Viking Lars | Saturday, 21 October 2023
I was supposed to go fishing last weekend, again in the small streams, where I learned fish. It’s great to return to them and I find it very challenging and great fun to fish these small waters. The first challenge is to avoid spooking the fish, which is difficult. In many places the streams are so narrow, and overgrown, that an 8m cast is a long one. That makes stalking even more important. We also fish fairly big flies, some are weighted and with sink tip lines. That combination doesn’t exactly make it easier to land the fly with at least a minimum of delicacy. Together with all that, parts of the river run through low lying meadows that are boggy with deep holes, deep enough that you’ll sink in thigh deep if you’re not careful. This is mainly on the lowest parts of the streams, closest to where they meet the sea. At least there’s often room for a back cast out there.
Last weekend it was too windy and this weekend, a severe storm came in from the east. The storm flooded houses and summer homes, even cities last night, so a missed fishing trip is not to complain about. I have a few new patterns I wanted to try and hopefully there’ll still be a chance before the season closes on November 15th. The small streams mean that we do a lot of “backing down” with the fly. Cast to the opposite bank, back the fly and line down, a short down stream mend to swing the fly out. Once the fly is at your one bank, we back it down again before retrieving a few yards, before making the next cast.
I prefer weight forward lines, because of all the backing-down-and-retrieveing. A connection between a shooting head and a shooting line is constantly going through the guides, which is just annoying. There’s a limit to how fast sink tip lines you can get, at least here in DK. What we can get is T-line in 30ft lengths, so I’m already cutting and experimenting, but that’s for another FP. I want a sink tip line that sinks faster than the ones I have.
To compensate for the trip blown away last weekend, I decided to tie some fairly heavily weighted tubes flies. I use the Flexi-system from Pro Sportfisher, because it has several different options for weighting a tube. I also wanted a fly that fishes well both on the drop, on the swing, on the backing-down and on the retrieve, so I took inspiration from the Intruder flies common for steelhead in the US and the smaller versions now quite popular in DK for salmon.
The result is in the PoD. The hackles and rubber legs will move and pulsate whether the fly is dropping, swinging or being retrieved. I’ve tied a few different version to see how heavy I can comfortably cast them. Since we’re casting as short lines as we are, I over line by two. The fly in the PoD is a fall colours and can of course be tied in any colour combination you can imagine.
Have a great weekend!
Lars
Fly pattern for those interested:
Tube: Pro Sportfisher Nano Tube with an orange size S Hook Guide (several choices of colour available).
Thread: Tan UNI 8/0.
Body: Against the collar on the Nano Tube, a small ball of olive flash dubbing. Pushed hard up against this, a size XS RAW Weight. In front of this, a size Sm copper cone head, which almost covers the RAW weight.
Hackles: A long, furnace Chinese cock hackle and in front of this, a red Golden Pheasant breast hackle. In front of the hackles. Four long rubbers legs.
Head: Ultra Sonic Disc, size Sm, copper.
Disclaimer: I am good friends with the owner of Pro Sportfisher.