Bernd Ziesche | Wednesday, 12 April 2017
Gotland is a beautiful Swedish island offering us a fantastic coastal fly fishing for sea running Brown trout (Sea trout). Right now spring is arriving and we are having a blast. Everyone in our group has caught at least one nice fish yet!
The water temperature increases every day now. That forces more and more Sea trout to enter the shallow coastal water hunting for smaller bait like crabs, small baitfish and worms. Besides that I am pretty sure that a fair number of the truly big silver Sea trout are entering the shallow water just to get back into sunlight and warmer water after having chased herrings down deep all winter long. Always when the shallow coastal water starts to get little warmer than the deep water they will come in for 1 or 2 weeks before mainly moving back to the herrings in the deeper water. During winter the deep water is warmer as the shallow coastal water.
Most fly fishermen think to imitate the natural food of the Sea trout. I believe this to be a misunderstanding often. In my experience Sea trout only eat from time to time (short periods in cold water), not even every day! But we always have a fair chance to catch them by getting them curious or provoking a reflex. So there are a lot of different strategies that may help you to succeed in catching a Sea trout. What is important is, that you have a serious strategy and understand how and why it works best for you.
Everything - the fly, the leader, the line and the movement (your retrieving technique) needs to be adjusted to each other within your strategy.
And then you should adjust the strategy to the Sea trout you are after! This can be the smaller silver ones (not yet adult), the bigger ones not having been in freswater for spawning during the winter (Sea trout don't spawn every year) or those coming back from spawning. All these Sea trout are having a significant different feeding behaviour. Adapting your strategy to this and you'll catch a lot more fish.
More details on strategies for Sea trout will follow next week!
Right now it's pretty late and I need to get a nap before we will start another fantastic day fishing from dusk til dawn!
Excellent week to all of you!
All my best
Bernd
Last days...
