In the afternoon we explored more sections of the river downstream.
As I entered the river I saw a rising fish at one of the bridge heads.
I quickly changed my set-up from streamer to a dry fly and carefully positioned the dry fly upstream to the last know position of the fish.
It took three floats before the fish struck the fly.
The fish was quite big and took some time to subdue.


Brown trout on the Klinkhamer fly.

The first catch was promising, while my friends moved upstream I fished with a streamer downstream.
Even though I passed along many deeper pools I could not hook any fish.
I saw no fish fleeing and had no following fish after the streamer.


Brown trout .

I walked quite a long distance downstream and only managed to catch two smaller brown trout on the fly.
I paused for a little break and wondered what would be found under all these pebbles.




Plenty of life under the stones.

Fishing was tough and when I met the other guys I noticed that they also felt that the place was sort of lifeless fishing wise.
We had expected an evening rise at sunset but nothing moved.
Only on a few occasions a fish would take something from the surface but there where just not enough insects hatching.
We had to choose between staying and hoping for the best or return to the spot we visited in the morning.
The latter option won, 10 minutes later I was standing next to fly fisherman Tom when he fished his honey hole from the morning session.



Tom in action.

Tom was fishing with emergers while I tried several different type of flies.
First it was a grey gold bead nymph that was in favour of the brown trout since I hooked four of them in short order.
I could see the trout clearly in the pool and one among them was quite big.
The big trout did not fall for the nymphs so it was time to tie the streamer on.
The bigger trout was not that easily fooled but another brown was interested and took the streamer.
I tried another heavier white streamer and well after sunset the bigger trout finally hit the fly.



Brown trout.

Close to darkness fish where finally feeding on top and loads of insects where on the water.
Still the fish refused our offerings.
Tom and I tried out a whole range of dries but none of them seem to be the right pattern.
I finally tied on a small floating buzzer and that yielded me one of those picky trout.
We left in full darkness, I had hooked 16 trout on this first day and missed quite a few bites.

The only concern now was to get something to eat at those late hours.
The traditional German restaurants would be surely closed at 22.00 hrs in the evening.
Luckily there was one Italian place in the small town and it was open.
The Italian owner inquired how the fishing was and Tom remarked it was good and that
I had caught the most fish.
The Italian owner looked at me at said “Capo”, we’ll I agreed