It's been a long time

There hasn't been a lot of fly fishing or tying, sine summer. School, work and personal life sometimes get in the way, and I definitely hate to force myself to do things I like, just to do the. So I took a break from fly fishing and focused on photography part of the hobby instead.

Can't say that I regret that.

Since my last fly fishing trip post, I've moved to Kristiansand (south of Norway) and I've started working (finally, got sick of being a poor-ass student :D )

But enough about the boring stuff, let's talk big fish and a bit about my plans for the fly fishing future.

The future part first.

Lately I've been "obsessing" with tropical fly fishing, bones, poon, redfish, anything that swims in hot water and kicks like ten mules. So I've started filling a few boxes with tropical style flies. I definitely won't be doing any tropical fly fishing this year, and maybe not next year, but 2016 vacation will be spent chasing fish in the tropics.

I will also start uploading tropical style SbS patterns.

Now for the big fish. can't say there has been many of them, I've only been on 10 short trips since I've moved here, but here is one of (hopefully many) to come :) 73 cm of pure Norwegian silver

Stack Creek 2

Just a quick clip of Lise doing some fishing :)

The Story of The Greedy Bastard

Two brave travelers started their journey towards Stack Creek, a small creek up North. After traveling for almost two hours, they were at their destination, the rain pouring from the heavens, trying to soak the weary travelers.
But the travelers came prepared and the rain could not soak them through their cloaks. The flies were chosen and the travelers set out down river looking for rising trout.
But not a thing stirred anywhere......
The weary travelers would not be put back by this, and their knowledge of the creek was good, so the trout could not hide, and after some blind dryfly fishing, the travelers could see who got the smallest trout. I can not say that I believe that Lady got the smallest, she claimed that hers was the size of her little finger...
After a while I went to a nice little pool, in hope that there was something bigger than 300 grams swimming there. After four casts a tiny little trout takes the fly. NOT again! So I slacken the tension in hope that the fish will fall of, barbless hook and all. But what is that??!! A big trout darting up and down in front of me, surely it is not the one that took my fly. And it is not. It is a 45 cm trout that wants to eat the tiny trout that has my fly!!
And eat it it does. It grabs the tiny trout in the rear and holds on to it. How long you wonder? So long that the Lady is able to land the fish as if it was hooked...
Many have said that the pike is a greedy fish, but compared to this greedy bastard.... I think not.

Greedy Bastard!

And now it was Lady's turn to get a bigger trout, while I was playing the camera man. And after a few casts a nice trout takes the olive dun and we get a nice fly fishing scene.

The sun was shining, the fish were rising and soon it was time to drive back home.

Caddis, I hate Thee

Ahhhhhhh, is there anything better than a proper caddis hatch, topped up with the long days here in the North?
Yes there is, at least when the stupid caddis pupae swim far from the reach of a fly cast. Why they do this, who knows, what makes it worse is that the river current should force the pupae towards "our side".... But there is, I guess, nothing else to expect when fishing in Nidelva, which will be known as Crappy River from now on.

There were a few fish rising just close enough, that when I pushed my self to the max, I could get a decent presentation. On the other side of the river the wish were rising like crazy, and the worst thing is, that it is impossible to fish from the other side due to super-dense forest.

IF ANYONE WANTS TO DONATE A RIVER BOAT OR FUNDS FOR ONE, CONTACT ME!!! :D

Anywho, I did manage to fool a few trout, lose two and snap my leader on one nice one.... Trust me, the words that come from my mouth then, would make the Devil him self blush!

And the one who laughs last, laughs best ;)

Covered in flour, salt & pepper. Crispy when done! YUM!

The Trout, The Lady & The Sneak

Long ago, in a land faraway, there was a creek filled with trout. But not all was fun and giggles in this land, there was a mean bearded Sneak, sneaking along the creek, fooling trout on artificial flies.

The Sneak in action

After the Sneak selected a trout to fool, in was just a matter of a good snake-roll to complete tho fooling. Three goes and the trout rises to the fly, the Sneak following it with it's keen eyes, and takes it.

HAHAHAHAHA, silly trout!

After the fight was done, the trout was returned to it's home, to tell the tale of the Sneak.
But the Sneak was not content, It never is, so on went the Sneak in search of a another trout to fool.
And the Sneak was not alone, no. With the Sneak there was a Lady, Lady Vimms. She too, likes to sneak around and fool trout.

Lady Vimms in action

Further down the creek, Lady Vimms spotted a trout and had to fool it straight away! No time to waste!

Fooling the trout, Lady-stye

And fool it she did, what a nice trout it was. Not a huge trout, but very nice for this creek.

Pretty

For some time The Sneak and Lady Vimms fooled many a trout, while a bright yellow mayfly was hatching and floating down the creek. They were of such nice color, that The Sneak had to stop fooling the trout and magically store the memory of the beautiful insect on a tiny magic card.

Magic....

Soon, The Sneak had to return to fooling and managed to fool a nice trout. Personal best for this creek.

All the trout look small, compared to the mighty Sneak

But alas, the fun could not last, soon the trout got the point, and there was no more fooling them. The Sneak and Lady Vimms packed up their gear and went home, cursing the trout and vowing to return and fool them again!

More photos here!

The Newbie

A friend of mine, Vedran, has been nagging me for quite some time to take him fishing with me. So after he had a quick introduction to fly casting (about a month ago) I took him for at trip to Cuddly Creek. Lise came to, and since Vedran held a fly rod only once before, I was going to be his "guide" for the day.

The Noob and The Guide

 As is, nobody is born with a fly rod in their hands, but Vedran did the best he could. But when the wind came, it was safer for me to do the casting and he the fishing part. E. danica was hatching and the fish were rising. One really nice one to, well nice for the Cuddly Creek. So I took the cast, and gave the rod to the newbie, and bang! But nooooooo, it didn't sit....

Taking a closer look made me realize that the leader snapped in a wind-knot.... Should have checked the leader..... Bad Guide, Bad!!

Alas, what can we do than continue fishing. So a quick tippet change (love those micro rings!) and back to action.

While I'm playing guide, Lise i "killing", landing one after another. And some of the nice fish.

Sooooooooo happy

After a "few" striking problems, the noob finally hooked a fish! He did have some problem holding it for a photo, so I was a good guide and did it for him....

Noob's first fly caught trout!

Now it was my turn to catch a few, and so I did. Soon the hunger kicked in, those noobs... So we gave it a day and went home. Lise was really pleased, and so was the noob. The guide? Pleased!

What a weekend!

How to start?
Let's start with Friday night. At late o'clock I gave Lise a call because we just had to do some fishing! She was tired from work, but it didn't take much to convince her that fishing is the right thing to do.
In no time we were on our way.
Arriving at the river we saw two guys on the other bank, looked like fly fishermen, but they were just sitting....
OK with me. On the way down we saw a few fish rising in a sweet spot, but on the way there Lise got distracted by another fish. So I went to the sweet spot and waited with my #13 olive mayfly. The fish rose again and I cast my fly just to the left of the rise. Wait, take, wait two seconds, lift rod, It's on!
OOOOOOH, feels like a nice fish. So I call out to Lise and she comes running. Got to have photos.
After a nice fight I land a long, but a bit skinny (yet very beautiful) trout. 51,2 cm.

Yeah

Lise was a bit rusty on the hooking part, probably due to the tiredness, and after a few hours it got a bit cold so we went home. Man did I sleep like a bear hibernating!

Saturday and the wind is blowing.... Crap! What to do..... Pack up a lot of gear in the car and head out to Stjoerdal, visit a fly fishing store that has a sale on a bunch of stuff, then decide where to go. We ended up spending plenty of time at the store, but the wind was still blowing, so it was OK. When Lise got bored, we drove back to Trondheim and the same river we visited on Friday.

Today I was playing guide, so Lise could land a few nice fish.

It started a bit bad with a slight timing problem, but Lise soon calmed down and did it proper.

Action!

And after a few more fish it was the guides turn.

Whopper!!

Time flies when having fun and it was time to get home, early start tomorrow.

For some reason or other it's much easier to wake up early (for some) to go fishing then when you got to go to school... I was up at the crack of dawn. No wait, sun went up 03.03, ah the north... Everlasting day during the summer...

Well I was up pretty early, and after agreeing with Lise to pick her up in an hour, I got ready to do some more fishing. BUT Lise was still sleeping when I came to pick her up??!! WTF woman??!! So she had to get ready in a jiffy, can't waist precious fishing time, and we were on our way.

A bit of action was on when we arrived, and it took Lise no time to land a trout (after burning one due to slight loss of concentration..) and It took me no time at all to land my first trout too.

It was a bit colder today, so the fishing was a bit slow, but we managed to catch a few fish each.

All in all it was a nice weekend, now I got to get some new lines on the reels for the next trips :)

Tight lines all!

More photos here.

The Water Wolf

Lise was ready to pop her pike-on-the-fly-cherry, so we packed up our float tubes and went fly fishing for pike.
The sun was warming and nice, and there was almost no wind. The tubes and the gear got ready, but to my surprise, I managed to forget the box with the pike-flies at home! Luckily there was one fly that I forgot in the trunk. Lucky me! Fly meet leader and let's go fly fishing!
It did not take long before Lise got her first pike, and it was a nice size.

Lie with her first fly-caught pike

I on the other hand only got reeds for a time. But luck soon came my way and I hooked something pretty big. After 4 big runs, the hook came out, followed by some nice words...
But shit happens, so the fly went out again and it took about 2 sec before another pike took the fly.

My new personal best.

After that the fishing got pretty slow, so we went home. Hope that the bigger ones are there the next time.

Pike Suprise

I love surprises!

Thomas and I went fly fishing for pike, and man was it fun. It started a bit slow, but soon Thomas landed a fish, and it was a trout. On a 8 wt with a pike fly... That trout must have been hungry.

After a lovely downpour, Thomas spotted a nice pike resting in some weeds, after a few goes the pike ate the fly and Thomas got a new personal best :)

We changed the spot and I went for a nice fat popper. After a few casts something large jumps out of the water and tries to take the popper, it's a big trout! Surprise! Man was I shocked. The popper is enormous! After that I changed down to the smallest pike fly I got, but the tail was so log, that it was impossible to hook anything.....

So again we changed spots, visiting two different lakes, with no pike on land, well no pike at all.It was getting a bit late, and Thomas had a date with Captain Morgan so we packed up and went home.

But after I dropped Thomas off, I started thinking of that trout. I had all my trout flies and a 3 wt in tha car, so why not give it a go? But after I arrived, i went for the 7 wt, no need in playing with the fish to much and there are some trees in the water, so the extra control the 7 wt gives is welcome. Luckily I had some tippet that I use for sea trout in the backpack, so I didn't need to use 0,45 mm mono :D

I went for a small streamer, since that trout went for a huge popper and after landing a few small but FAT trout, I tied on a small streamer/dragonfly nymph on. After a few castes something takes the fly, something strong. And after a good fight on the 7 wt (smart choice, because the 3 wt would have been to weak) I land a perfect example of the Salmo trutta, fat as a pig and 1,05 kg.

It was raining so much by now, that I was soaking wet. So I decided that after a extremely nice fish like the fat trout, there is no need for more fishing (for that day only, of course)

The Cuddly Creek

The Cuddly Creek is where we go to "cuddle fly fish", meaning light gear and just enjoying nice fly fishing, even if the fish are not huge.

This time it was Thomas and I who went, Lise had to work, and upon arriving and seeing the amount of rising fish, the hopes soared sky-high. But as usual, the fish were not so easy to fool...

They left all the duns floating for ages and did not give the a look, so after some trial and error, I found that what they really liked was a nymph, floating in the surface film. Still very visible fly fishing.

After a few fish, there is one that rises a few feet in front of me (I was hidden in some reeds) and a well aimed cast results in an instant take. At once I feel that this fish is bigger, an after a nice fight I land my new personal best for the Cuddly Creek :) Whole 850 grams.

As you can see on the photo, the fish is a bit skinny, so it will probably get to be over 1 kg when I meet it later this year.

Bending that 3wt :)

The Sunday

One great day of fly fishing!

So CC. Lise and I desided to take a short trip and do some fly fishing before we were going to make some pizza and do some flytying. CC said he wanted to try out The Camp, so we went there (by the way, this spot is the only place I ever broke off a fish on 0.45 mm leader....) and arrived to some really nice conditions.

I started with a sink 7 line and shortly after a nice pollack was landed, but CC had to show off and he got a garfish. Now, I'm not shure, but I don't think that this is something common this up here in Troendelag, unlike from where CC comes from (Larvik). So for him it wasn't such a big deal....

After that he got a nice mackrel, while I and Lise only got pollack. BUt hey, pollack is a great fighter and Lise's flyrod can confirm that.

And the pollack kept taking the fly, over and over again. We had several double hookups and a few fish taking the fly at our feet. This is one of my biggest pollack taken that day. Fish this size put a nice bend in the 7 wt ;)

And after we all got a load of fish, Lise hooks a pollack. It looks like a 2 kg fish, but it does something terrible, brakes Lises 7 wt during the fight... We just stand there dumbstruck for a while and look at eachother.
I'm not shure how many fish we got that day, but it's over 20 and that is not a common thing.
If you are wondering what kind of flies worked that day, well for me it was a white Mini-Bnny, for Lise a chartreuse/white and pink/white Clouser and for CC it was a pink/white Clouser that looked like anything but that.
When the hunger was unbearable we had to get going. By the way the pizza tasted great!


More photos here.

Three Days of Pollack

What can I say about these 3 days???

Day 1:

I'm at a party, fun time sure, but the sun is up and the wind is gone..... OK, I'll give it a few hours before I split.

Around 23.00 I make my farewells, jump in my car, drive home, gat my gear and head out for The Good Spot. I arrive at 23.50, the water is clear an calm. Yes!

Get the gear set up, put on my Mini-Bunny and star the fishing. 15 minutes, nothing..... 20 minutes, fish on! Oh, you can feel when it's a pollock, the hard jerks, the power..... Well I was a bit rusty, so this one I lost in the weeds.... Well well, the fish is there and biting, so nothing is over yet.

The water is on the way down and I know that soon the current wil increase, and with that the bite-ratio. Just as the first sign of the current was showing, the first pollock was landed. Not big, maybe 4 kilo.

As the current speed increased so did the size of the fish. The current was so strong at one point, that sink 7 was fishing 50 centimetres under the curface....

And for the first time ever I saw rising pollock hunting herring 1 -2 meters from the rocks..... Hearing that BLOP when they took those herrings.... But there was nor time to waste, so cast after cast was taken and with that fish after fish. Not sure how many I took that night, but around 10. Average weight: 3 -4 kilo. It was so much fun that before I knew it, it was 05.00.

Day 2:

No party this time, just got ready and was at The Good Spot at 23.55. Same conditions as last night. Yeah!

Out with the fly, you will never catch fish sitting and looking at the water!

To make this story short, it was just like the day before. Only this time I caught bigger fish. The green mark on the rod is 45 centimeters, so I reckon it's about 7 kilo.

Day 3:
This time I was bringing Lasse with me. Met the guy over the fluefiskesiden.no, which is a great site/forum for flyfishermen. Anyway, Lasse has never before experienced big pollock on the fly, neither did he have a sinking line. No prob there, I had a Teeny T-200 that was not on any reel.
When we came to The Good Spot, the water was high, but clear. We rigged our gear, and it took one cast to catch the first fish. Then it was Lasse's turn, and did he like it! Grinnig from ear to ear and making sounds like a little gril. I couldn't help my self but laugh. And this cept on thru the whole day. Lasse catches a fish, laughing and grinning. It's so nice to see real joy and that a simple fish like pollock can produce it!



After a while I start to wonder where the big ones are, and they are so kind that one of them answers me by taking my fly :)





Lasse catches more fish, but none over 5 kilo mark, sadly. Me? Again Mother Nature is kind to me.

It was a great day, and the fish was biting like crazy. Total count about 20 fish, with average weight of 4 kilo.

Sadly Lasse has moved away from Trondheim, as I'm writing this a message ticks in from him. He's flyfishing for brownes in River Tisleia.

One Huge Fish!

First of all I dropped my videocamera in the sea, it died.... But I also caught the biggest pollock caught on fly in Norway. To make the story really short it did not get approved as the new record. Why? Because I chose to let the fish live and get bigger for the next season. Sure, the scale I used was not some expensive thing that gives the weight to the nearest miligram, so after the required correction I needed 90 grams to get the record approved.... Length and girth have nothing to say, because fish that is longer and has bigger girth than the previous record is not heavier..... So if you want to be 100 % sure your record will get approved in Norway, KILL the fish. Thanks, but no thanks. I rather see them swim away.