On day three of my trip to the Harz I slept late.
I had no intention of fishing the same stretch or river at the hotel before breakfast as a did the day before.
The organizers of this trip had planned a BBQ at dinner time, this event and the late breakfast would cut the fishing day to an unbearable short session.
I was not the only one to complain about the bad timing (at least for the more fanatical fisherman amongst our club).
After breakfast we went to a new stretch on the river in search of fish.
It was weekend and there was quite a crowd on the river.
I shared a short piece of water with three other anglers.
Since action was slow I pretty soon disappeared downstream.
Downstream.
At a location where the river widened I saw the first rising fish of my day.
Most fish where pretty small but some bigger specimens where mixed in.
I fished with the Orvis trout bum 7’#4 and a goldbead pheasant nymph.
Pheasant tail nymph.
I fished all parts of the river, the deep stretches along the side of the rocks surely would hold some bigger fish.
There was always the possibility to catch an escapee rainbow trout from the massive commercial hatchery upstream.
I did my best to catch one but no fish would come forward.
Brown trout.
Deep pools.
I fished the downstream section for a couple of hours and then made my way back upstream to the place where I entered the river.
All the competition was gone, I guess it wasn’t such a good spot there afterall.
I moved further upstream through some sections where the current and large stones made wading quite tough.
All the ingredients of an involuntary bath where present.
During the past two days I made two hard landings, once by tripping over a log on the bank and once when a stone gave way while wading.
The big boulders in the stream where prime trout locations and after a long time of no action I finally caught a nice fish.
I did not dare to take the camera out though because I was not 100 percent comfortable with the location I was standing in.
Past the difficult wading spots.
When I looked at my watch I noticed that fishing time was almost over, soon we would have to leave for the BBQ.
During the last half hour I almost had no bites on the nymph anymore.
I only noticed a couple of times that fish where actually rising, in the shady stretch I was in at that moment there where hardly any flying insects about.
The last fly on the leader would be an extended body Mayfly pattern, maybe that would do the trick.
When I spotted a rising fish I was quick to position the Mayfly, the fly only drifted a short stretch before a trout inhaled it.
Small brown.
I always admired with what vigour even the small browns would attack the mayflies.
I concluded my fishing day with a catch on the dry fly.
On the next day we would have to leave for home but we still planned to fish a couple of hours then.
It would be a shame to leave such a beautiful place without having been fishing.
Flyfishing Germany - Harz region June 16th
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