Fly Fishing

Marcel_Karssies · Location: Enschede - The Netherlands

Fishing Fyn Island Denmark, April 22nd-25th.

Another spring trip to Denmark has ended.
My fear of going home skunked did not materialize although in my opinion the fishing was very tough.
The long cold winter in Europe had surely left its mark
on nature as the Baltic sea was still cold and life in the sea was only slowly developing.

On April 22nd we left the Netherlands at 06.00 hrs to make the journey to the island of
Fyn in Denmark. We cleared main bottleneck on our route (the Elbe river tunnel in Hamburg)pretty easy with just some slow traffic at the outgoing side of the tunnel.
The rest of the tour through Southern Jutland and on to the Island was pretty uneventful.
Instead of making a fishing stop along the way we decided to pick up the keys of our rental cottage and have something to eat first.

The cottage, a very luxury place this time.

Rain and hail showers in the distance.

My setup, Orvis T3 6-weight plus a clear intermediate line.

After settling in we headed to the beach to try and get our first fish.
It was windy, chilly and sometimes rain and hail blasted us.
From the six guys on the trip only Tom caught fish, two searun browns from whom the largest measured 57 cm.
I ended up with two takes but could not materialize the fish.
I developed cold feet near sunset, after returning to the cottage I noticed that my waders where leaking. Not pleasant in cold water conditions.

On the 23rd we would hit Odense Fjord on the northern shore of Fyn.
Since Odense boasted a very nice tackle shop we went there first so I could get a pair of waders to continue my fishing spree with more or less dry feet.
Since tackle was expensive in Denmark I asked for the cheap stuff and by chance they had bough a container load of waders from a well known English manufacturer.
The two layer fabric did not boast my confidence but I figured it would last at least the remainder of this trip.
At the shop we asked for some tips and with the intel we got we decided to change our plans and head for the southern coast.

The southern coast and my first couple of seatrout.

There was a stiff breeze blowing at the southern shores but still manageable to fish my 6-weight rod.
After a long wait I was finally rewarded with my first seatrout of the
trip, a 47 cm specimen caught on a pink ep sparkle shrimp.
In short order I managed to land two more fish, respectively 55 and 45cm all on the pink shrimp pattern.

On day three some of the guys wanted to fish a freshwater river on mainland Jutland.
It was way to early to go there and this was after all a saltwater fishing trip.
The infidels left for the Omme A river, the diehards went to fish the Little Belt sound.
Due to the cold weather the seagrass field had not developed yet so large parts of the place where barren and void of life.

The Little Belt sound.

Marsvin aka harbor porpoise in the distance.

At the Little Belt.

We concentrated on a boulder field and spotted
schools of sandeels running out with the tide.
Trout where actively hunting on the outer side of the boulder reef but where out of casting Range.
I was lucky enough to get a stray fish that hunted over the boulders.
The fish was yet again caught on a pink shrimp pattern and put up a pretty good fisht.
The fish measured 52 cm and was my fourth fish of the trip.
One of my buddies decided to switch to the dark side and headed up the cliff to get his spinning rod in order to reach the far away trout.
When he came back the trout where gone but he also managed one smaller searun trout.

On the last day we had breakfast and cleaned out the cottage first.
After delivering the keys of the cottage we fished the local beach until 15.30 hours.
One of us managed to catch one smaller fish on a ragworm fly.
The rest of the guys Blanked.
I did have two fish chase a brown shrimp made with EP shrimp brush but they
did not take the hook solidly and escaped.

Getting ready to go home.

We left around 16.00 hours on our 6 hour returned trip to the Netherlands.
It was fun as usual but tough fishing in the chilly and windy conditions.
I once again left as the guy with the most fish, four to be exactly due to pure luck and persistence, Tom had the Largest trout of the trip nd ended with three fish.
Joop en Alfons both avoided skunk by catching one fish, Hans and Wiebe blanked.
I had tons of fun though I look forward to another trip to the Baltic coast.