Goiserer Traun 2006 - 2016

Didn't noticed it right away, but it has been 10 years ago I fished the Goiserer Traun for the first time.
Although I missed the opportunity to fish this spring, maybe later this year?

2016

2007

2006

EWF 2016

Attended the EWF Show in Fürstenfeldbruck in southern Germany near Munich for the first time as a fly tier after winning the Open German Fly tying Championship in 2014, the award ceremony is held at the EWF. What a great show! The people are great, the organization is superb and the venue of the show stunning. Thank you Michaela, Robert and Armin. You made me feel like a Hollywood star!

It has been about 20 years I tied at a fly show. I can't remember seeing such a relaxed atmosphere as I saw here. Unfortunately the weather was pretty bad on saturday. Because of the rain, the people all gathered inside. It was crazy! Met some old as well as made some new friends.

As usual I had lots of people smiling when they see the colorful deer hair bugs. Especially the frogs and mice were real magnets. I think I tied 95% of the time my mouse because people were desiring a mouse. Many times they asked me what do I catch with these mice. I told them it doesn't catch fish but families! The following smile is priceless.

After the show I headed with two of my friends to the town of Bad Goisern in Austria. The goal was to fish the Goiserer Traun river. Unfortunately the water was, after many wet days, too high for my taste. We looked at several spots to fish but the high water made wading down or up the river pretty difficult. Since there are several rivers and streams in the proximity of the Goiserer traun, we headed for the Ischler Ache on saturday and the Rettenbach on sunday.

The weather was amazing on saturday. The Ischler Ache is one of the many tributaries of the Traun and looked like a dream in the sun. The lower part near the town of Bad Ischl the river meanders a bit before joining the Traun. At a slow and deep bend we saw several big fish, probably barbels, cruising along the deep edges. The fish we caught were sparse and rather small.

The upper part of the Ischler Ache looks quite different as it more resembles a canal with very few diversity in structure or vegetation for the fish to hold. It was a pretty barren stretch with a couple of fish holding against the few boulders. My buddy Marcel caught a nice little grayling on a dry fly. I caught a few graylings amongst most rainbows. I really couldn't find any fish above 12-15 inch. Maybe we're just too early.

The Rettenbach, another tributary of the Traun, is a very different beast so the speak. A small freestone type water with many boulders, corners and vegetation for the fish to hold. Not a stream to fish for the faint hearted or with bad physical shape. We had a 3 hour period of drizzly rain, so fishing was a bit challenging at times. One nice fish managed to open up the bend of my nymph and get away...

I really love this type of streams as it challenges one to sneak up to a fishy spot and move to a strategic spot to cast that one and only chance to stir up the big guy waiting for a nice meal. This is a great stream for a 3 or 4 weight rod, be a graphite, glass or bamboo rod. I'm for sure returning to it when the conditions are better.

I later heard that our friend Rudy did manage to fish the Goiserer traun a few days later. He caught a couple of very nice graylings.