Bernd Ziesche | Wednesday, 8 July 2020
Last week I further studied asp!
My friend Frank and I were fishing different spots in Hamburg - modern "street fishing" if you like. ;)
We checked different spots for asp. In one spot we found some smaller asp mixed with a few proper sized ones. The smaller asp were gently taking very small (newborn) baitfish just subsurface. I offered a school of pretty small flies (5 flies in a row) in order to imitate those newborns. Immediately I managed to catch several fish. Frank tried one of his own (bigger) flies for a while, but did not succeed. After he tried one of my small flies, Frank too could land a first asp immediately. Size of the flies is very critical when fishing for asp. Asp hardly ever react on different sizes at the same time. In 99% they are fixed on one and one only size of baitfish. If your fly doesn't match that size, you are not in the game at all.
Just a few meters further there was an excellent sized asp two times hammering into baitfish near the surface. I tried with my 5 small flies, but after 3 or 4 casts I was sure that this asp wasn't after newborns. In fact I knew it right from the beginning, because that asp was strongly hammering into the baitfish. That's not what asp do when feeding on newborns. Asp take the newborns more gently since newborns yet don't run off as fast as the older (bigger) baitfish do. So when seeing a strong splash it mostly means asp are feeding on bigger baitfish. Ok, it needs a lot of training to really see the different levels of asp splashing... which is why I gave the small flies a try first. Then I changed to my multi action fly (you may see it in the pictures below). That fly in size matches a medium sized baitfish and makes a lot of action. Right on the first cast that fine asp hammered into the fly and inhaled it deeply. Fantastic, nothing beats matching the hatch - especially when chasing fish that use a fair number of different hunting strategies themthelves. ;)
The next days I fished my home town and caught several smaller asp which were feeding on small crabs. Here I have one fly that has outfished all other flies for years now. No need to tell it imitates the small crabs.
In 10 days I wil be running a 2 days workshop on fly fishing for asp here in Hamburg. Can't wait - I am well prepaired!
Hopefully you are in the game at it's best either right now!?
Ok, I have to run into some more fish - asp of course! ;)
All my best
Some pictures...
