Fly Fishing

Marcel_Karssies · Location: Enschede - The Netherlands

Yesterday my buddy Joop and I where attended a so called open
day at one of our German fishing clubs.
We tried to convince some of the locals and kids that flyfishing was a lot
more fun than dunking worms.
From the responses of the people we thought we did a good job there.

It was a blazing hot day when we where doing a bit of fishing in the clubs own pond.
The stocked rainbow trout where not inclined to show themselves but Joop managed to get one Rainbow and a nice Yellow perch on the fly.
As soon as the open day ended we went on another important mission, I had to catch a fish.
This year was the first time that we had exchange permits from a club that was located far downstream from ours.
Down there they had a fish species that was lacking in our stretch, namely chub.

Our chub stretch.

We had not done a lot of chub fishing so our goal was once again to catch some and preferrably the bigger boys.
In the short time we fished for them though we had learned that these fish where difficult to catch, they where extremely wary.
When we came to the spot we walked onto a pedastrian bridge and fed the fish with some bread.
It was interesting to see how the small ones would dash for the bread while the bigger fish would only come and take a look from a safe distance.
Fish where rising and quickly we where located on the river bank.

Since I had seen that the big chub where moving deep I decided to tie on a small goldbead pheasant tail nymph plus a small indicator.
I had taken my 9ft #6 rod with me to overcome the overgrown riverbank, I was glad I had the heavier rod since there was a strong wind blowing.
The objective was to lauch the fly almost into the adjecent bank since there was the chub hideout.
Each time I threw my rig near the other bank a fish rose, but always on the strike indicator.
At the fifth drift I finally hooked into a solid fish, my day was made by means of a nice fat chub.
It was not a monster but the largest one I had caught on the fly so far.

Nice chub.

Skunk was avoided so now it was time to expirement and for me that was fishing the dry fly.
Due to the fast current my Klinkhamer flies continuously drowned and subsequently I switched to a nice elk hair segde.
That fly floated high through the water and was irresistable for the chub I was targeting.

Chub on the dry.

In the evening when the wind died down I switched to the lighter klinkhamer flies again but only the tiny chub where interested in them.
I ended the day with four chubs, not bad for a day I considered lost as a fishing day.