The talks at the Fly Fair in 2012 have led me to write an article about a just returned trip to India where the catches were very poor, mainly to heavy thunderstorms deep in the Himalayas but all I can say is that we still enjoyed an awesome trip. For me it was fishing in the land of monks and butterflies. Fly fishing in India is indeed an enormous challenge especially when your guides are fanatic spoon fishermen and have no idea about fly fishing and which part of their rivers would be suitable for fly fishing. Exploring everything at your own is not easy so we made the best out of it.

We fished the state of Sikkim (between Bhutan, Nepal and Tibet) exploring if it was possible to catch a big golden Masheer with a fly before they would extinct. Nobody ever seen a fly fisherman in the areas that we fished and that had led to unbelievable experiences.  At some very remote places it looked as people crawl out the ground to see what we were doing. We had no idea where they came from. At one particular spot over 200 people just watching us. After some heavy thunderstorms we arranged a day trip to see at least a glimps of the himalays and highlight of the trip.

The India story was my second article in which hardly any fish was caught and it was well received at the international fly fishing scene. My first story I had done in 1986 and actually was my breakthrough in writing, mainly because I wrote a lot about nature and wildlife while the catches were so poor.

Fishing with the monks

I cannot stretch the truth to say that I actually fished with the monks but one asked to try a few casts in order that he might get a better sense of what it’s like. That small amount of casting instruction with a real monk surely made my holiday a very special one.

My Indian trip and another very rare experience in Canada became my big themes about good and bad fishing days. Especially because there are so many slogans and banners saying clearly that there are no bad fishing days but is this really true?

Are there any bad fishing days???

I honestly must confess that I privately never experienced a bad fishing day neither when alone nor in company with friends. Even when I broke a rod by own stupidity, damaged a line, lost a fly box it was never bad fishing but it was just a sad or unlucky experience. After nearly fifty years of fly fishing all I can say that there are indeed bad fishing days -not many – but I had to face a few. so let me tell you what really was a bad fishing day for me: What started as an awesome day turn into my worst fishing experience ever. Almost like a real nightmare. While I was helping a wonderful lady how to catch a salmon on a dry fly. She caught a nice grilse after 15 minutes, but sadly her husband already became cranky, so they swap places after she rose a big salmon and he wanted me to help him after she had landed her first fish. Of course, there were more big salmon in the river and 20 minutes after she had released her first fish, she hooked into a real whopper while she was standing at his old place. It was a tough fight and there was no attention from her husband which already was looking weird to me. He even didn’t look up or support his wife. Instead it made him even more bad-tempered. When I asked him if he wasn’t happy for her…. All he said to me “damn that was MY f*cking fish…” followed by many more F word expressions. When it turned out the fish measured 106cm with an approximately weight of 12kg, her husband went completely nuts… and showed me clearly who is the no 1 jerk in the world. One guy created a real bad day for several other people…. I even had to think about it my entire trip. So believe me: bad fishing days really exists.

Call of the wild

Gazing over the river while enjoying the moves of the current and the sounds of birds in the background. I can sit for hours like this but admit it has taken me years to reach this level of understanding and satisfaction.

From the earliest days of my fly fishing career until now, I have progressed through many stages and each individual stage was extremely important to the shaping of the fly fishing attitude I have today. I also had my long days of fishing and my eager to catch as many fish as possible in my early days and that is why I can understand the young and fantatic aglers so well. It’s normal that you want to prove yourself and want to be sure that your flies will work and there is no better prove then numerous catches. It was not different in fly tying. I started as a fanatic dry fly purist for about 10 years, but by time and experiences I developed my techniques and flies to be able to catch fish at depts. of 4 to 5 meters. Today I mainly develop fishing flies.

My feelings to nature and wildlife grown enormously over the years and while fishing and travel around the world photographing became as important to me as catching fish. I like to share my experiences and the best way to do that is showing pictures. Pictures often telling you more than a 1000 words and thats why I really got so deeply into wildlife photographing and have thousants of wildlife pictures today. I will share a few of our shots below.

Guiding and teaching by passion and heart

It’s the same with guiding… and I mean true guiding…  guiding by heart and soul. True guiding is a natural gift. For me guiding has nothing to do with money but all about happiness and my eager to share knowledge and skill with other people and it doesn’t matter about people’s age, and what I share with people doesn’t have to be about fly fishing too. Because what is wrong explaining people about the mystical call of the loon or share your secrets how to get real close with moose. Or telling people why moose and caribou swim across lakes and ponds or why you never hear an owl flying. Sharing knowledge about what fruit and plants are eatable and which you should avoid. It are the good lessons learned during all my army survival trainings too. For me guiding is a huge privilege and a clever way to be able to try to bring people close with the wild again.

For me serious guiding first started after I feel more happiness for the client who play and catch the fish than I would have felt myself. I first felt myself a good guide when I know all about the rivers, the fish and knew a lot techniques to catch the species, and could leave my rods at home and just was able to concentrate on the clients joy and satisfaction. I have seen too many guides that still fishing while they have clients. I never ever will pay a guide who do that. Guiding is a learning process where you have to grow into and what takes many years and a lot of time and many skills. I seen many old experienced guides in my life but also very young ones who were close to nature and did an awesome job too. I mostly guided in Scandinavia in the 1980’s and 1990’s, or during my classes after those years. This because I knew the rivers as well as my pocket. I never asked money for it but it brought me many new friendships.

Helping a young kid to catch his first salmon or trout made me happier then catching one myself and it really makes my day. For me fly fishing also is having a nice shore lunch on the banks of the river and meet new friends and share your tales. Fly fishing can be anything as long you can feel the perfect harmony with the river, nature and wildlife.