Start of the new season

[martin_b]

April 1st marked the start of trout season 2010 and the real beginning of my life in the main land. I now live with a great trout and salmon stream running through my back yard, and so I have had many opportunities to take a walk along the stream during the winter months. I have always dreamed of being able to follow a piece of water closely on a day-to-day basis, and it is just fantastic to finally be able to do just that.
Watching how the stream comes alive each day with the coming of spring and noticing all the little things that reveal themselves to you when you can just take a stroll for half an hour in the evenings without having to think about the long drive back home is just fuel for the soul!

Here's a picture of the stream from mid-Februrary:


The stream has a pretty diverse fish life, and in some places monster pike lurk. These are not welcome in the system though, so we take them out whenever we can. This is one from early April:


The stream in the same place as the first picture, this time from about a week ago:




There are also places with a lot of pike food, and these Roach rise eagerly to the dry fly, although this particular one was caught on a size 14 gold head PT:


The salmon has had a very hard time in Denmark during the last 20 years, but during the past 5 years it has started to return to many streams. Here's a salmon parr caught a couple of days ago close to where the stream enters the sea. He's on his way out to sea to feed for a couple of years:


And a brownie starting to loose his red dots because he's also on his way out to sea to hopefully return as a good sized fish in a couple of years:


The trout comes from this pretty little nursery stream in the system:


The winter months also saw me and a friend from the club removing obstacles from one of the nursery streams. This tree was blocking for entry to some spawning beds in the upper part:


Anyway, that was the start of my season here in southern Denmark. The stream is really starting to come alive now, so I really look forward to discover more about the fishing here.

Cheers
Martin

[soupmix]

great post

[Apache Trout]

Great stuff Martin!
Beautiful water.
Look forward to your future posts.
A.T.

[BrkTrt]

A very informative post.

Nice photos.

Thanks,

Brk Trt

[lawrenceh_w]

You have a lovely little stream there.

Personally, I'm a bit disappointed that you choose to take pike out ... but that's your choice. They offer superb sport on fly, lure or bait and they are necessary to keep the stock healthy ... at least in my opinion.

[martin_b]

Lawrence, I'm also a catch and release fisherman, but club rules are to take out the pike. It's primarily a trout stream. The stream has been dug deeper and wider in some places, causing the water to run slower in those stretches, so the sand will fall to the bottom there, and not end up covering the gravel spawning beds below. That's something that's nescessary to keep the trout population healthy.

But the side effect of such a maneuvre is that species that aren't "naturally" in the stream, such as pike, start to rise in population because they like deep, slow water, resulting in a massive death of the little trout and salmon on their way to sea if they are not dealt with. Pike in this stream is an invasive species, simple as that :)

[Satoshi]

Excellent post!

I wish I could bring those pike you remove from the stream to our water. We don't have many big fish that can be caught by flyfishing.

I was rather surprised that salmon parr has red spots just like brown trout. Do they dissapear when they become smolt? How can you distinguish salmon parr from brown trout or vice versa?

Satoshi

[martin_b]

Trust me, Satoshi, you don't want to introduce pike into your pretty streams with those pretty little landlocked salmon, they'll eat 'em all up in no time ;)

Salmon parr (at least here in south western Denmark) are very similar to brown trout up to a certain size. The one in the picture is starting to loose its red spots as part of the smoltification process.

[martin_b]

Satoshi, just remembered that you also asked about how to distinguish salmon parr from brown trout. They look very similat, but the salmon has a more stream-lined appereance as well as a narrower part between body and tail. Overall, if you look at it closely, it just looks like a salmon :) But it is funny how it also has red dots in the first year or so of its life, like a brown trout.

Martin

[Satoshi]

Satoshi, just remembered that you also asked about how to distinguish salmon parr from brown trout. They look very similat, but the salmon has a more stream-lined appereance as well as a narrower part between body and tail. Overall, if you look at it closely, it just looks like a salmon :) But it is funny how it also has red dots in the first year or so of its life, like a brown trout.

Martin

Martin,

Thank you.
I think I know what you mean; Salmon looks like salmon, and trout looks like trout. :)

Satoshi