TR, River Malan

Thursday, the week before midsummer, we went fishing in a creek situated in the inner part of Vasterbotten county, northern Sweden. Monday next week and I'm still smiling. The creek, being rather small, had about normal water flow with temperature close to 18 degrees Celsius. There was an abundance of insects with several species of caddis and mayflies. The stretch that we were about to fish is one of the few catch and release stretches in this part of Sweden and about 1.5 kilometres in length.

Me and my long time friend and fishing buddy Fred met up with a local guy, Andreas, who was going to show us the best fishing spots. On arrival at the creek we kind of smiled at Andreas fishing equipment, at least at first. He had a 10' #7-8 rod that he used with large tube flies ( looked more like sea trout equipment to us, little did we know ). His fishing may have been a bit crude but there's no doubt in my mind that he knows this creek better than most. Andreas had also shown us pictures from the week earlier when he had caught some really large trout, among these there was a trout at 29 inches which was the most prominent.

The trip started out 4pm with mostly grayling fishing using caddis imitations, and I must say that the close to 80 graylings in six hours on three fishermen averaging lb1 was enough to have marked this trip a success. At 10pm Andreas caught his first trout, it was a nice trout weighing about lb1.5 and we changed to fishing with streamers, personally I used a small black muddler minnow. The following 5 hours proved to become one of the best fishing trips that I've ever had the pleasure to enjoy. Andreas fished the white water entering the pools but also the white water in the middle of rapids, and he was very successful. So, when fishing with the locals do as the locals do. In the 5 hours from 10pm we hooked 30 wild browns weighing from lb1 to lb4, we did however see significantly larger fish. I have a picture where my two friends are standing opposite each other by the same pool. The two fishermen were clearly taken by this pool where a large number trout held court.

Fred and Andreas caught 7 trout without moving an inch from where they are standing in the picture. As a curiosity I can mention the fact that Fred lost a lb2 trout when the leader broke, only to get his fly back when Andreas caught the fish 15 minutes later. On this somewhat dark picture ( it isn't always smart to use the flash ) Fred is fighting a lb4 fish. I believe he said something about being in heaven..

(The flash on the camera has given me some problem with dark pictures. It would have been better not to use it since the sun is away for only 50 minutes per night and it isn't very dark. Once the flash hits something the rest of the picture will become too dark.) Anyway, we moved on to yet another rapid and as we closed in on the creek we looked down from a hill to see a number of promising pools.

In the first of these pools I caught the smallest trout of this trip. I'm putting a couple of pictures of this trout below, to show you what a beauty this small fish was with its magnificent colouring.

In the same pool I hooked a lb3 trout but then my fellow fishermen were too far away to help me with the photography. In the pool below, Andreas had hooked another 7 trout once I went past him, he had a silly smile on his lips.

Another 100 metres downstream and history repeated itself. I was fishing a white water stretch when WHAM a large trout striked...and SWISH the fly line landed in my face, the leader had broke. Why then do I say that history repeated itself? Well, 15 minutes later Andreas catch the same trout and I get my fly back. Seemed to be a habit of his catching the trout we, that is me and Fred, lost. Here's some pictures of the trout, since I was in the neighbourhood. It weighed lb3.

The kind of fishing that we experienced would normally belong to the mountain region, and I must say that after three days I still have difficulties comprehending what happened and I'm still smiling. Honestly, I've tried to keep the figures down a bit since I've got a hard time believing what I'm writing. If it weren't for some of the photos I'd think I'd been dreaming. I have never before in my 36 year long life had a fishing trip like this one, and this after 27 years of fly fishing, unless fishing in the mountains I should add.

I've always had the opinion that C&R can't be the best solution and as I like to eat fish bag limits have sounded as a good way to approach the problem with over-fishing. I am however converted.

--

Tight lines!

Yours/ Roger

Daytime engineer
Lifetime flyfisherman