Sunset over river Hemsil

Yet again, this river has given me some good memories.

Summer memories

We are in the darkest time of year, the snow that normally light up the day are still missing, one good thing is that the daylight hours are getting longer due to the winter solstice. Anyway, It's time to

make a withdrawal from the memory bank. This one from June last summer, a warm overcast day with a nice little hatch of Baetis Rhodani. I was walking up one of the side channels of my favourite river, trying to spot a rising trout. And it didn't take long before I spotted the first trout. Steady rising, just inches outside the opposite bank, so close to the bank that the nose of the fish touched the yellow flowers who hung out from the riverbank.  

Perfect, this was one of the easy ones to catch, I could count to ten between each time the nose of the fish came up and sipped a insect. After several attempts to catch the fish nothing had happened, he was still there, steady rising, and not easy at all. The side channel was not wide, just around twelve yards, so I could easily see the fish eating almost every baetis that sailed above him. 

Checking the fly box one more time and realise that fly switch is not the solution, must have faith and believe in the pattern. The next cast was to long, touched the yellow flowers at the opposite bank and fell down smooth as a little feather, a yellow nose came up and the fish was on. The fish was a strong fighter, but the bamboo rod did the job, and with a smile on my face i could put the net under the fish. When I was about to release the the hook from the fish and put him back, I discovered that the left eye was all grey, the fish was probably blind and did not see the fly sailing by on his left side. After this I felt for a brake and walked 60 meters down the river to make a cup of coffee, waiting for the water to boil I spotted another fish rising just outside, perfect distance for some filming. I spent almost an hour drinking coffee and watching the fish eating, both on the surface and below. This fish I left alone, just watching him at this distance made me smile.

Here is the little film from the coffee brake.

River Hemsil.

Been a while since the last post. Starting up again with a couple of images from river Hemsil in Norway. Beautiful scenery and fish with some nice colour, this is from July this summer.

Busy last month.

The same thing happens every year, April month surprises me with it's arrival, and it's time to make this winters bamboo rods ready for the upcoming season. And with three coats of varnish applied, the first rod is ready for the stream. So here are some pictures of the first rod out, a sweet little 7' 4wt based on a Payne 98 taper. I've used cork as the material for reel seat's on several rods and think it works great, cork is light, durable and will, when combined with a butt cap and sliding band, hold any trout reel firmly in place. Wrapping the guides I'm using primrose Gossamer silk, with one turn of Gossamer brown silk for the trim wraps.

Some soft hackle midge patterns.

A friend asked me if I could tie a selection of north country flies for him for the upcoming season, and since that's just another good excuse to tie some spider's...I'm happy to do that. And since midges are the first thing we're probably will see, I selected some patterns that I think will do well when the midges arrive .

The first fly out is one of several 
versions of the Little Black....

Nice "greenish" glow on that magpie rump feather....this is the first time I'm using this feather.

Hook: Partridge L3A # 18

Thread: Gossamer purple silk

Body: Magpie rump feather

Rib: Purple silk

Hackle: Starling neck feather

The next one is the Black Magic, had some really nice evenings last summer with this fly when the trout were steady on midges.

Hook: Partridge L3A # 18
Thread: Gossamer black silk
Body: Black silk
Thorax: Peacock herl
Hackle: Shold probably use black hen feather, I don't have that feather so I'm using starling neck on this one.

                                                                 
                                                                

The third one is Sylvester Nemes
midge pattern.....Syl's Spider.

Hook: Partridge L3A # 18
Thread: Gossamer black silk

Body: Peacock herl

Hackle: Partridge

A new book.

Received my signed copy of Robert L Smith's book "The North Country Fly" a couple of weeks ago, and I must say it's a great book. I am completely surprised by all the information  that's in this new book. I tough that the books I have on North Country Flies were pretty complete. In this book you will find old list's of north country fly patterns from fly fishers living and fishing several hundred years ago in the many different dales of Yorkshire. Really got inspired reading this book and made me even more want to take a trip to the dales of north Yorkshire.         

The Little Black, one of the many patterns you can find in this great book about North Country Flies.                                                                                                                                                                     

Fresh start to the new season

First fish of the new year was a sea run brown, caught on a grizzly soft hackle pattern. The fish was one of those nice fat ones that probably did not bother to swim up in the the river this fall to fool around, much better to be out in the sea were the food is. The other fish I caught looked like it have had some fun in the river this fall, but the silver color was back and the fish was very strong although it was thin after this fall spawning.

Dressing Nodes

Freshly splitt bamboo strips.

No need to get the bamboo strip perfectly straight before the planing process, but there is one thing that's very important and that's the job you do with the nodal areas before you start planing the strips. Warm up the nodes with the heat gun, straighten them in the wise, and sand down rest of the hump that remains. Many use a belt sander for this task,  but I like to do it by hand using a 350-grit  sandpaper, feel that I have good control using this method, cutting as few of the power fibers as possible. This is a part of the building process that means a lot for the final result later on. If I don't do a good job here, I can end up with glue lines, and that's one thing I don't want. The goal is to get the nodes flat, straight and I think they should be as short as possible after the sanding is done. 
And it's always interesting to check out the node-work on other rods done by other makers, I try to get a sneak peek if possible, many have put some effort into this and done a great  job dressing the nodes, smooth and short, the sign of good craftsmanship.

Take your time when sanding the nodes.

Some heat and patience and the nodes are ready.

Another Garrison on it's way.

Mid november and the days are getting shorter, its dark at 4 o'clock in the afternoon and quite chilly. Still possible to go fishing but it's time to start making some new bamboo fly rods for the next season. After building the lovely 209 and 202E models based on Garrison's many tapers, I felt the need to try another one from his book " A Masters Guide to Building a Bamboo fly Rod " a book he wrote together with Hoagy B. Carmichael.

After asking which rod Carmichael had as his favorite, I got a very friendly reply were he told me that his favorite for trout fishing  is the mod 204E. A beautiful  7' 3" long rod, casting a 4 and 5 weight line like a dream, so I just had to build this rod for the next summer. 

Splitting the bamboo into strips with that special cracking sound, and stagger the nodes using the 3x3 method. Cutting the strips to the right length. And ones again have a nice odor spreading around in the workshop just like freshly made popcorn while I use the heat gun to warm up the nodes so they are pliable and ready to be straighten using the wise. 

Secret spots.

One of the guys in the small group of fly fishers sitting a couple of hundred yards upstream,  has taken his binoculars out and are staring straight at me, and its like I could hear him say " hey... what's that guy doing, wading out now when there is no activity". And he has sort of right about that, but.. I'm about to sneak out on one of my "secret" spots, and I was hoping no one would discover me.

Its one of those periods in the late summer when there is "almost" no hatch going on. You can see fly fishers sit alone or in small groups along the river waiting for some kind of hatch to start, drinking coffee and eventually beer, as frustration takes over.
And.. "I'm been there, done that" and still do, but after some hours drinking coffee and wondering why there is no hatch, its time to check out some of those secret spots.
Secret spots which are all located under a tree along the riverbank on quite shallow water, places I've found after I wandered restlessly along the river looking for rising fish. This particular place is one of the really nice spots, there is always a fish under the tree. What's interesting about this place is that this is often the only place the fish are rising, although the river around are holding a lot of fish. The hatch are quite local since it just appear a couple of yards above the fish. And since you cant see the fish rise before you are quite close, not many people have discovered it....yet.

This day the fish were really going, rising every fifteen seconds. And it locked like the fish were feeding on something small that were popping up just a couple of yards above the fish. It was a perfect moment to try out the 7' 4wt taper fresh out from the workshop, accompanied with the the old Pflueger Medalist charged with silk line and silk leader from mr Zandri in Italy, perfect for short distance casting under the trees.                                                                                                

And I realized after a while that the fish were feeding on small midge pupa's laying deep in the surface of the water. And after the second cast with the #20 midge pupa, there was a brown and yellow head sticking up above the surface right where the midge pupa should have been. After a few minutes there was a lovely trout around 3 pound laying in the landing net. I turned around checking if the guys at the bench were still there, but no one were there, they probably left long before the fish went for the midge pupa.

                                       

A classic ending.

The water level was low on the mountain river, as it tends to be when the season is nearing its end. It had not rained for a long time and the weather was pleasantly warm to be in the middle of September. But one good thing came as a result of the low water level, and it was in the form of the appearing of the perfect riffle. Not too deep and with sufficient current speed to move the line rapidly downstream.

And with the mountains in fall colors as a background, and with Pritt and Mr Nemes in my thoughts, I started to cast the silk fly line cross over and slightly upstream, mending so the Partridge and Orange spider was free drifting with no drag.

My dreaming of north country flies and the classic streams of Yorkshire was brutally interrupted by a fish attacking the Partridge and Orange like a maniac, and after some exiting minutes my first "real" brownie on a spider was a reality. After such an experience, I was wondering if this was just a coincidence. The result after a couple of hours fishing with the spider, were two nice trout and three fish that missed the spider.
After this experience I must say I'm convinced about the effectiveness of the north country spider, and one thing that surprised my a little was how hard the fish took the spider.

All you need is an Adams.

Remember reading somewhere that the only fly you need, is an Adams in different sizes,  I think it was in one of mr Gierach's great books. Anyway, once in a while it's nice to just forget to always try to match the hatch. Instead just grab one of your rods from the rack, a box of classic's and hit the stream.

Once at the stream just enjoy the surroundings, have a sip of coffee while you are rigging your bamboo rod. And take one of the classics from the "Catskill box" like the famous Adams pattern and just have another great relaxing  day at the stream.

Small diamonds in the backcountry.

Small streams and creek's with a healthy population of brook trout, hidden away somewhere deep in the backcountry. Well, it's been kind of a obsession for me to try to find a stream like that. Inspired by BrkTrt and Mark's blog sites, were they are writing with passion about their streams and brookie's, I just had to find my own little secret stream.

And since the brook trout do not naturally belong here in Norway there are not many streams containing brook trout. After years of introduction in Norwegian rivers and lakes the brook trout along with rainbow trout have been banned since the 90's. The reason for this is the fear of foreign diseases, and that they should inter fear with the natural brown trout.

Luckily there are still some "secret" small streams which have a population of brook trout. The Fish is not large, but equipped with a light bamboo rod and a Adams size 16, the fish went crazy. I was actually a bit surprised that there were brook trout almost everywhere I "dropped" the fly. And they were obviously hungry, they threw themselves at the fly almost every time I put the fly on the water. 
I must say the day turned out just the way I was hoping for, drinking coffee next to a stream full of small "diamonds" in the backcoutry. 

Beautiful Grouse skin and some pattern's from it.

After I started tying these old spiders, a new world of materials appeared, thin silk threads and gorgeous skins from various game birds. My latest supplements for tying these flies is a lovely Grouse skin that came in the mail a few days ago.

Soft hackle feathers that contain a vast range of barred ginger and brown hackles, perfect for tying some of the famous and not so  famous flies from the past containing Grouse feathers. When you read the old and new books about soft hackle flies, there can be some slightly different variations in how to dress them. But if you stick to the book "North Country Flies" written by T.E. Pritt and  Sylvester Nemes book "Two Centuries of Soft-Hackled Flies"  there are plenty of original patterns to choose from.  

Light dressed, short thin body with silk and maybe dubbed with soft fur. The hackle, two turns at the most....sure looks like a spider when you see it from the front. 

         

  

The August Brown.    

Body: Light brown silk, dubbed sparingly with hare's face, ribbed with yellow silk,  dressed hacklewise with grouse's feather.  

The Grouse Spider.

Dressed with a mottled feather from the grouse, and body of orange silk.