Fly Fishing

Marcel_Karssies · Location: Enschede - The Netherlands

Harz 2010 day 2 – May 21st.

After a good nights rest we enjoyed a very good breakfast at the hotel.
Since it was my birthday the other guys gave me the choice where to fish on this day.
I opted to fish above one of the large reservoirs that dotted the river.
My goal was to a catch grayling whom where more numerous in the upper reaches of the river.

Upstream.

When we came to the river I was a bit surprised by the high brown water, clearly not a tailwater upstream.
I had never seen so much water in that section so I decided to change my tactics and go
Czech nymphing – basicly short nymphing with heavy weighted caddis nymphs.
During the long cold winter I had obtained varies literature and DVD’s about the subject so I was prepared.
My Trout bum rod with its 7ft length was too short for this type of fishing but with the colored water and heavy flow I would surely get away with it.
After some practice I actually started to get the hang of it and caught my first little brown trout on a green caddis nymph.
I had actually coaxed myself into tying some of my own flies, in this case caddis nymphs with tungsten beads on a Hanak B300 barbless hook.
Before I knew it I even caught the grayling I was after.

Grayling

I fished several pools and riffles until I came pretty near to the part of the river where it entered the large reservoir.
The banks where often completely dug out by the wild boar, from the tracks they appeared to be numerous but I never saw one.
Being close to the reservoir became appearant when I started to catch shiners.

Dace

Grayling

Roach

At a certain moment I reached the end of the river and saw that the reservoir was pretty full.
The grass on the banks was underwater.

At the end

I spotted some rising fish at the end but there where not many insects around.
My first guess was brown trout, since the rising where so far inbetween I decided to probe the waters with a small streamer to see who was out there.
The streamer was intercepted but not by a brown trout.

Little yellow perch

Yellow perch was not the fish I was after so I tied on an emerger and launched the fly to where I saw the last rising fish.
That fly was duly taken by a fish, to my surprise a grayling.

Grayling.

In the afternoon we took an extended break at our favorite restaurant in the wilderness and then returned to the river for the rest of the fishing session.

I spend the rest of the day Czech nymphing the lower section of the stream catching loads of little brown trout, grayling and roach.
It was sunny, there where a few bugs around but fish where not rising to any of the insects.
Some insects where maybe a tad to large like a big beetle I saved from the floods.

Bug

More grayling

Scenery

The fish where on the small size but the catching continued throughout the day.
I even caught some of the obvious stockie browns that lacked the golden coloration of the native brown strain.

Stocked brown

Last fish of the day, Roach

Past sunset.

We fished until last light hoping for an evening rise but that never came.
On the way back I took the mountain path carefully watching my steps, you do not want to stumble over wild boars down there.
We ended our day at the hotel with some more dark wheat beers until we reached our quota and called it a day.
We still had to climb up the mountain to reach our quarters, sleep came quickly as it was dead quiet in the village with the only sound coming from the flowing water of the river.