Yesterday it was time for another trip just over the border for some
troutfishing in the homewaters of the German fishingclub where I am a member since a week now.

The weatherguys forecasted that clouds and rain would roll in from the north on this day. When I looked out the window at 07.30 bright sky and a risen sun indicated a nice day, ideal for flyfishing with dries. At 08.00 departure time though a massive wall of gray clouds rolled in from the North just as predicted. OK, I admit this time the weahterguys had it right this time. The temperature dropped immediately so goodby to the dry flies.

We had been at the river now six to seven times so most deeper holes where fish might roam where know to us. The deep pools where the first points of interest to us where we would concentrate, any fish roaming freely in the stream would be targeted along the way.
Armed with a deadly streamer given to me by our local contact I probed the first deep pool. I could feel the trout hitting the fly but missed the fish several times. Finally I had a solid hookup and landed my first fish of the day, a little spunky rainbow trout.


First fish of the day

I always used to fish in trout rivers exclusively with nymphs or dries but since I got my hands on the local streamer pattern a lot had changed.
These streamers where highly effective and the trout just love them. They would charge the fly very agressively.

After catching fish nr. 1 I took a small break to let things settle down in the pool. It was deep enough to host several fish. First I was fishing upstream but that was tricky with the streamer. there just was not enough time to retrieve the fly properly. So on the next cast I tried a different approach. I would cast from the small rockpile in front of the pool and fish the streamer upstream through the eddies of the pool. This time something more substantial hit the fly. Another rainbow trout for me. The fish had a wound on its back. I suspected a Heron to be the culprit. The many footprints on the sandbanks along the river where surely made by these birds.


Rainbow trout

The first pool was exhausted so I moved downstream. At a sunken tree I spotted at least three trout behind it and noticed some surface activity in a deeper pool in front of the tree. One cast near the tree and a fish was on. This time it was a brown trout.


Brown trout.

I fished the pool for nearly an hour and took four other brown trout.
I also missed lots of hits. This spot just was too good to be true.
After a while I just got tired of it and moved further downstream to see what my fishingpal Joop was doing. He was having a coffeebreak so I joined him. The cloud cover had broken and the sun was shining now and then. The river had fully recovered from the recent floods. Over the clear water a zillion flies where moving everywhere. Some rings on the surface indicated dry fly time.

After the break we switched to fishing the dry fly.
I had my first shot at a fish standing on position in the part of the stream that flowed through the old beech forest. My fly landed perfectly in front of the trout and he immediately went for it. Unfortunetely the hookpoint must have been dull because after a few jumps the fish fell off. While moving upstream I had a second shot at a rising fish. The same thing happened all over again. I waded trough the stream in search of rising fish but cloud cover had reappeared and the fish where not responding anymore to surface flies. The increasing winds during the day had also put a layer of debri from the flowering beach trees on the waters surface which did not help either.

It was time to fish another stretch of the river a bridge further down the road. I switched to streamer again and fished the pools known to me. The first three pools where empty or contained unwilling fish but at the fourth pool I hooked into another rainbow. This fish was a real acrobat and jumped all over the place. I had a ball fishing with my Orvis superfine 7-11 rod, full flex all the way. I tried to take a picture of the fish but with a nice slash of the tail he covered the camera's lence with spray. The fish went back and I reached for a towel to clean the lens.


At pool nr. 4 in the beech forest.

I headed further downstream untill I reached the end of the guest stretch where private lands began. From that point onwards two miles where off limits to fishermen. At the end of the stretch the rotating current in the bend of the stream had formed a deep pool.


Deep pool

I just knew there had to be fish in there. I had been at the pool now three times and each time somebody of us had caught one or more fish from it.
My first cast was immediately rewarded by a brown trout.


Brown trout

I made more casts into the pool and saw a fish shooting from under a dead tree to intercept the fly. It was a nice rainbow trout. It missed the fly three times before I hooked it. This fish also put on an acrobatics show. I applied maximum pressure to keep the fish from swimming into the sunken tree.

In the afternoon we met our local contact and another fellow member of our flyfishingclub who was visiting the stream with his girlfriend.
We all headed for a sightseeing mission in another town closeby where a day before loads of fish had been seen. One of us caught a brown trout while I managed to catch my first two shiners of the season on a small goldbead pheasant tail nymph. Large schools of fish where roaming this urban stretch of the river. The fish where mainly shiners with some brown trout mixed in. It was just a short session for us since we where fishing in the middle of a town, we liked the countryside more.

We decided to end the day with fishing another stretch of the river far upstream. We drove off and parked our cars close to the stream.
First it was time though for another coffeebreak and a snack or two,
all that fishing and crawling though the woods took their toll.

The sun was already hanging low in the sky so we had to move fast to make the most of the day. I managed to catch one final small brown trout from underneath an undercut bank. I could barely see where the fly landed in these low light conditions.
It was well past sunset when we arrived at the last pool of the day.


Last pool of the day.

One of us had one fish following his streamer. He was lucky the fish missed, I could not have seen him land the fish with the steep banks around this pool. The chances of an unvoluntairy swim on this stream where always very high. On our way back to the cars we continued to fish.
Joop was once again the last guy fishing. With a flashlight I would mark the banks on the stream so he would not hook all the trees. The fact that brown trout became more active at night did not materialize in any more hookups. We ended our fishing day at 10.30 at night. It was my best fishing day on the particular stream so far, 9 trout and 2 shiners.
It was an absolutely marvellous day.

Hi Marcel,

Great report. After such a long day I'm impressed that you can go home and write such a disertation. The streams and beech forest you fish are very scenic. I also throwing streamers for trout (browns). It's probably because I enjoy throwing streamers for snook so much. If my information is correct the rainbow trout is not native to North America. Have you heard the same?
Mark Ward
Owner, Everglades Angler

For all I know Rainbows are native to America.
There is a tendency in Germany to stop putting Rainbows in rivers. Main reason they state is that Rainbows are not native to Europe. A more practical reason to prefer browns is the fact that Rainbows wander off in rivers, this means most of them are never seen again.

I do not know why there is this sudden urge to eleminate Rainbows after they have been introduced hundreds of years ago, all PC I guess.
In Germany it is also required to kill every fish you catch by law so in my book those people are all mental cases anyway.
Let's just say I am considered a public enemy in Germany, they have not caught me yet

Most of the brown trout in the stream are what I call hillbillie trout, that is what you get when brothers and sisters marry
The guys at the hatchery had to much inbreeding. The new batch of brown trout at the hatchery is coming from three different regions so future browns should once again have the typical markings of brown trout instead of black dots only.