Emilie's first Pike on the Fly

Yesterday Emilie and I spent the whole out fishing on Klarälven. There is really not so much to write about. We must have hit the period of spawning because we saw some surface activity close to the shore but no pike seemed to have an appetite for a nice looking fly. Well, almost that is: Emilie had borrowed Jon's VISION Big Daddy rod and sure enough the rod lost its virginity to a nice pike on 63cm. After a quick fight I was able to land Emilie's first pike on the fly, but definitely not the last! Congratulations!

First pike for Emilie!

 

Guiding at Örnäs

The last couple of weeks have not been very "fishy". A lot of school work has kept us busy and our lines dry. For instance, we had several exams to get our boat license. I am relieved that all of this is over so that we now can enjoy the last days in Forshaga before we head home on friday. Next monday it will be getting serious: Our internships start!

Two days ago, our class had the joy to guide a group of foreign students from Karlstad University. We had planned everything on our own, from the agenda, to food and equipment. And indeed, we had a really nice day with our guests who caught many more fish than expected. Even the horrific weather could not spoil the excellent mood everybody was in.

I had the pleasure to guide two awesome guys, Nick  from Toronto and Ulysse from Paris. And as a bonus Ulysse managed to hook and land the biggest rainbow I have seen in the Örnäs lakes. Thanks for the awesome time, Nick and Ulysse!

Biggest of the day: around 55cm

 

A Package Fulll of Kick Ass - VISION Skagit

Is Santa Claus early this year? At least that was what it felt like when I finally received the package which I had ordered from Fly Dressing/VISION. Inside: The brand new VISION Ace Skagit line for my VISION siks, two extra T-Tips and a s***load of the new Ace leaders in all available lenghts. This was a reward from the school for the article I had written for the German magazine FliegenFischen in february. Why Skagit, you might wonder. During last years "VISION week" I had the opportunity to test Skagit lines for the first time and I just wanted one of these shooting heads. At the fishing fair in Stockholm three weeks ago I then tested the new lines, a 31gr shooting head, in combination with my Siks #7 13'4" and it felt awesome. The good thing about the Skagit style of casting, which comes from the Pacific Northwest from a river named Skagit, is that you can fish extremely deep and with huge and heavy flies in areas with barely any casting space.

I am really looking forward to testing this incredible combo on the hunt for salmon and trout soon.

 

If you want to have more precise info about Skagit then you should watch this video with Matthias Drugge and Tobbe Hedin:

What the hell is Skagit? 

VISION Flyfishing

Pike from the Belly Boat

The spell seems to be broken after I caught my first fish of the year last week, a seatrout on the west coast, although the day didn't start promising to say the least.

Yesterday, Joakim, Erik and I headed out to one of the millions of small lakes in Sweden to hunt pike from the belly boat. Joakim and Erik borrowed their belly boats from school which might explain why we had to repair one of Eriks leaking chambers before we even got to the water. In addition, to make things worse access to the lake wasn't as easy as we had imagined, so we had to plough our way through 100m of marsh. Terrific, we thought, we won't be able to fish at all before it gets dark. 

Finally on the water it didn't take long before both Jocke and Erik caught their first pike. Soon after that, still on the way to our base the big backpack with food on my belly, I hooked a really nice pike. I paddled to the shore and landed the fish, a fat lady around 70cm and  2,5-3kg - my personal best on the fly! This was what I had been working so hard for the last couple of months.

The day continued like that. I caught three more but a little smaller pikes and lost four. All of my fish were lured by a, self-tied of course, chartreuse fly with a little pink and gold flash. I call the pattern MLI. Joakim caught six, among that a really fine pike around 90cm and 4kg, while Erik landed nine pikes. It was amazing to feel the strength of these pike. Even the smaller ones literally hammered our baits. Maybe this was why neither Joakim nor Erik complained about their slowly leaking belly boats. Every time they got out of the belly boat the chambers had to be refilled. It would probably not have been as much fun if one of them had taken a swim in the not so warm lake.

We until the sun disappeared and instantly the fishing died completely. Too cold, too dark for the pike. But one thing is a 100% certain: This definitely wasn't the last time we used the belly boats.

There is a lot to carry

 

 

Personal best on fly: 70cm

Well deserved, belly boating is hard work

The second lady

And another one takes the fly

Seatrout madness

Finally! That is probably the word which suits my feeling the best and if I was to sum up the trip our class made to the Swedish west coast from thursday to yesterday.

At 0800h we headed off to Grebbestad near the Norwegian border with our fly boxes loaded with shrimp and fish imitations that the trout were supposed to munch on. Arriving at the hostel, we thought that it was almost too good to be true. Awesome fishing weather, no wind (at the west coast!), neither too sunny nor too cloudy. And when we got to the water we couldn't believe our eyes: Surfacing fish everywhere! At times it was hard deciding which fish we were supposed to cast to because there were so many. Still, it is almost a miracle that I didn't get any fish the first day despite the fact that we fished until 2100h and that everybody else seemed to be catching trout. At the end of that day I was completely devastated. What was I doing wrong? You probably know the feeling of getting to a point where you really start doubting your fishing skills.

The second day started with me running to the spot where the others had had some incredible fishing the previous day. There was no way I was going to leave without getting my hands on one of those beautiful and strong seatrout, by the way also the first fish for me this year. After a couple of ours I finally found a fly that seemed to attract the interest of the still surfacing fish. A tiny orange/brown finally hooked a fine 35cm trout. After having released the fish it felt as if an enormous weight was lifted off my shoulders. Maybe I wasn't cursed afterall? Amazing and seen from a non-fisherman's perspective possibly a little ridiculous what kind of emotions a small scale carrier can cause.

The result of the trip was quite unbelievable. Cornelis, our teacher, claimed that he had never experienced such extremely good fishing in those past 12 years he has fished that area. I can't say how many trouts were caught but it was a lot. 19 out of 21 classmates caught a least one trout and for seven it was the first fish ever on the fly rod and the size of the trout was also very respectable. Several were over 50cm and one was around 70cm and 4kg, a trophy fish in everybody's point of view. Even die-hard jerkbait fishermen were thrilled by fighting seatrouts on a fly rod.

Hard to believe that this is the west coast

Anton fighting a seatrout

Emilie's first fish on the fly and not a bad one either - the expressions speaks for itself

I don't remember a fish that made me any happier

Growing Frustration

Yesterday my buddy Joakim Bornedal and me were out on Klarälven to fish pike. Our mission: Catch pike that Johnny Norrgård from Karlstad University could then tag with a radio transmitter for his science project. Unfortunately, in the beginning of last week 20.000 salmon smolts were released into the river, so finding a hungry pike was going to be hard and the water temperature on 1,9°C did not help our cause. Long story short: After 4 hours of fishing without even the slightest contact, the coating of my brand new running-line starting to peel off and an increasing wind we decided to head home and call it quits.

In the evening the guys and me decided to give it a shot at Kvarntorpsån, just to finally get at least a small fish. The sky looked nice and there was only little wind so everybody looked forward to making a few casts. But sure enough, the second we climbed out of the car a snow storm started. My first thought was: "Who talked me into this s***?" However, the storm did only last for a few minutes and we were able to fish. This Swedish spring weather is really weird, changing so rapidly. 

Both Jocke and Bambi succeeded in catching a small but fine pike, so I am still the only one who has not caught anything this year. Despite the fact, that I have by far invested the most time. But sometimes that's just the way it is and you just have to suck it up and keep on fishing. 

Joakim is on the hunt for pike

Did I say spring?