Udbyhøj 28/4 – 2014

Four hours on the fjord alone in the pontoonboat. Nice weather but not much action. I did see garfish at the surface but that was all I saw besides from the fish I caught. I fished the incoming Water up to the start of the outgoing Water.

First I got this 20 cm trout

 

Later I stepped up a bit to 35 cm but I needed the last step.

 

The fjord looked very beautiful at sunset allmost without any wind.

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Ystad, Eastern 2014

The annual trip til the south coast of Sweden fly fishing for searun brown trout from pontoon boats. This year we were six persons: Henrik L, Henrik V., Thomas, Lars A, Jan and myself.

One morning we did see two mooses, which is a quite rare sight this far south in Sweden. Beside this we also saw foxes, squirrel, deer and birds like kites and osprey.

 

On these trip we normally catch a majority af kelts but this year we got many good conditioned blank trouts but generally in smaller size than normal. But as you can see we also this year got some kelts. Here Jan presents one that needed another 3 lbs. The minimum size here is 50 cm or 20 inches and we had to release many of the blank fish as they were too small.

 

One day Thomas got this ide. We have caught these on other trips but not a common sight. From my own experience I can tell that they are not big fighters.

 

One very windy day I got the fish that was in a surprisingly good condition – it was app. a 8 pounder – but after the landing it still had energy to jump so this is how the presentation photo came out. Everyone like this photo.

 

Here Henrik presents one of the nicest fish on the trip, it is  a 5 pounder in top form taking on his new pet pattern which is a shrimp pattern. Shrimp patterns proved productive on this trip. I fished with flies tied by Ove Monrad and they are very well tied and incredible durable. I have to take a course from Ove in how to improve the durability on my flies.

 

Here a lineup of six pontoon boats during a break. A very unusal sight at these waters though I find fishing fly from pontoon boats by far the best way to flyfish here as the beaches are not easy to wade as there are many big and very slippery rocks and you are not that depending on the wind direction.

 

The last day some of us fished at Kåseberge and here Henrik V. got this beatiful 6 pounder which came out as the top fish of the trip. Henrik had not got many fish until then so he was very pleased.

 

The stomach of the fish showed why it was in top condition. There were  large sand eels, many shrimps and smaller fish.

 

 

The last day I ended with two nice fish and it at allways nice to look Down on your stripping basket filled this way after a morning of fishing.

 

Thomas on the last day got several blank fish like the one presented here and this sums up the trip in many ways.

I was very pleased with the trip as I got some fish and also nice ones but especially as I due to a shoulder enjury was forced to cast with my left hand and therfore had low expectations. After some days I actually casted resonably and I started to feel that I was fishing and not just struggling with the cast. So I was reborn as a fly fisher and my plans about cancelling trips later this year was cancelled. I really hope that my shoulder will come back to full functionability but in the meantime I can flyfish – or at least sort of flyfish 🙂

 

Hirtshals, 4/4 – 2014

As my shoulder still makes it impossible to flyfish I came up with a way to go fishing and get some nice fish to eat. I teamed up with Søren on a sea fishing trip from Hirtshals. In this way I could fish, get some fish in the freezer and be gentle on my shoulder ( I thought).

The wind was quite strong but from SE so not that big waves and after a couple of hours sailing we started to fish and we almost immediately hooked fish. It was cods in the 3-4 Pounds range and there were plenty.

This is my basket not even halfway through. We ended up catching 70 -80 cods each and this despite that we took long breaks. Despite we also released app. 25 fish each we had so many fish that my shoulder now really Hurts from all the work gutting and cutting filets. So for the next months we will not have any shortage of fish in the freezer and cod filet is a good starting point for many nice dishes.