Saturday, August 17, 2013

The Grande Bouffe - Part I

Having a few days off, I started to think where to go fishing. The idea of catching trout or grayling didn't satisfied me, probably cause I caught almost salmonides the entire year. My thoughts quickly ran to the fish that opened the gates of fly fishing for me, the chub. The rivers had low water levels during the last days and I chose a tributary of the Danube which resembles almost perfectly with the river on which I cast my first flies many years ago.

Since the mercury past 30 ° during the last days and the water temperature was more than pleasant I completely gave up waders.



Food is abundant in the summertime. Wasps, grasshoppers and other insects land unwittingly on the water surface contributing to the grande bouffe. Chub is a customary guest of this culinary orgy.
In this case I use to fish with wet flies. I always have my catchy trio in my box: wet wasp, wet grasshopper and a black fly.

The results were not long waited and fish made their appearance with the first casts. Most of them I caught on the wasp imitation and had between 1 and 3 lbs. Although the drills were rather average, the strikes were like cannon shots, firm and strong.








A snap on the surface caught my attention and I immediately cast in that area. Instantly I felt the strike in my rod. This time I had a bigger fish on the other end of the line. After a few minutes I had the fish in my net. It seems that my wet flies were also appreciated by this last fish of the day, an asp around 4 lbs.



When the sun reached its highest point on the sky, I decided to end this wonderful fly fishing day cause of the heat. I caught nice fish, made some nice pictures and I knew some cold beer was waiting for me at home.


I hope you enjoyed the pictures and there will be more about the flies during the next post.

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