When they need provoking

Two years ago I found myself a little hooked on big foam flies and developed my own hopper/beetle/caddis/stonefly mutant hybrid called The Blasphemy hopper. So far I’ve had some of the most cruel takes ever on this fly and so far I’ve lost more big trouts than I have landed on it. This is on one hand a good acknowledgment that this pattern is something special and on the other hand extremely frustrating! In Norway two years ago I lost a big trout after a couple of seconds after one of the most ferocious takes I’ve ever experienced and last summer I lost a trout that I saw the whole head of on 30 meters distance, a huge fish by all measurements.

It’s rather exciting now because I am sending a couple of this fly to Johan Nygren, guide and travel arranger, for him to test on the monster trouts of the Kola peninsula in Russia! This could be the chance for it to hook a +2 kg trout this summer since it seems I won’t get the chance myself

One thing that I have confidence in is the way the eyes are seen on the underside, I’ve always been a believer in eyes as a trigger point for predator fish. And big trouts are definitely predators!

 

Bugs

Most fly fisherman have a special relationship with bugs don’t we? After all most flies we fish with are imitation of the different bugs that our beloved trouts eat. I’ve been taking some bug photos this summer, mostly terrestrial but still…

 

Deer hair frenzy

I tied these guys before the trip last week, both landed fish for me. I really, really love this olive dyed deer hair and it makes great G&H sedges and Stimulators! This olive Stimulator is by far the most successful variant for me over the past years, active fishing with these can give some rough takes to say the least!

Pattern combos

I’ve been writing an article on Stimulator flies these last few days and remembered a fly that I fished a few years back which was like a combo of different patterns combined. I am gonna do more on that topic (combining patterns) later. But for now here’s the Irresistible Elk-ulator!

Hook: Partridge GRS12ST
Thread: Veevus 12/0 cream
Tail: Natural Elk
Abdomen: Tightly packed and trimmed natural deer hair
Body hackle: Grizzly
Wing: Natural Elk
Thorax: Grey super fine dry fly dubbing
Thorax hackle: Grizzly

Pike and dry fly trout fishing in the same trip

After a summer that so far hasn’t involved much more fishing than three trips to my local waters with the kids for pike and perch fishing I all of a sudden find myself on the road for a small fishing trip up to Dalarna about 30 km north of me. Tuesday afternoon and evening was to be spent fly fishing for pike in one of the largest river in Sweden, the might Dalälven! I’ve been talking to Tommy Lönnebacke that works as a guide up there for some time now to come fish with him and finally I got the chance. The conditions were however a little too good, sunny weather and no wind at all made it very hard. We had about six strikes that we missed all of them and it seamed we only had one shot at each fish. Anyway, there were some of the nicest pike waters I have ever fished and I will be back this autumn when the fishing is at its peak. Here’s a few photos from that evening:

On wednesday morning I jumped in the car early and drove an hour to meet up my good friend Niklas Dahlin (http://mulhonken.blogspot.se/) for some dry fly fishing in a little forest river outside Falun. It’s a private stretch of the river owned by a fishing community of about 50 fishermen, I was lucky to be able to come as a guest.

The river flows beautifully trough the woods, it’s challenging and wild and you really need those switch casts to be able to cast at all in many places. We were struck with heavy rain for about two hours before lunch but eventually iut cleared in the afternoon for nice and sunny weather. I had a blast and caught three trouts and two rainbows, the biggest at about 1 kg. It was a great day, a beautiful river with beautiful fish in it. The were rising a lot but there were still not just picking them, I had one trout that I cast about 30 cast on with almost the same amount of flies but it refused to take anything. I’ll definitely try and go back there if I get the chance!

Back tying

So after quiet a long break from fly tying (and blogging) I’ve been back at the tying vise for real now since a couple of weeks back. June and July I’ve spent much more photographing than fly tying and unfortunately fishing. But now both tying and fishing is back on the agenda again. Some of the first flies I tied last week was my SRM emerger and a little freestyle CDC dark mayfly thingy… sort of 🙂

It’s good to be back tying and feeling happy about it too!

The CDC mayfly uses my favorite UV-cured resin Bug Bond in three different ways; as cover of the quill body, as a divider of the wings and on the underside of the thorax. Little things that make this material (still) one of my fav things to work with!