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