This my last fishing report from Germany for this year. Mid October trout season closes there. If all goes well I will be in Florida next week Thursday to continue my fishing adventures in the salt water of the Gulf of Mexico.

Last Saturday I went fishing with Joop at our home waters in Germany. The part of the river we fished in was still in its natural state and regarded by German authorities as a trout habitat. That implied that the river had a closed season from mid October until April if I remembered it correctly. Season was almost at it’s thus we had to fish whenever we had time. From a very reliable source we knew that a last batch of fish from the hatchery was stocked in a particular stretch of the river. We would start fishing in that stretch.

At the river we noticed the water was low. The level looked similar or even lower than during the height of summer. The water looked lifeless, no activity of any fish to be seen. We did see a couple of fish in a part of the river that was extremely shallow and had very high banks. The fish saw us first and scooted off to safety. Normally you would find trout in one of the many deep holes in the river. This time we found none. We wondered where all those trout had gone if they where stocked. We could hardly believe that 50 trout could disappear within a time frame of five days.
We theorized who could caused the trout to disappear, the culprits where either the worm brigade or the two large pike that had been seen recently.
In the end the only fish I managed to catch was a small Dace on the gold bead nymph.


Dace

The first stretch of the river looked lifeless so we decided to move. Maybe all the trout went downriver to find deeper water after all.

The downstream part of the stream looked as lifeless as the upstream part did. I fished a pool near a bridge that obviously had a lot of fishing pressure; at least the empty worm cans indicated that. There where no signs of shiners or trout but none the less the first cast yielded a fish. To my amazement it was a little brown trout. With the first catch my fear of blanking was gone and with this catch I would not go home trout less.


Brown trout

The changes in the outdoors due to fall became more obvious by the day. Parts of the stream that where covered by a shadowy canopy of brushes and trees now saw light that peeked trough the openings created by fallen leaves. The part of the river I was in now was only accessible by wading so visits by anglers where very rare. At one spot I knew that fish had to be lurking in a deep hole next to a large dead tree. It was not a hole for trout but in the past I had seen many Dace and Roach hovering in that hole.


Light enters the stream

I casted a gold bead nymph downstream, as it drifted along the dead tree a fish decided to have a go at it. The bite felt like that of the trout, I missed it though. From experience I knew that once a trout had felt the hook it would not take the fly a second time. An exception to that rule was while fishing with streamers for trout. If the trout would miss the streamer and only bite in the tail they would go for it a second time, sometimes even more aggressively than the first time. A few cast more and the nymph was probed by fish once again. Small fish because I just could not hook them.
Persistence paid off though when I landed one of the fish from underneath the tree. To my amazement it was a Gudgeon. These little fellows where bottom feeds and I had ever caught one on the fly before.



Gudgeon caught on a gold bead nymph.

The stretch of fishing I was in was beautiful. It was a privilege to fish there. Fishing wise things where not looking so bright. Trout and shiners did not show themselves. We fished a long stretch downstream without any results.


Pretty and void of fish.

I had caught a Dace, a Brown trout and a Gudgeon this morning, Joop remained still fishless. We had to move again in search of the elusive fish. We drove further downstream to the outskirts of a village where the river changed from its natural state to a canalised stream. The dividing line between the natural- and manmade part was a small weir. In the past I had done good business with the shiners that lay in the deep pool behind the weir. On this day there where no fish willing to cooperate. The upstream stretch of the weir had schools of shiners in them pas summer. The schools of shiners where still moving along the river. Most of the fish from the school where very small and they spooked easily. I did not wasted time on them. From past visits to this part of the river we knew of a few weirs upstream that could yield some fish. I waded out to the pool behind the second weir and started to fish. After a few casts I had a fish on. It was a very small fish but nonetheless it jumped out of the water.
It turned out to be a mini trout. In a short time I had hooked 3 of the little critters. Joop who fished the pool upstream also had the little trout attacking his nymph. He caught four of them and missed one larger fish.



Guppy central

It was fun for a while to catch the Guppies. Time flew and sunset would in an hour or so. We would end the day exploring the canalised part of the river downstream from the village. We wanted to see if it was worthwhile to fish there. We where allowed to fish as far as the railroad bridge over the river. The railroad was quickly found but we could not find any road leading to the river. We ended up at roads leading to farms and all had a sign boasting the presence of dangerous dogs on the grounds. Finally we just drove up to a farm and asked the farmer how to get to the river. With the new directions we landed at a bridge over the river. The river was now flowing in a straight line and was uniformly deep. There was no sign of life. We drove some more around to find a weir that the farmer described but we just could not find a road that gave access to the river.
The canalised part looked downright ugly to us.

We decided not to fish there and just head back to the part of the river where we started on this day. There I hooked a rainbow trout as last fish of the day. Somehow I had hooked the tail so landing the fish was difficult, in the end the hook came out and the trout shot back to his hideout underneath a sunken tree. When our German contact came along to check up on us he looked at me with disbelief that we had not had a good day on the river. He was downright baffled that all the trout had gone and he promised that he would not stock the fish in that part of the river if they would only stay in it for a couple of days before being caught and taken out of the water.

Fishing was bad on this day but we still enjoyed our time in the outdoors.
This would be the last time for me this year on the river. The fishing would not end, plenty of activities where planned for winter and spring. Pike fishing would take off and we still had the Steelheads of Lake Oostvoorne in winter as challenging adversaries.

hi marcel, it's fun reading about your adventures. thanks. i look forwqard to seeing you next week
mark