Big, beautiful, bad and naughty – Trout, Grayling, Perch and Pike

I'll let this brown trout illustrate the fishing options

In the picture below (one of my red hot zones in the river Ljusnan) you can see a nice pool approximately in the middle of the stretch of the river I usually fish in. Upstream there are more hotspots with fine trout and grayling. But that isn't all. In a fairly rapid fall I once was dry fly fishing and saw a grayling take the fly. But suddenly something almost ripped the rod out of my hand. Naturally I got very exited and wondered if my eyes had missed something, because the power I felt pulling from the other end of my tackle wasn't just a nice grayling, as my eyes had registered. No, it was far from that. When my heart frequency had stabilized somewhat I got curious (and naturally hopeful that it was a really big grayling that had taken my dry fly) of what was happening. 

Suddenly it was as if my tippet had been ripped off and I could just notice a vague resistance from the other end. I was of course very confused, thinking that a big grayling had taken my fly and gone south. I had barely given words to my thoughts (I had some friends fishing with me) when I almost lost my rod and all the gear again. I was just bewildered and didn't know what to make of it. Then I suddenly understood the situation. A stream pike had taken my grayling and almost ripped the fishing gear out of my hand. OK, I thought let him take it and let's see what he looks like. So I gave the line some slack to let the pike swallow the grayling (it was doomed anyway) and see if I can get the pike to get closer. I succeeded and the pike came my way until he caught sight of me. At that moment he just let go of what was left of the grayling and took a hike. I never saw him again.

The point I want to make is that this, relatively short, stretch of the river has something to offer something to all sorts of fishing. For me it mostly is dry fly fishing with tiny flies for trout or grayling. Very big pike (about 10-25 lb) are also around. Perch likewise is present for those who want to target them. To sum it up there are big trout, grayling and pike present here. Perch is also present but I haven't encountered any big ones of these. But big pike I've not just heard of but also seen evidence of them. Once I caught a 3 lb Rainbow Trout with it's stomach ripped up by a big pike no doubt (I ended the life of the poor trout but we didn't eat it since it was infected). That didn't stop a hedgehog to feast on it. I had left the trout outside the house in a plastic bag and when I came to get rid of it the bag was moving. I had scared the hedgehog that was eating of the trout and when he put in the reverse the handles of the bag caught him so I guess that hedgehog was scared out of it's wits. It gave us all a good laugh though and the day was made.

Have fun fly fishing,
M.O.

 and fly fishing or the way you prefer to fish,

M.O.