Bernd Ziesche | Wednesday, 25 April 2018
In all my thousands of fly fishing days I had to learn, that the combination of catching BIG and MANY fish almost never happens to us!? So, in order to succeed we better focus on one or the other one!
I have always prefered to focus on catching just one fish in a fly fishing trip: The one BIG one!
Right now Manja and I are fishing for coastal Sea trout on Gotland in Sweden. We have caught a pretty fair number of fish all week long. Since we caught small ones, medium ones and even bigger ones (mostly "after spawning" ones) it looks quite promising for the next years here. The stock of coastal Sea trout around Gotland is in great shape for sure!
For me I just was hoping to catch one BIG sea trout on this trip. This would be a Chromer of over 4Kg in weight. A fish that wasn't spawning last winter but stayed in the ocean feeding on herrings instead. Those fish are always only along the coast in small numbers. Most of them stay out in the deeper water hunting within the herrings. From time to time one of them comes closer to the beach in order to get some sun light in the shallow water. That's when I may get lucky to be in front of a chance though.
In my experience the key of constantly catching one of these fantastic Chromers always was: The fastest retrieve you can think of!
Why so fast?
Because,
a) it makes it harder for these smart fish to see the leader in front of the fly and to then refuse
b) it provokes the Sea trout to hammer into your fly making for a much better hook up
c) it shortens the time lag between the fish taking your fly and you feeling the strike (significant less of a chance for the fish to get rid of the hook again)
d) it makes for setting the hook much better due to the strong pull on the line while retrieving so fast
e) it imitates much better what the natural food does, when a Sea trout passes by (thus it makes for strikes you never achieve on a slow retrieve)
And then I wade as tough as possible, which means I climb from reef to reef always including to fish the truly outer edges of every reef. You know those spots that the average bear wouldn't fish. Also I prefer to fish the rough (wavy) side of the island, where the wind makes casting life quite hard.
Fishing like that all day long is tough for sure! It needs a lot of focus on the one BIG fish hopefully hammering into my fly at some point. And believe me these fish never come in numbers. If you get one, you are pretty lucky for sure. But for that luck you have to work hard. It doesn't come the easy way.
Anyway I was lucky yesterday and again nailed down a perfect Chromer of almost 5 Kg. Couldn't have been any better. Also Manja managed to catch another fine coastal Sea trout in pretty decent size!
Wherever you are - I hope you are having such a fine fishing week as well!?
All my best
Bernd
Our last days have been a blast for sure!