The Weisse Traun in June

For the folks who haven't seen the pictures I took earlier this June, here are some pictures. I fished the Weisse (translated: white) Traun in southern Germany during a long weekend in June.

As you all know we have no mountains in The Netherlands, so lack any form of trout fishing in streams or rivers (ah well, maybe a teeny tiny stream here and there in southern part of the country). For my trout fishing I go to Southern Germany, near the border with Austria. Many would say, what about the lake of Oostvoorne? Well, I've tried it several times, but lake fishing (and it's a HUGE lake!) is not my cup of tea. I prefer moving water over still water.

I used to go to the Eifel region, which is near the border of the three countries The Netherlands / Belgium / Germany. But after fishing these streams for more than 15 years, I wanted to go for quality rather than quantity. It's a long drive to southern Germany (around 9 hours, opposed to 3.5 hours to the Eifel region), but it's worth it. In southern Germany there are many other options to fish, including many nice rivers and streams in Austria.

So, this first weekend of June was sunny and hot. Not really the best weather for fishing, but being out in the gin clear water (click on the pictures) and fishing with my bamboo rods was nothing short of pure enjoyment. Too bad my buddy Rolf couldn't come along. Just a week before the planned weekend he pulled his calf muscle.

This weekend I decided to fish exclusively with my bamboo rods. I picked up the idea of fishing with bamboo rods after reading about them for many years. Dunno, but fishing a nice bamboo rod with a matching reel (no modern large arbor reels here please) on a small / medium sized stream has a very 'back to basic' feel to it. I always thought that a bamboo rod was just plain heavy and slow. Boy, how wrong I was. A well built bamboo rod, especially with understated cosmetics, is a thing of beauty. The attention and time that was put into building one, the workmanship that is needed and the material that was once just a 'piece of grass' is just amazing.

I now own two bamboo rods: a Tom Moran 7ft 2/2 (2/2 means 2 pieces with 2 tips) #4 and an Orvis Superfine 7ft 2/2 HDG (I use a #3 on it). This last rod is very special to me. First of all it was built in 1968, which is my year of birth. Second, I bought it from a gentleman who kept the rod all those years in the closet. He was too scared to break it if he fished it. He (RIP) passed away due to cancer. So I bought a brand new 36 year old bamboo rod. Since these Orvis rods all have serial numbers, I mailed Orvis and they could trace the buyer & year they built the rod without any problems!

Since it was the first time I took my Orvis out for fishing, I ended up fishing it 90% of the time. Although rated for a HDG line (similar to a 6 weight), I found it casts a 3 weight superbly. I always loved the Superfine grip on an Orvis, especially finished with two reel rings. 

My Orvis Tippet graphite rod has been my all time light weight rod for ages. This Orvis bamboo performed superbly during the weekend. One other myth: bamboo rods are NOT vulnerable as one might think. Abuse (e.g. sudden stress like jerking the rod after a fly caught a tree, hitting the tip with a bead head nymph or slamming car doors) is something no material will handle well. Playing a big fish with force EVENLY exerted is no problem for a bamboo rod. Check out some of the nice fish and the gin clear water of the Weisse Traun.

Lukas' tip for Southern Germany

Lukas sent me a picture of a bead head nymph he used on his recent trip with great success. The bright maylar body seems to work well in discolored water. I will definitely tie a few of these nymphs if we do encounter discolored conditions. Thank you Lukas!

The weather in Southern Germany looks pretty bad right now. This is a snapshot from the weather widget as of now in the Munich area.

We're hoping that the weather will improve by next week and stays that way! At this moment I'm not really worried about the weather because it's still two weeks away. If it stays this way the week we leave, then I'll look a bit more worried...


Update on the weather (14 sep 2007):
It looks like the weather is improving after a rainy period. Early this week the raining stopped. The next couple of days will be even sunny and warm. The second half of next week the temperature seems to drop quite a bit.

Only concern now is the amount of water that flows through the river. At this moment the amount is dropping from a whopping 5x the average amount early this week to now about 2x. Hopefully by the beginning of next week it will be just above the average of 25-30 m3/sec.

Graylings and bows

It has been a while I have caught some serious numbers of graylings. When planning the trip for september I looked for a stream with abundant amount of graylings. Not an easy task since the grayling population has diminished in many rivers and streams in central Europe. And the very unstable summer to boot, some serious weather luck was needed. But boy did I luck out...

This trip I was supposed to be accompanied by two friends but they both had to cancel due to various reasons. The 4 day trip turned out to be pretty epic! Also thanks to the great, albeit a bit hot, weather.

The first two days were spent on a tributary of the river Inn in Austria, about an hours drive from the historic city of Passau in southern Germany. Too bad I didn't had the chance to visit the city of three rivers. This stream is divided into several sections, belonging to several leaseholders. The two stretches I fished were held by the local hotel where I stayed. All together almost 8 km long. What a great stream it turned out to be.

From the moment I stepped into the water, I saw several pods of fish cruising along the banks. In fact I was surprised the number of fish count this stream holds. Within minutes I was into a small grayling. The typical erratic shakes of a grayling trying to get loose of the hook felt very familiar.

With the anticipating heat I should have started earlier, but from about 8 AM up to around 1 PM turned out to be the most productive part of the day. After around 2 PM, the temperatures hit the high mark of 30 degrees celsius making the fish slow down their activities as well as the fisherman. No need to say that you have to keep yourself hydrated all day long. Also keep yourself protected from the harsh sun rays.

During the heat the best spots were found around deeper areas as well as faster currents with ample oxygen. What a joy to fish a stream full of graylings! I can't remember catching this amount graylings the past 15 years or so. Among several graylings barely not reaching the magic 50 cm mark (most were around 35 to 40 cm) I also caught a couple of chubs as well as rainbows. I even caught a bunch of roaches in the slower parts!

The next day was even better. I fished the other (longer) stretch and while again a very hot day the fishing was amazing. Besides the obvious looking spots, I also enjoyed looking for that only fish in a small seam under the bank or just next to a fallen tree. With just a flick of the wrist, casting a couple of feet of line is all that is needed. This stretch turned out to be very diverse. Just be ready for some serious physical exercise with long walks, rock climbing and bush whacking.

For the second part of the trip I visited my favorite river in southern Germany. Boy what a treat I was given. The fishing was spectacular to say the least. Rainbows as well as brown trouts were in great numbers and in very good condition in spite of the very low water conditions.

It's always amazing in how shallow spots fish manage to hold. I encountered fish in spots that most would never consider even have a look at it. This fellow was spotted in a shallow moss covered gravel area that barely covered its back. Although the fish manage to hide between, under or maybe in the rocks it's still a good idea to look for that familiar shape of a trout. I've seen and caught many fish by wading slowly spotting the gin clear water and sight casting it with a nymph.

The past four days really made me realize how much I enjoy fly fishing. The stress relief and relaxation it gives as the result of pure focusing on the fishing as well as the physical work out of wading all day, climbing rocks and miles of walking. The days were over before I knew.

After a long day 'at the office' the food at the local Italian restaurant was nothing short of spectacular. Great to know that all the guys working at the restaurant are football maniacs like me, so between the servings we watched matches of the Champions League on a huge screen next to the counter.

To show how lucky I was with the weather, the evening of the last day the dark clouds gathered above the hills and started raining. The next morning I left with some very welcome rain for the river to recover from the heat of the past days.

Update 30 Sep 2016:
Rods I used are the G. Loomis NRX LP (8.8ft #3), custom built G. Loomis IMX (9ft #4) and the Epic 580 Limited Edition. I'll do a short review on the NRX LP and the Epic 580 soon.


A short video I made from a couple scrapes of tape:



Watch the video in high quality (at least 720p) by selecting the HD button.

Hot April

Just back from my annual trip to Southern Germany (also known as Bavaria). This trip can be summarized as way too hot for the month of April. The temperatures (25-28 C or low 80's F) were uncommonly high for this time of the year. But all together great fishing weather! This time I went to Southern Germany with my friend Hans. We were going to stay there for a full week, so for change of scenery sakes we decided to take an outing to the Deutsche Traun as well as the Torrener Ache in Austria.

Although we fished the last week of April, the whole month of April has been just too warm & dry. We usually see this kind of weather in mid June. The past winter was too warm already with hardly any snow, so river ran extremely low. I've seen the river this low during the end of the summer!

Don't know if this will stay this way further on this summer? My guess is that the fishing next year will be hurt by the current hot spring. I talked to the manager of another stretch of the Weisse Traun and he was considering closing down the river for a few weeks in May. Closing the river will disappoint quite a few fishermen who wants to fish in May but it's probably the best thing to do. But we'll see how the weather stays during the course of summer and fall.

Surprisingly the fish were still in great condition. I enjoyed some superb fishing using nymphs. My buddy is a dry fly fisherman and with the low water conditions, the fish were almost forced to look up. The upper stretch seems to contain less food than the lower part of the river. The fish, especially the rainbows, caught on the upper stretches were a lot slimmer for their size. The browns were overal in much better health. I even caught a handsome grayling, which is pretty rare for this part of the Weisse Traun.

The fish were pretty spooky because of the low water levels, but this also made sight fishing with nymphs a deadly method. I sometimes caught rainbows feeding in just ankle deep sections. As soon as a feeding fish was located, it was just like hunting: crawling on the knees to get as close as possible without spooking them. More often it was a one cast chance. It's a real kick to see the fish move ever so slightly to the side and detect a take. The more faster sections with deeper water levels, it's the general nymphing with little strike indicators.



Deutsche Traun
Our day on the Deutsche Traun was quite different than the other days. This day the sunny blue sky was substituted by an even grey sky. The slight drizzle was a nice welcome to the warm and sunny days.

The Deutsche Traun is the result of the Rote Traun joining the Weisse Traun in the town of Siegsdorf. Yet the fishing in the Deutsche Traun near the town of Traunstein is a whole different ball game. The river is slightly larger in size, but it's the fish that really makes fishing a different experience. One can catch some serious big fish. Fish (rainbows, browns or grayling) in the 20-25 inch range isn't uncommon. And boy do these fish kick ass!

I hooked at least a half a dozen fish in the 20 inch range, but most of them got away due to my tippet (4x) snapping or the hook simply bending out. I did manage to land two big fish. One in the 20 inch range which had a unusual high back, just like an American football. The other one was in the 23 inch range. Much slimmer but still very muscular. A bite out of the tail fin showed that these fish aren't wild fish from origin. But the fishing sure is exciting. Once hooked these fish explode and head for the river as if there's no tomorrow!





Torrener Ache
Our next outing was the Torrener Ache near the town of Golling in Austria. This little stream runs through a national park and the scenery is simply breathtaking. Under a blue sky the teal colored stream looks just like magic. The cold water and the pebbly bottom seems to contain much fewer nutrients for the insects. The population is mainly brown and brook trout. The small but beautifully spotted browns are so pale they just seem to disappear on the light colored bottom.

The gin clear stream is typical for this part of the world. Talking about water, being somewhat adventurous, I got wet after crossing the stream by jumping from one side of the stream on top of a fallen tree to the shallow bank on the other side.

Wearing breathable hippers rather than chest waders, the splash of the landing meant I had to take off my hippers to get them dry. But heck, the scenery was superb and it was hot and windy. Half an hour later I was fishing again. In spite of the small fish, the Torrener Ache has to be seen to believe.



Here are some of the many shots I took during this trip. Enjoy!












Previous trip reports to Bavaria in 2006 and 2005.

Return to the Kyll

Yesterday I returned to the Kyll after almost 15 years. The main reason for the trip was I found out my German state license expired two years ago and needed to get it renewed if I wanted to plan a fishing trip in Germany.

Without this state license one can't acquire a license of the river one would like to fish in Germany. So I planned a day to drive to Gerolstein as I knew I would get a five year state license for sure. The river Kyll runs through this town.

When I started fly fishing in the early 1980's, fishing for trout and graylings in foreign rivers was only done by the happy few. Information about trout fishing in other countries were scarce and limited. Only through knowing the right people one could obtain information where one could fish for trout and where to obtain the license. 

For most, if not all, Dutch fly fishermen back then, the first steps with fishing for trout in the rivers started in the German Eifel area. This volcanic plateau has several well known rivers like the Kyll and the Ahr. My first trout fishing started at the river Kyll in the early 1990s and have fished several stretches of this river over the best part of ten years. 

Eventually as fly fishing got popular, the river got more and more crowded and ensuring the license(s) for the river on short term was getting increasingly difficult. Also the large numbers of graylings that once populated these rivers were slowly but clearly diminishing.

From what I heard the river had to deal with regular release of pollution along the years. What really devastated the grayling population was the increasing number of cormorants. Being protected by law these birds could feed on the easy to catch graylings without any restrictions.

Around the end of the 90's this all embarked my search for other opportunities to fish and I headed south to southern Germany and Austria for more solitude as well as more exciting scenery indefinitely.

As I wanted to make sure I don't run into a closed counter at the municipality, I aimed for arriving around 10 am. I decided to fish for a few hours at most as I wanted to be back home no later than 9 PM as it takes almost a 4 hour drive. The weather prediction the day before I left looked okay with overcast and slightly lower temperature after a hot and sunny period. Half way on my way I checked the weather again and all the sudden it looked pretty awful! The Kyll is known for getting murky really fast after rain....

 

As I left the town hall with the renewed state license the rain soon started to slow down into trickles. I dropped by at the hardware store to get the river license. I took a quick glance at the river and although the rain did color the water a bit I could still see the bottom. Once arriving at the parking lot I saw the water looked okay. The Kyll has a dark tea coloration and after the rain it wasn't as murky as I feared.

After getting some lunch at one of the many supermarkets, I fished from around noon till 3 pm. It's crazy how fast time flies when you're having fun. I barely fished a stretch of no longer than 300 meters during the hours as I had found several pockets of small riffles where fish were holding.

I started with a typical Catskill dry fly called a Variant as the Eifel has some resemblance of the Catskills. As fish became reluctant to come up, I switched to my favorite hopper-dropper rig. Most of the fish were caught on the bead head caddis pupa.

All the fish I caught were browns. No trace of graylings or stocked rainbows. Numerous fish between 6 - 10 inches, with several around 12 inches. The largest brown came up to grab the Alien Bug which was a nice surprise. There were no other fishermen which was nice too. I wrapped up around 3:15 pm and headed back to the car for the long drive back home. Maybe I should come back more often again...

Nervous May - part II

What's the best part of fishing in May? Hungry trouts? The increasing warmth of the sun? Nature getting ready for a new season? For me it's the end of a long period of waiting. Getting the rod out of the rod sock, gearing up and the anticipation of the first cast to a trout.

The final week of waiting prior to the trip was nerve wrecking as we saw the weather predictions showing more and more rainy clouds as our fishing week approached. The memory of the rained out trip of the Isar was glooming around the corner... Fortunately the weather gods made a small U-turn during the final few days before heading for southern Germany. Heck, we had some superb sunny days.

Eventually one morning with a slight drizzle and a night with several short showers were all the rain we saw. The water level was a bit higher than usual. My guess is that the river condition was as good as we could hope for considering the situation. Probably 80% of the ideal level.

My friends Rolf and Martin joined me this time. My Germany buddy Andreas couldn't make it this week. Make sure you join us next time!

I promised Martin that the rivers we were going to fish would be a dry fly fisherman's dream: crystal clear and nice stretches of slow runs between the riffles. Well, the river was pretty clear all right, but some how no insect activity worth mentioning to trigger the fish to rise. Fishing with weighted nymphs was as usual the ticket. The end of the week we saw a massive hatch of yellow sallys. But that's what we call 'mustard after the meal'.

We fished several stretches of the Traun as well as a sweet little creek. It's amazing how strong these fish are. My buddies were laughing about me playing the fish too long, but they were soon to explore the strong trouts themselves. 4-5 runs were more rule than exception. These fish look like they're on steroids!

What's the best way to end a nice day of fishing? A nice long meal at my favorite Italian restaurant! Just have a look at the wonderful dish our Italian friends made for our final evening of the trip.

Rolf's favorite dish, the grilled squid, was pretty amazing indeed. The revelation for my friends was the simple but tasty starter called Bruchette de Pomodoro. A piece of toasted bread with a dressing of olive oil, lots of garlic and pieces of tomato. So basic, yet so tasteful!


Well, enjoy the remaining pictures!

Next stop: end of July.
Destination: Northern Austria!

2nd trip of 2008 coming up!

My second fishing trip of 2008 is due next week. I'll be fishing a new stretch of the Deutsche Traun. I get to meet up with my old friend Andreas in Southern Germany.

Hope to see ideal conditions. The previous weeks has been pretty unstable weather. This week the skies are clearing up as well as the temperature heading towards the 25-30 degrees Celsius. I love fishing under a sunny sky! Yup, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do...

The prince and his hopper

Back from my trip to the German Traun. The trip turned out to be different than anticipated. Both my buddies (Rolf & Andreas) couldn't make it, due to various reasons. Well, that's a bummer in terms of nice company and catching up with some good fishing, good laughs, fine food treatings and plain enjoying the nice surroundings. Weather was just as expected: sunny and HOT!

The river was in fine shape: clear and low. Chest waders were definitely too hot for this condition. Good thing I also brought my breathable hippers. I also decided to try something different this time. Usually I fish with weighted nymphs. This trip I have been using a hopper-dropper combination all four days, just like on my trip to Montana in 2005.

The hopper is the Alien Bug and the dropper is a sparsely tied bead head Prince. The many riffles, under overhanging branches as well as the edges around the undercut banks were just the spots to cast this duo. Yet, it's still amazing how a fish of around 16-18 inches still manages to keep unnoticed in a spot with barely 10 inches of water. This fellow hit the Prince nymph the moment I tossed it into a slightly deeper (we are talking about 10-12 inches of water here) channel of a fast riffle I walked by. Before I knew it he made a nasty run and came tail walking out of the water. Nice...

The predominantly browns just loved this enticing offering! Just seeing the hopper dive under made it even more exciting than the usual strike indicator jumping upstream. On several stretches the rig proved to be deadly. I wished my buddies were able to experience the superb fishing I had these couple of days. It's also interesting to see that some browns only had dark spots while others also had wonderful red spots. Looks like there are two (or maybe more) different strains of browns in the river.

Every once in a while a brave fish would grab the hopper. Most of them were missed simply because the hopper being just too big for them. I even caught several nice graylings, including a fat 18 inch fish. It's a darn nice sight to see a grayling come up and follow the offerings and eventually grabbing the nymph. Not to mention that these big graylings are tough fighters.

The fine Italian food of the local ristorante was nothing short of amazing after an enticing day of fishing.

I'll end with some various pictures of the trip. The wonderful painting was found at the hostel lobby where I was staying. While I tried to grab this view of a typical village at the valley of the fore Alp region of Southern Germany this nun greeted me on her bicycle! You can see her riding away. Would you think that was Maria?...