View All Marcel’s Photos From Germany

We headed to Germany again to fish at our own little trout stream. We had been members with the local club for a couple of months now and still had not fished all parts of the river. On this day we would visit a new section not far from the point where the river was formed by two small creeks. Later in the day we would venture to a section of the river that we had explored during our last visit. On Saturday it had rained a lot so we the river might carry lot´s of discolored water. We stopped at the first bridge over the river take a look at the conditions. The water was a bit turbid but there where no signs of flooding. In fact the water level was at its lowest we had seen. The rainfall from the day before was due to a complete change in the weather. We went from bright sunshine and temps in the upper 80F range to grey skies, rain and a much lower temperature. The temperature would not rise over 65F on this day. We drove to the upper part of our stream and parked our car at small farm road. The shrubs and plants on the banks had thrived during the last couple of weeks. All the greenery had grown man high. You could not see the river anymore. Fishing from the high banks was virtually impossible, the fish were just to wary. I tried to find a spot to enter the stream without making a hard landing in the stream. I was happy about the fact that I had taken a wading stick with me so I could probe the steep bank for any hidden pitfalls. Finally I was standing in the stream behind a small dam. The deep pool behind the dam should contain some fish. I tried nymphs and streamers but nothing worked. It was very quit, no rising fish and no signs of the always present shiners. After 15 minutes of fruitless casting I decided to scale the banks again and try other spots downriver. I had to clear a path through the jungle to make some progress to the next spot. Another passage to the stream was soon found. I was now looking at two deep pools in front of me. In one of them a trout had just risen to something. The banks in this section of the river turned out to be made out of very loose sand and mud. Some places that I probed with the wading stick looked like quicksand. Cautiously I moved upstream until I could find a position to make a cast. I launched a streamer towards the last known position of the trout. No reaction. I guess my movement through the stream had scared the trout off. Several other pools turned out to be empty or had fish in them that would not cooperate. The other guys (Joop and Michael) both managed to catch a shiner on a gold-bead nymph but that was all they got. We all agreed that it was time to move on to the next location. The plans for the day changed a little however. The original plan was to fish at location B and then head on to location E. We decided to make a small stop at location C just to see how things where down there. Our river was a diverse one, lots of different places which all had their pros and cons. Location C was a bit friendlier for fly-fishing, this part of the river flowed through the forest so there where high grasses and other plants contend with. We had fished several times at this location and we quickly dispersed to our favorite holes. At my spot I was fishing a long stretched pool just behind a river bend with a gold bead nymph. As the nymph drifted along the pool the strike indicator made some nervous twitches. I struck and a fish was on. When I got the fish to the surface I could see it was a small brown trout. I grabbed for the net, suddenly the line went slack. The fish had managed to throw the hook. I had to try again. There would surely be fish near those roots of a bank side tree. The strike indicator made some twitches as it passed the roots. I struck and a fish was on. It turned out to be a roach, a local shiner species. The day was saved. After a while it was time to move on. Both Joop and Michael had caught a brown trout in this part of the river. I remained troutless for the moment. At location E we all headed in different directions. The spots that had yielded fish for me during the last visit turned out to be empty. I had several shots at shiners and hooked some of them but they all managed to throw the hook one way or the other. Michael soon called it a day and went home. We took a short break in the afternoon and exchanged information about our favorite haunts. Just like me, Joop, did not encounter anymore trout. The only thing he ran across where some unknown large fish, most likely chubs. They where not willing to eat flies. The weather was slightly improving and it almost looked like we should get some sunshine. During our break we stared down from the bridge and actually saw shiners rising actively. It was tempting to go back and fish for them but we wanted to see more trout. There was one place left where we had a good chance to catch one or two trout, the guest stretch. The guest stretch was the part of the river we had fished most. We knew every hole by now. Things looked bad though on this day, there was very little water in the river. Most pools that normally contained fish where just to exposed to provide any shelter for the fish. We both headed straight for our favourite deep holes. When I arrived at mine there was no visible surface activity to be seen. Insects had been scarce today. I changed my setup from gold-bead nymph to streamer to tempt the trout. Normally a cast in the deep hole would trigger a response from the always present trout. Not on this day. I had pulled the streamer a dozen times through the pool when Joop arrived. He had missed one fish in his favourite spot and did not came along any other fish on the way to my location. I continued to fish the pool. Sometime later I had a solid hook-up. As Joop arrived a fish started rising in the no fishing section. I guess the noise of the streamer had lured the fish close by. A nice size and very strong brown trout had nailed my streamer. Joop tried the pool also but I guess it would take some time before any fish would move into that pool again and start feeding. The guest stretch was the part of the river that was stocked most regularly. Even better was that we knew that a lot of trout had been put in the no fishing section in the deep pool behind the watermill. These trout where stocked there for the annual trout fishing contest of the club, a sort of massacre planned at the end of the year for the meat fishermen of the club. All those trout stayed in that pool behind the watermill but we where pretty sure that some would cross the small dams in the no fishing zone and would end up in the guest stretch downstream. With this in mind we walked all the way to the start of the guest stretch. Just beyond the no fishing sign there was a deep pool behind a small dam. We always viewed the dam as the natural divide between the guest stretch and the no-fishing stretch. I got the honour to make the first cast. I had once again changed my setup. I wanted to catch both shiners and trout so I tied on a small heavy tungsten pheasant-tail nymph and fished it with a large strike indicator. I would just cast the rig behind the dam and let it drift downstream. The strike indicator did not float for long. It went under, I struck and before I knew it I was into a rainbow trout. After I got my fish I moved out of the way to let Joop get a shot at the pool. It was deep enough to house more than one fish. Joop cashed in immediately. He also was in to a rainbow trout. They were for sure escapees from the deep pool behind the watermill. Joop made a second cast and was into a fish again. In the mean time I had moved downstream where the river flowed past a cliff made out of clay. There was some deep water under the cliff that was always worthwhile to check out. Due to the low water level I decided to let the nymph drift past the cliff and located myself way upstream. It was the only way to get a proper presentation since the dead trees on the opposite river bank made upstream nymph fishing impossible. Just as suspected there was a fish under the cliff, he took the nymph and went airborne in milliseconds after I set the hook. I had to coax the fish upstream so it would not snag the line in the sunken dead trees. Trout nr. 3 of the day was landed. I fished one other pool further downstream and hooked another rainbow that threw the hook in the end. I called it quits after that. We headed back to the car to end our fishing day. Joop also ended the day with two rainbows from the guest stretch. We had done pretty well despite the adverse conditions. We counted our selves lucky that we had such a fine river close to home. On the way back home we stopped at one of the canalized streams to see if anything was moving there. Only a couple of minnow where showing. The open water had no shelter whatshowever for the fish. We were lucky that “our” river was still in it’s natural state. No easy picking for the cormorants down there. We were privileged to be fishing for trout in our fine water.