The Blau River is famous for its enormous hatch of mayflies. For some years already I had this river on my “bucket list”, but only this year I eventually managed to give it a try.
The Blau can be tricky, as the fish have seen a lot of flies already and the soil is vibrating under your steps, so a very delicate approach is necessary. When my friends an I arrived at the river in the late morning hours, there was no mayfly yet to be seen, but here and there a fish was rising.
One of my first casts produced a nice little brown trout and so my confidence rose, that we might have chosen the right day and that good fish could be caught. The second fish already gave a good fight, it was a rainbow of a little more than 40cm: a beautiful fish with a lot of power, a fish in perfect condition… The mayflies became more and more during the day and so were the rings on the surface.
To really succeed it was necessary to make a presentation where the fish would only see the fly and no a hint of the line… a curve-cast was usually my weapon of choice. So it wasn’t too easy, but there was always something happening which made time pass quickly… one of the nicest fish was a trout that was speckled red all over and reminded me of a strawberry… never had I seen such a fish before, and rarely any trout more beautiful than this one.
In the early evening hours, when the hatch was at its peak and I feared that it could end any minute, I realized that KNOW was the time to look for a really big one, if there where any in this river? It does need some discipline to stop casting when there is fish rising everywhere, but decided to walk and search for the one!
Well… a little luck and a good intuition do help. I had heard a decent BLOP from across downstream, made a long cast with a double-haul and watched as the fly soon disappeared hardly without any stir on the water, and when I lifted the rod a force pulled on the other end, that made it very obvious that I had found her! It was a massive brown, a very strong and stout fish… when I finally netted this beauty, I was so happy and relieved… never have I caught a larger brown on dryfly! It measured 58cm and I am pretty sure that this will remain one of the absolute highlights of this years’s trout season!
I took a picture and with a smile on my face that still remains many days later, I went back to my friends who fished further downstream… my day was over, it could not get any better and I still enjoy thinking about this wonderful fish.