Yep, that's what you can call me today. No fish today, it is the first time I think on the German waters this season for me. A very traumatic experience.

Today it was the day to hold the fieldtest with the new trout bum rod that I got with the help of Everglades Anglers global delivery service.
Now yesterday the skies opened on this side of the pond. There where some heavy thunderstorms all over the country and a lot of damage was done. Where I live the storms where brief so I did expect some higher river levels and some discoloration of the water.

When we stepped out of the car this morning at the river I heard a pretty nasty sound from the local watermill. The water was roaring over the weir. Appearantly it had rained a lot there. Our German contact said it was hopeless to fish this day. We walked to the bridge over the river and saw that it was flooding.


Flooding

He shared a coffee with us and left. We had driven all the way and would at least try fishing. It was not much use though. I had one take but missed the fish. My collegue had no takes at all.
We left the river and went for a nearby lake. Some rising fish but not within reach for flyfisherman. Also some suspicious activity by certain individuals at the car park (possible break-in) made us decide to leave early. At the lake we came across a local fisherman from another club and talked with him. To our surprise the local river of his club was not flooding. We could not believe that so it was time for an investigation.

We drove to the other river and to our amazement it was totally clear. No flooding at all. The strange thing was that the rivers where only a couple of miles apart yet they looked like worlds apart.


A couple of miles further on a different river.

It was hearbreaking to see loads of rising fish in the other river. We did not have a license for that river so we could only watch.
So the trout bum rod still has seen no fish. Maybe I should just go and visit one of the ornemental ponds in the city after to work to get some fish.

Marcel, this is not what I wanted to hear!!! Half way around the world to deliver a rod, and no fish? This is unacceptable in my opinion, and I think you should take the whole week off of work so you can fish daily and make up for this bad weekend. He He

Well, I will not take the week off. Next week the company closes down for four weeks because of the summer holidays. I guess I will stay a few days longer to finish my work. Then I have every day to fish so you do not have to be worried that the rod you hauled half over the world will be out of work. I will let you know when the first fish is caught.

So have you been fishing yet? I guess you can catch a lot of fish if you buy some of those frozen shrimp and hit the pier. I like the sailcats best, they are big and leave a nice slime trail on the fishing line. It's a special time on the beach when the wind turns the Gulf into coffee.