Lake Thun in Switzerland is one of the few stillwaters with a considerable hatch of mayflies. For years, I have read stories on beautiful silver caught on the dryfly and I always hoped to fish there one day. And so it happend…
From the beginning, it was clear that it would be hard. The chances of catching the elusive laketrout on a fly are near zero. But nothing ventured, nothing gained.
To succeed, four circumstances have to coincede:
- the timing: no one knows for certain WHEN the hatch will occur
- the spot: even if a hatch occurs, you have to be in exactly this spot.
- the trouts: and more important, the trouts have to rise for the flies, and do it within reach of a flycast. Usually they rise only within small sections of the shore, 50 meters can make a big difference! Considering the 43 kilometers of shoreline, it is almost like looking for the needle in the haystack!
- and finally, you have to match what the laketrouts prefer at that moment: emergers? duns? spents?
On Saturday, me and my friends Andreas and Pietro wanted to give it a try. The whether was perfect and it looked promising! In the course of the day, the wind died down and the mayflies began to hatch! We saw multiple hatches that day, I have never experienced something similar, it was absolutely staggering!
We fished the entire day, and every animal seemed to be dining on the mayflies: the ducks, the swallows, everything! But no ring in the surface betrayed a laketrout… I began to feel really cold, wading for hours in the cold water. My casting became worse and worse, and when my fly finally hit a tree on the backcast, Andreas called me on the phone:
“Hannes come here fast, they are rising!!!!!”
But first I had to tie on a knew leader and fly… with numb fingers, a freezing brain and lots of adrenalin.
Finally the moment had come, and when I approached Andres’ spot, I immediately saw the backs of two laketrouts breaching the surface. But even when points 1-3 of the above list have arrived, the battle isn’t won yet. The trouts plucked one mayfly after the other from the surface, but they ignored my artifical fly! This did not change unfortunately, but it was an exciting evening with lots of action. We saw a beautiful trout of around 50 centimeters leap out of the water out in the lake, beyond casting distance. There are wonderful fish in this lake…
When I finally walked to my car, I had fished full 12 hours! One of the longest fishing-days so far, and one of the most beautiful, even though I had not caught a single fish!
