The Netherlands: Saltwater Fly Fishing Though our country isn’t worldwide known for it’s fly fishing opportunities, fly fishing can be done in many ways in the Netherlands. Flowing rivers are not an option in our country, so we do not fly fish for salmon our trout in rivers. We have one famous lake, “lake Oostvoorne” where rainbow trout are stocked. Sometimes big fish come from this body of water. The last few years a growing group of flyfishermen are exploring the saltwater around our country. We do not have a coastline like the USA, but for our small country a big part of our country borders are on the sea. Near Rotterdam / Hoek van Holland a big dam of boulders is built into the sea to protect the outflowing cooling water of a power plant. Between the boulders of this dam my favorite saltwater fish is holding; the European Seabass. This fish looks a bit like the Striped Bass in the USA, but unfortunately they don’t grow as big. Because only a small part of the dam can be reached from shore, the solution for our flyfishermen is fishing from a belly boat. With our belly boats we can fish our flies right between the boulders of the dam. An #8 or #9 weight fly rod will do the trick. Although most of the fish are small, when they strike they go back into the boulders an try to break your leaders on the shells etc. You can fish a stretch of aprox. 1,5 km on the inside of the dam, because the dam runs back to the shoreline on the end. So, fly fishing at sea from a belly boat is in this case very safe.One day we heard about a flyfisherman who fished from a boat on the outside of the dam. He fished with sinking lines (which we also use on the inside) of 300 our 400 grains. He brought his flies between the boulders on the outside. He found out that the dam really worked as a wall for the Seabass and only small fish come through this wall of boulders in high tides.The next season, this year, we got out on the outside in our belly boats. When you take the tide and wind into account this can be done in our opinion. Others call us, “England-cruisers” or think we are suicidal. Hereby some pictures of the biggest Seabass I caught until today. 76 cm (that is 30 inches in USA measurements) The old record from inside the dam was 61 cm (about 24 inches.) Also on the outside we catch others species like : mackerel etc. Maybe this year we will make it to 32 inch! Tight lines from the Netherlands! (A small country in Europe)