Last Sunday we where on a odyssey through the German countryside.
We where looking for suitable places to fish on our local river way downstream where we usually fished. Off course it was not only a scouting mission we where on. First we had to catch some fish at the home waters. On this particular morning you could sense that fall was approaching. Trees already showed first signs of colouring and the morning air temperature was quite low. Only a weeks before we where in the middle of a heat wave. After that the great downpour came and finally a fall weather pattern was surfacing. Cool mornings, nice afternoon temperatures and now and then a shower. It would be interesting to see if our little river had cleared after the heavy downpours. As we drove to our river we came across another major stream. We had plenty of time to make a stop and check out the water. The water was very clear and fish where actually rising.


Rising fish.

Close examination revealed that the rings on the surface where caused by small shiners picking up objects from the surface. The location we where at was close to a watermill in the middle of town. One barbarian was fishing below the watermill, that was odd since we had the impression that fishing was off-limits there.


To the right, a barbarian drowning night crawlers.

From earlier visits we knew that most fish where concentrated in de town. I guess it was safer down there than on the wide open fields in the great outdoors. We walked to a bridge downstream and gazed at the fat shiners moving up and down in the currents. I had the camera with me and took some pictures of the fish. Maybe I should use the Tele lens next time to get an even better close up shot of the fish. At least I already had a polarizing filter to remove the glare of the waters surface.


View from the bridge, a mix of shiners and the odd yellow perch.

After the short stop we resumed our journey to our own river. We made stops at several bridges to see how the water was looking. It was still turbid but clear enough for us to fish in. The water was a also a little bit higher than usual. Both facts where the aftermaths of the heavy downpours from the days before. Before we went fishing we took a coffee break
and discussed tactics and locations. I would head up to the beginning of the so called guest stretch and fish the first deep pool. At the first pool there was a pretty flow going over the small weir. There just had to be fish in the pool. I used a heavy gold bead pheasant tail nymph in conjunction with a large sight indicator to fish the pool. My first attempts to catch a fish remained fruitless. I varied the depth of the sight indicator in order to fish as close to the bottom as possible. The change in depth paid off because after sometime I hooked a little spunky brown trout.


Another Trout for the Trout bum.

The pool was deep enough to house more than one fish so I continued fishing. Fishing deep was risky since the bottom of the pool was covered with branches and other debris from the surrounding forest. In the end I got stuck, I wanted to save the nymph so I choose to disturb the spot. It was time to look for another spot and check if fellow flyfisher Joop had already caught a fish. I found him at the next deep pool downstream. He complained that the water looked dead, he had success on the same spot a week before but now nothing was moving. His last visit was when the sun was shining and temperatures where high. With a cold morning and a clouded sky insect activity was low and this was also having an effect on the fish. We fished some of our usual honey holes but unfortunately the fish where not cooperating. We had fished the first section of the guest stretch and would fish the end next. First we called our German contact Michael to see if he was fishing on this day. He would join us so we decided to wait for his arrival. After that we headed downstream and everybody tried to get some fish in the pools dotted along the middle section of the guest stretch. I went straight to the end of the stretch where a sharp bend in the river had created a very deep pool. It was a location where I had caught many trout and shiners. My first cast with the nymph yielded an instant hit. As the nymph drifted near the opposite undercut bank the sight indicator went under and a nice Dace came to the surface.


A nice Dace on a goldbead pheasant tail nymph.

It was not long before Michael and Joop came around. Michael had caught a brown on the dry fly while Joop remained fishless. Michael called it a day because he had to go fishing with the youth members of the fishing club. Joop and I would go on our way to explore the river downstream.



Some of the places we came across on our odyssey.

We drove through the countryside in search of places Joop had visited almost four years ago. He remembered some spots by heart but the majority had to found by driving along muddy dirt roads in the countryside. Since waters in Germany where almost exclusively privately owned or operated by local fishing clubs it meant that every couple of miles a different entity operated a part of the river. This meant different licenses for each part. For the stretches we would explore on this day we could get a free day ticket because of an agreement between our German club and other clubs along the same river. The pain was that those exchange licenses where limited in number and that you had to order them in advance. First we would do some exploring to be prepared for the time when we would really go fishing. Along the way we came across a local angler who was kind enough to share some information with us. He even told us that there where local people fly fishing, that was a sure sign that fishing would be worthwhile. The river downstream was a completely different world from what we where used to. It was wider and deeper.


The weir where the locals went for fly fishing.

The lack of surface activity worried us somewhat, it was not better upstream on this day so it was not a big thing. When we stared down in the water at one of the weirs fish where moving everywhere. If the fish where present we would have a chance of catching them. We spend to whole afternoon roaming the countryside and found quite a few places where we would like to go fish in the future.


Fish spotted!, next time we will try and catch them to see what they exactly are.

So we spend a couple of hours on “our river” way downstream. It was very interesting to see the river as it grew larger and larger with all those small feeder streams flowing in along the way. It was quite different from the wild upstream stretches where the river was still in a more or less natural state. The last part of the river at our home stretch was already canalised, it would stay that way along the rest of the river as it finally emptied into another major river in the Netherlands.

It would be less than two months from now before the closed season started on the river in our club waters. The lower parts of the river would still be open for fishing then. We knew that pike, perch and chub would be inhabiting the lower parts of the river. Plenty of exploring for us to do in the coming months.