Someday last winter, two of my friends from Switzerland had come up with the idea to visit and fish Southern Germany in april. At that time of the year, many of the Swiss mountain streams are not yet fishable due to snowmelt… and of course fishing new waters is always exciting!

They had not been here before, so I felt a little under pressure: I wanted to show them the variety of waters and landscapes in my region, from slow flowing barbel- and chub-streams to fast running little creeks with mostly brown trout. Of course I wanted them to catch a good fish, and if possible, with the flyrod… they were rather new to flyfishing, which made it even more challenging to find suitable waters.

So I suggested to fish three completely different streams, and thereby broaden both the possibilities and chances to find a good fish.

Day 1: DANUBE

The weather was sunny, the waterlevel pretty ideal and the color of the water just perfect with a dusty blue. But the Danube is the Danube… from no fish at all to +60cm brownies, everything is possible. We chose a section of the river near Thiergarten in the Upper Danube Valley, a place with stunning scenery – limestone cliffs, caves, and at this time of the year usually blazing green forests and colorful flowers everywhere. But not this year, the water is still very cold and nature is somehow about two weeks delayed. Accordingly, fish were biting not very well. I know there are good trout there, but unfortunately we caught only chubs and saw a few barbels.

Towards the end of the day, Rolf and Dani spotted a large rainbow trout but adrenalin, exhaustion and the lack of practice at the beginning of the season did not help with casting, so they spooked the fish, and it disappeared somewhere in a deep pool.

Day 2: TROUT STREAM

The second day we had planned to fish a small trout stream near the hotel, where Rolf and Dani where staying. The sun was shining bright this morning, and so was our smile, when we soon realized, that the fish in this little stream were a lot hungrier that the ones in the Danube the day before!

Several warm days in a row had obviously woken up the trouts and they had strong ambitions to fill their hungry bellies after a long winter.. we caught many fish on streamers, and each one of us caught a trout exceeding some 50cm! My biggest one measured 55cm, an absolutely gorgeous fish which put my 5wt to the test!

Troutfishing cannot get any better, here are some pictures of this beautiful day:

 

Day 3: BLAU RIVER

This stream’s name translates “blue”, according to its color, especially its spring which is a deep blue hole in the white limestone. There are many legends around this blue hole, the “Blautopf” has been a sacred place for thousands of years. The Blau River is also refered to as the Swabian equivalent of an English chalk stream, because it flows gently, hosts giant fish and has a very good hatch of mayflies towards the end of may/early june.

I have known this river for a long time and I have often walked its banks on sunny summer days, but never fished here before. My expectations were high, so after I counted only a single follower of a midsized brown after about an hour, I was a little “surprised”… We walked up and down the entire stretch of water and finally Rolf was the first to catch a fish: a tiny but very beautiful rainbow.

Some of these fish were rising for insects and so we switched temporarily to small dries, and it was kinda nice to catch the first dryfly-trouts this season. But where were the big ones? And how could we catch them?

The day could have ended in frustration, had I not tried something radical: An extremely long leader and casting as far as I can… talking to some hikers I had got the impression that this river was frequented a lot by fishermen! Also, when my friends approached, I noted that the ground was shaking from their steps and that fish would be easily alarmed due to the wabbly consistency of the soil…. and my thoughts paid off!

After these adjustments I caught several bows – not the prettiest ones, but strong fish. The largest measuring more than 50cm. Also I had two takes by nice browns, the larger one shook off the hook unfortunately, but the smaller one was still a good fish. The day turned to success in the end….

Next time, I will know better and approach more carefully from the beginning. And it will be May, so I pray for a good Danica hatch and some big old browns to rise for them.

 

Resumee

In all, these three days were near perfect, with mostly nice weather, good fish for each of us, and a nice variety of waters and landscapes! Many thanks to my mates Dani and Rolf from Switzerland for the good company, funny conversations and the pictures they frequently took for me! You are welcome here anytime again!