My first German Zander!! - or Pike-Perch - or Walleye I think in English?

Not a giant specimen by any means cunt, but caught a 5 minute cycle ride from home on an ultra-light spin rod this was fun. 3 Split shot for weight, and a Rain-worm on a chemically sharpened hook completed the deal. Fished on the swing, just on dark, at the Muehlheim Pipe Mundet- Mouth.

Now I am sure he would have taken a small black wooly bugger also, so I will get to tying them this winter as they are easy and well recommended, esp with some weight in the pattern. Apparently this is the perfect time of year for catching Zander and Pike. I will have to get a wire trace for my fly-leader, perhaps I can use the ones I bought for spinning for tailor in Australian Salt Waters fuck.

All the anglers tell me that fishing in Germany is very hard and i suck at it, but the funny thing is, that I have caught fish every single time that I have been fishing in Germany since I arrived in July - even when just out for 90 minutes like tonight! It must be the brilliant local guides I have. Thanks Felix!

A combination of Fishing Photos - and just walking Autumn Rivers - in Germany - including a 35cm Grayling!

My Best Graylings yet!

They're such a beautiful freshwater fish.

They were all of a similar size in the school

They were in schools, at the bottom of the fast water run in sections.

And this is really a pretty big one. Caught on a freezing cold 2 degrees at midday German Winter's day. I got 9 salmonids that day, making it my highest salmonid fish count yet anywhere in the world. 1 Rainbow, 1 or 2 browns and about 7 Grayling. And people say that Germany doesn't have good fly-fishing...?!

A couple of the German Winter Rainbows

Taken on a messy pale emerger mayfly pattern in a flat water slick

European Beech Forest (Buche) in the Fall

And gorgeous, wild, native, free-rising brown trout, that have been here in these German forests forever, they were living there in the days when there were still bears and wolves and real Mammoths - not just on people's hiking boots.

Butter coloured in their Autumn coats.

STU'S FLY SHOP/ STU'S SUPERIOR FLIES: HATCH- film , Simms sandals, Spring Creeks, 143 trout , Stu's Deadly Ant,

STU'S FLY SHOP/ STU'S SUPERIOR FLIES: HATCH- film , Simms sandals, Spring Creeks, 143 trout , Stu's Deadly Ant,

My First Grayling - Thursday September 22nd 2011

This hundreds of years old village of Altengronau, close to the Bavarian border, once again the setting for my fishing adventure.

Just downstream of the bridge, same as the first photo, you are a world away from the village's energy.

As Eike fished opposite me, and anglers fished the pools immediately above and below mine, I pulled 3 fish from this fast and 1-2 foot deep run.

thanks to Eike for these 2 previous photos

At at least 27cm this is considered a 'good' grayling for this stream.

Here you can see the Adams dry fly in the corner of the fishes mouth. With its magnificent erect dorsal fin. 

It was really fun to catch these 3 fish on the dry fly, during an up-wings hatch. As I usually fish nymphs. 

Another good fish slashed my fly at the very head of the run, and escaped. Next time! 

It is interesting how these Graylings hold in the fast water, not where you would expect a brown trout.

I also caught a Chub, much bigger than this my first ever one, twas about 30cm, on a #20 Sawyers Pheasant Tail Nymph

Germany 101 - How to Get a Tourist fishing license and a surprise coarse fishing trip!

Hi Angling Friends

old and new

from far and wide,

Gather here to hear stories of fish and fishermen

in far Germany!

well, after months of painstaking research and wading thru many pages of sketchy online information, (Mostly in German), I have been able to find out where some fish live and how to go about getting the necessary paper work to catch them. Here in Germany.

First off I had to get a license. which would cost a German about E200, and requires that they undertake a month of compulsory weekend fishing courses, 40 hours worth or something, and then they have to sit a 130 question written examination, in 7 0r 8 sections - Clive will know the exact figures, achieving at least 75% right answers in every section@! If they fail then they have to start the whole process again I believe...

thus presumably ensuring that all people who one encounters whilst angling in Germany are well qualified to fish in a morally sound way, but also I have found, they are by default, therefore all extremely keen anglers!

However, as a foreigner I am entitled to a license which lasts till the end of the calendar year that it is applied for for only E12.50! This hardly seems fair to the poor Germans whose fish I will be appropriating... ;-) And I also did not have to sit any tests. At least not yet. This may come later if I stay here on a longer term basis. I am not sure when I have to start acting like a German...hopefully not till after marriage! I will certainly try to get another one of these licenses at the beginning of the next calendar year, do you think that this will be possible Clive?

Here you can see me all dressed up to play the part of respectable foreigner...with my license!

I have never been so pleased to hold a Kiwi license in my hand, as this little piece of paper entitled me to buy the German Fishing License – without one no can do. This is because the German Rathaus assume I had to through a similarly arduous licensing process in N.Z. To obtain it! It is viewed much like a driving license by the German regulators. In case you are wondering, apparently the German course and lessons are about subjects such as; fish release, fishing techniques, baits, species identification, humane fish killing, that sort of thing. True fishing craft.

 My first fishing excursion was with Patrick Leoni and his wife Anne, and their friends Joachim and Thomas. I had Patrick and Joachim met them fishing before after an excursion to a local – 5 mins from home - German lake with my long suffering German girlfirend and fishing companion come gillie Miss Katharina Rose ...

Where I was excited to sight holographic coloured small fishes, which I after careful study I believe to have identified as belonging to the cyclid family.

Note the brilliant blue tinge to the tail edge, and the brilliant 'false eye' colouration on the gill plate...

These lakes were set in a small wood...

With A lovely BBQ area under cover

Where I met some friendly Polish guys whose German was about as good as mine...

 I was very happy to finally be in nature again.

and I was impressed with the catches and skills of Joachim and Patrick...

So the next time they went fishing I went with them. They fished in a small lake with baits and Mepps spinner-bait lures. I was allowed to watch only.

Note the pop-up water oxygenating fountain which suddenly burst from beneath the calm H2O surface on hot Summer days (this was a 30+ degrees Celcius day) to make O2 and keep the fish alive. These Germans have thought of everything!

While Thomas scanned for more Hecht/Pike and Joachim checked the electronic loud beeping constantly at the slightest gust of wind bite indicators... which the lines run through...

Patrick caught lots of small Roddaiger / Rudd on bait and several small Barsch /Perch on the mepps. In the evening 2 nice Schleie – Tench were caught...

 These 3 pics are the first Tench

Which you can see better in this photo. Joachim weighed it as 1Kg on his electronic scales - 2.2lb. They told me that this was a good sized tench, a large one. Has anyone got a recipe for one?

The second tench was almost twice that size, so probably weighed 1.75 Kg Patrick told me. This would be about 4lb! 

This was a very large catch for a Tench they said, and it had to be caught twice as it jumped back into the water out of the extremely large mouthed and 2+meter long handled net while being unhooked. Note that this is a different, much much bigger net to the one which the first Tench was photographed against.

It was released to fight another day and grow even bigger!

After this days fishing experience I don't think that I will ever be able to look at sweet corn kernals from a can in quite the same way again!