My alarm clock wakes me at 5am. Still three hours until they serve breakfast in my hotel, and I intend to fish for perch during that time! The channels just outside my hotel here in Malmö hold a good population of perch, and to me this seems like the perfect balance for many hours of sitting during work.
The city is still sleeping, the streetlights are swinging in the wind, and hardly any car is yet on the streets. I do not have any idea where the good spots are, or what kind of streamer and presentation the perch will react to. So I need some time to try out and change flies every couple of minutes.
Only when I finally change to a small brown streamer which I run deep and slow, the bites start to come. The first perch measures something around 30cm, which makes me extremely happy as we don’t regularly see perch this big in the southern part of Germany. But there are bigger ones here as well and I learn the hard way, that it is not a good idea to try to tire a perch… I lose two very nice fish, which still haunts me a little…
Besides many small ones I finally do manage to land a nice fish of just a little under 40cm, definately the best perch in my flyfishing career so far! As a surprise, I also catch my first cod on the fly! What a beautiful fish, and what a good fighter for its size!
Time goes by quickly, and I soon have to pack up and go to work. But I am happy for the wonderful fish I caught, and I couldn’t have imagined a better way to start the day!
