Viking Lars | Saturday, 13 November 2021
I’ve often mentioned how much I enjoy the old tradition of sharing ideas, flies and materials with likeminded people around the world. Sharing ideas has never been easier than now, A smart phone and in internet connection and I can share an idea from Denmark with Paul in Malaysia in seconds. It’s 2.30pm when writing this (yes yes, late as usual, I know) and I was just chatting to Paul before. With the huge time difference I can’t really figure out when Paul sleeps, but the other day it seems he was sleeping well into the day because it was raining.
But pictures and ideas is fine, but materials have to be sent and there’s something about getting a handful of flies in the mail still. Finer details of a dressing can be hard to convey in a few pictures and text. I got a little package from Matt Klara not long ago and apart from some really nice dubbing (which I’ll probably get back to in a later FP), there were a couple of flies.
When I first got to know Matt (even though we’ve never met in person), he was fishing steel head. I fish a lot of salmon in both Denmark, Sweden and Norway and since both types of fishing is “swinging” we shared some flies and a lot of ideas. And it was apparent that Matt liked Intruder-style flies with a stinger hook in a loop at the very back of the wing. They look fantastic, but somehow I never really have incorporated them into my selection.
In the package from Matt were a couple of wet flies for trout and Matt clearly still likes Intruder-style flies with a hook on a loop, although in much smaller sizes. I virtually never “swing” for resident brown, but I do for migrating sea trout, and the flies got me thinking again.
Sea trout are, when they’re a bit “old” in the river, notorious for short takes, especially when it’s warm. They are also notorious for like busy flies that push water and one of Matt’s flies fit both characteristic perfectly. And extended stinger hook and a deer hair head. This winter I will adapt this style to to fit sea trout fishing (which is usually done during the night, so it’ll be a mostly black fly - probably with some blue and purple).
As the late FP indicates I was in a time pinch to day, so I excuse the departure from the still water series - I’ll be back on track next weekend.
Thanks for the flies, Matt - I’ll return some variants.
Have a great weekend,
Lars