Fly Fishing

Marcel_Karssies

Last week my buddies and I where on route to Germany's deep south for our annual pilgrimage to the pre-alpine region called Allgäu.

The river in questions was the Untere Argen, nice stream that flowed from the mountains to Lake Constance.
To fish the river you had to book at the local hotel in the village of Isny.
Geographically we where located on the border of the Federal state of Baden-Württemberg with Bavaria.

We where pretty lucky with the weather since we could enjoy fishing in warm temperatures and bright clear skies.
A week later it rained cats and dogs down there and snow fell in the higher elevations.

The fishing was ridiculous, I have never caught so many trout on one day.
Most fish where Rainbow trout with a few browns mixed in, there where also some
shiners present in the slower moving sections.

During the day dry fly action was minimal.
Since I prefer to fish with nymphs and streamers this was no problem for me though.
I did very well fishing the black streamer and brown/cream colour Czech nymphs.
I probed the stones for insects and found lots of cased caddis and stonefly nymphs.
At sunset some parts of the river really came alive when fish rose to the Mayflies and other insects.

The warm weather had one drawback, the locals used the river as a public bath.
On the last day one of my favourite spot in a canyon was filled with a bunch of Neo hippies singing "Hotel California" around a campfire.
To make matters worse a couple decided to skinny dip one of the deep pools.
As I passed along those folks one mentioned in German that there was a white shark in the water whereas I replied that it looked more like a whale.
With that remark I left the hippies laughing their pants off while I proceeded to a quieter locale.

We had three tremendous days fishing in Germanys deep south and I guess we will go back there next year.
The tactics I learned on last years trip where applied with success this year and I learned some new ones which I will put on to practise on the next trip.

Below some pictures

Postman · Newbie Joined: Sep 27, 2006 Posts: 14

What a place to fish!! It almost looks like some NZ-waters.
Great pics and nice story.
P-A Very Happy

TroutBone · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 2:48 pm Post subject: Great Story and pictures

Keep up the good work..i love your post, gets me all worked up for my move to germany, can't wait to toss in a fly in those beautiful clear streams

jeremy · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 3:17 pm Post subject: beautiful

marcel --- beautiful fish and environment ... you deserved a couple great days on the water like this .. where "the fishing was ridiculous" ... well done .. nice pics ... it's getting about that time for your sea run brown trout trip and the rainbows of lake ostervoone right? funny, how i am getting to know all these locations all over europe and i have never been to one of them ... all through you ... harze region, ostervoone etc.... hope you get your big rainbow from ostervoone this year, you are due!