Today, i was out for few hours in Salaca – to enjoy start of the spring and of coarse to inspect some spots for salmon and seatrout. Weather was nice – mild sun with a breeze of light southeast wind, temperature few degrees above zero. This year licence price for one day fishing is 9 Lats, that is really not expensive. In spite of such a price, there was quite many spin fishermen on the other bank without licence (effect of the economical crisis), but with not a bad collection of damn words. Fishing in favorite spots meanwhile hearing these “birds singing” was somehow tiresome. I moved upstream hopefully not to meet anyone there. I was lucky – next to the small tributary Korģene there where only some steps in the snow reminding that i`m not the first one here this year. In spite of the comfortable conditions on the river bank, water temperature was o,8 degrees above 0. Not the best new`s – but what can you expect if the snow is melting. Fortunately water level was not high and it was clear enough to see bottom in 1,3 meter depth. Usually in such a conditions, let`s say in autumn, there are no doubt about using floating line (shooting head), but after some half an hour i felt like an idiot – expect a salmon rising for fly in such a conditions? Maybe some other time. I changed a head to intermediate/sink2 and finally i felt my fly in the water layer where it should ride. Just patience… Fishing in such a low temperatures requires a slllllooowwwww presentation of the fly, and if you are using 30 degree casting angle, fly swing`s almost forever. Just cast and wait, wait, wait – meanwhile with full control over fly. Boring some may say. Ok, but you can watch how nature is waking up and finally hope that you have more patience than fish. Too or three casts – step, then again casting and stepping until the end of the pool suffering from little cold, that makes you feel alive. Until someone stops your fly. Today it was around 14:00 when at the end of the pool, in the well known place 5,5 kilo kelt female stopped the fly. I was using Rusty Orange 7 cm long tube fly with bright orange cone in the front. These colors work fine in brown colored waters. But, without a proper presentation it is useless. For sure! I was lucky – salmon season 2009 opened.

Salmo Salar kelt

Tags: Salmon

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 21:07 and is filed under Fly fishing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.