Ice fishing premiere.

Allright so I do fish in other ways then flyfishing.
Ice fishing that is. In the winter. When all the streams and lakes are frozen solid.
Since this state of torture lasts for about 4-5 months of the year you at least gotta make some trips in to the winter forest to go ice fishing not to go crazy.

It's really nice.
Warm coffe, the stillness, skiing through the white landscape.
I'm not really there yet, lot's of ice but no snow wich led me to the new experience of going by bike (and a short hike) to get to the lake i was looking for.
It's not marked on any map as a troutbearing lake but i've heard a couple of stories.

And trout there was!
The lake is small, clear and very shallow, i suspect only about 2 metres at the deepest.
Probably fed through a spring as there was a small creek running out of the lakes southern end.

When i got there i saw no previous holes, no snowmobiles (well, the lack of snow..) or really no other sign that anyone had been there in a long time.
The lake was only accesible by foot through a walk over a rather steep ridge.
Perfect!

The third hole i drilled gave the fish.
A very nice little trout that first slammed the bait, missed, went for it again but as they say, third time's the charm and up he went for a quick snap and then back in the cold water.

Seeing the bottom on all places i drilled, acctually seeing the bottom before that due to insanely clear ice, seeing the fish take and not just feel the tug, the lack of people and everything about this lake have made it my new favourite winter fishing destination.
As it often is when you hook a fish in a new water.

Lonesome, quite lake.
Perfect.

First trout (or any fish) of this years ice fishing season.

I practice my ice fishing much like i do my fly fishing.
Usually a single hook, sometimes with a nymph, gluehook or as today, with a funky smelling old shrimp.
I also put most of the fish back, it's more about the catch then the eating.

I won't tell you where it is but i'll gladly,as always take you there.

Notes on curing skins to use for fly tying.

Some of us live in areas of the world, or travel to, where there's hunting going on wich usually means that it's not overly complicated to get hold of some furs and skins.

This is one way of curing the skins so that you can use the furs for tying.
I've do this mainly with the "scrap" parts of the animals, parts that don't really have another use.

I've used the inside of mooses ears (the outside is great for warm hats or mittens but the inside has less hair and really only the edges of the ear has a use) and with a hare mask.
The same principle can be used with any skins from game or fowl.
The hare, by the way was supplied by a neighbour. Came knocking on the door and asked if i wanted a hare.
And out came the knife. It was a great dinner.

Anyway.

You need a couple of things.

1. A sharp knife for skinning. Go to a hunters forum or such for skinning lessons.

2. A slightly dull knife for skraping the skins (I use a special tool but as not everyone have tanning gear at home we'll make due with a dull knife.

3. Salt. Regular salt.

Start by skinning the animal and cutting away the piece you want to save for tanning and scrape them, put them in a freezer and then proceed to the pieces you just want to cure.
Mind that you don't cut holes in the skin,you want a pretty product.

Scrape the skins, get rid of sinews and meat.
Wash them in Cold water (always use cold water when dealing with raw skins, they can get rock hard from warm water) with some soap or such to get rid of the blood.
Wringe them to get rid of excess water.

Scrub the meat side with salt.
Seriously, a lot of salt, you can't really overdo it.

Place the skin somwhere with a lot of air circulation.
Not nescesserily warm, just an airflow that helps lift the moisture out and away.

The hairs will probably be lumped together but no worries.
Once dried you can just brush the skin a bit and it looks great.

This is one of many methods to cure a skin.
You wont get a smooth and flexible skin, that takes different tanning methods and softening etc.

But it's great for fly tying.

Winter hare. About an hour of work, enough fur for hundreds of flies.

What's new?

I know i've been slacking of with the writing and the blog.
Sorry about that.

In the last month and a half i'vemainly been doing pike fishing and that season came and went.
The biggest i landed was a bit above 80 cm.
The cold have set in properly now but i got a few trout and a grayling nymphing 'bout a week ago.

So the fishing is on the down low with winter setting in properly.
Sno and ice etc.
The dreams about spring have started coming back.

The most exciting thing that have happened is that i was invited to join a fly-tyers "club" that gathers once a week, ties and talks about fishing. Very nice, definetly gonna see me through the winter.

Sorry,no pics this time.
Hopefully next time.

The need for a new ladder

So, in my river there's this old mill.
While i do appriciate the historical values of it (and do NOT want to see it torn down) it does present a stop for the fish in their migration upstream.

There are potentially two types of trout present in this river, the brook trout Salmo Trutta Fario and a large lakerun brown or Salmo Trutta Lacustris.
The stream resident Fario morph operate mainly above the mill but the lakerun variety need to be able to pass upstream to further the reaches of their spawning grounds.
Lake Siljan and the Orsa Lake trout are of a particularly large breed and are both valuabe and considered threatened.

There is an existing ladder although it functions poorly.

Clogged with logs and branches.

Low water levels leaves leafes in the ladder.

Above the inlet.
The reeds are taking over.

The inlet.
Clogged with twigs and branches.

 I cleaned out the log,branches and twigs and as much leafes as i could.
This years low water is a problem as the ladder is clogged.
The principle here is that the fish should go through V shapes up the ladder and further up the river.
With low water however, that is not at all possible.
I can safely say that not a single trout have passed here.

My suggestion therefore is to tear out this old ladder and install a new, more naturelike ladder that will allow, the fish to pass.
If the reeds above the inlet were to be cut down and a new ladder with a higher flow were to be installed they'd have a hard time growing back, making it more of a onetime job.
A higher and more natural flow would also eliminate the problem with leafes and make logs less of a problem.

I've mailed the lokal fishery society and are awaiting answers from there.
They'll probably not have the resource for such an operation and i'm probably gonna have to go further up, to the local government of Dalecarlia.

Would't it be great to hook one of these large browns not in the lake trolling but on a swung fly up in the river?
Of course, it's about all the species and not all about fishing.

Here's a great new report from the University of Karlstad on planning and building nature-like fish ladders.

http://www.nrrv.se/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/CG%C3%96-2012.pdf
It's a PDF in Swedish.

When autumn comes.

The birches are letting go.

 The summer's gone and I thought i'd tell a bit more about my river.
"My". Well it's not mine personally but i do fish it and for that matter, have never met anyone else out on the water.
The closest i got was a few bobbers left in the stream that i picked up.
When you fish the same water over and over you develop a connection to it.
You know the places, know the rocks and form a bond to the inhabitants of the water.
A respect for the fish, a love for the bugs and the water itself seems to come alive.
Here's some pictures from the day and i'd love to take you out on the water if you're passing by.

I'm gonna walk you through three pools spaced out about 400 metres from each other
They are all low water at the moment.


First out is the Forest Bridge Pool.
Named thusly from the small rickety bridge connecting two small and partially overgrown trails.
Nice spot to get to the water though.
The water itself gets a dark green feel to it due to weeds growing on the rocks.
The pool usually holds some fish though not loads.
One to three trout or grayling.

Forest bridge Pool.

Descent trout.
They are spawning atm but this guy didn't get the memo
that they are off the fishermans list.
Quick pic and back into the stream.
Note the white and black lines on the anal fin.
Typical for this variety of trout, Salmo Trutta Fario.

 Second of is the main destination of the day.
Grayling pool. I'll let you figure it out.
Pearshaped pool that broadens at the end.
The downstream portion holds a lot of fish.
Always. My trip ended with six or seven just in this pool.

Grayling territory.

Why hi, got a moment to speak about our lord Neptune?
Seriously though, one of my own patterns was the fly of the day.

And then the third set of pools.
I simply call them "The Cauldrons"
Here the water have bared the rock, run over it for millenia and dug holes down into the granit itself.
Doesn't always hold fish (as was the case today) but when it does the fights are awesome.
In the spring flood these are not just rapids with wierd currents, they are raging.
The water is clear and the light green weeds at the bottom of these bowls make them look like witches cauldrons.

Can you feel the primal surge?

Not all creatures aquatic are fish.

Bye for this time!

(Re)Building a switch rod.

I miss swinging a twohander.
The thing is, my 14' is arguably a bit large in my local rivers, the shooting head alone covers more than the rivers withd.

So a thought emerged some year ago to rebuild one of my seldom used onehanders into a super light,short twohander.
Call it a switch if you like.

I've been looking for components for a while without really finding anything i liked.
But when going through some stuff in a wardrobe i found an old spinn rod and as i never fish those i thought that what the hell. Wasn't an expensive one anyways.

Using a hacksaw as my main tool i opened the end of my flyrod, sawed of the reelseat screw from the spinn rod along with a portion of the rod that fitted perfectly into the end of the fly rod.

Extended reelseat.

To be able to remove the reel it was nescessary
that i could unscrew the back handle a bit.

Filling up the hole in the middle of the old top handle from the
spinn rod.

And here she is.
Can't wait to get on the water.

A bit of tape to fill out the gap to the screw, some glue and filling up the end of the new but with some foam and i got myself my light twohander.

Not accounting for the new handle it's now a #6/7 9' switch.
I'll be able to practice casting and adding some sinktips when using a skagit cast.
I'm thinking about a new line, one with a shooting head/shooting line setup but i don't really want to loose the ability to fish close as well as adding a bit of distance.

Why not just rollcast with a onehander you say?
Well, it's just for the fun of it, i really like to cast twohanded.
And again, it's a short rod that will work perfectly for overhand throwing as well.

My only problem now is that the rod tube is to small...
I might keep on working on this and make some sort of detachable handle.

Tight lines!

New stuff from Fly TV

 I'm back.
I've been out working for the last month and have barely been home at all.
Had the chance to try some new waters, one especially comes to mind.
A small wild creek were all i'd heard was that "maybe" there were some browns.
There were. Lots of them and a good size fish in comparison to the water.
I got to enter "Small river, No name" into my journal.
I'll show you sometime if we pass that region.

Since i've been gone FlyDressing have released a new Fly TV episode.
Skagit fishing for salmon in the north of Sweden.
Very nice camera, nice fish, nice setting, nice everything.
My itch to get to use the twohander wasn't really helped by this...

Enjoy!