water and mentioned that there would be surely more than one fish in the pool.
He was right because five minutes later he was into a brown trout.
I tried some pools downstream and had some takes on the streamer.
Unfortunetely the attackers of the fly all turned out to be small perch.

Perch

A day before the local club had held an angling match at the slow flowing stretch above the watermill.
That was our next destination, during that event some pretty sizeable perch and a couple of rainbow trout had been caught.
Both worm and fly yielded no fish in that stretch.
When the going gets tough the tough go to a weir.
With such low water levels most fish would most likely be contained in the few remaining deep spots.
I imagined that I felt a solid take at the weir but in the end the streamer was left untouched.
At least my mission of catching a trout had finally succseeded.

Next week I will visit my second haunt in Germany again, this time armed with waders.
There are still a few really big rainbows of the 50cm range in that stream as well as some big browns.