Viking Lars | Saturday, 24 December 2022
Yes, Merry Christmas - you knew it was coming, both the high season and the greeting. Once again it befalls on me to write the Christmas frontpage. First of all, I hope all of you who have the holidays off find time to do a little fishing, if the weather allows it. If not, then some fly tying, some reading or maybe some tackle maintenance.
Looking out on a frosty morning with everything covered in a thin layer of frosty ice, fishing be maybe out of the plans - I haven’t checked the forecast and I won’t. I can’t change it anyway. I of course have plans to do it all, which probably won’t happen. We’re having half the family for Christmas, so I’ll be in the kitchen come noon and then recovering from chaos tomorrow.
There is a list of flies I want to tie, some I “need” and some ideas I need to get on a hook. I do tie quite a lot of flies - yet the idea-list seems to keep growing. Most of the new come further than the first hook, but some of them stick. I’ve been lake-fishing a little this fall, which I haven’t done for some years. So the box of lake-specific files was almost empty. Damsels, corixae, Black Martinez’s, smal softhackles, midge pupae, dry midges, Griffith’s Gnat, small streamers, oooh - Mickey Finn, one of my absolute favourite flies and maybe the third fly I ever tied. And Shipman’s Buzzers - clearly.
I also need to reorganise the lines on my sea trout reels. I’ve been testing some lines this fall, one of them the SA Sonar Stillwater Clear Camo (camo - yes, thank you!). It’s a fantastic line, but it sinks relatively fast, which is fine - just somewhat faster than a “normal” intemediate. That’s common for clear lines, so I was prepared. I will be using from boats, fishing deeper water. It comes with one caveat - it’s overrated by one, full line weight, which annoys me to no end, but that’s how it is. I use a 5-wt on my 6-wts (see, I’m quite clever that way, with maths and all) and that suits me perfectly. On my Hot Torpedos and even a few saltwater-specific rods. I have run through a few other lines and I’ll probably write some words about them in the new year - unless I forget.
Have a very Merry Christmas!
Lars
PoD: A lovely, well conditioned rainbow from the Swedish Hökensås fishery. Caught on my own patters, W/B Zonker. I made a video how to tie it maybe 10 years ago, find it here.