ESF reader Alexander Moghal shares his thoughts and experiences of fly fishing for Danish Sea Trout.
It is often said that good things come in small sizes - and as countries go, Denmark is amongst the smaller ones.
True to this old adage, the Danes have given us the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Lego blocks, and Bang & Olufsen audio design, not to mention the enthusiastic Norse efforts to engage in a cultural exchange with the Britons, a 1000 years or so ago - sometimes cynically referred to as the Viking invasions! (After all, a Viking’s idea of a first date was to capture the girl and burn down her village, so it is perhaps not surprising that their good hearted intentions were a tad misunderstood).
A far lesser known fact is that Denmark also enjoys world class fishing for Sea Trout, directly from the coast - easily accessible and available to everyone (as long as you have your mandatory state rod license).
The myriad of big and small islands together with the fjords and the open stretches give a coastline of almost 5000 miles – for a population of little more than 5 million people! This provides more than sample space and many opportunities for swinging a fly rod and connecting with the elusive Sea Trout, many of which are of significant size. Indeed one of my good friend’s personal best is Sea Trout of just over 5 kg taken from the coast! And occasionally, a Salmon may be tempted by your fly as well.
This is not to say that it is easy fishing! Far from it in fact - one can go for days without as much as a take! 20-25 years ago, it was estimated that it took about 70 rod-hours to connect with a Sea Trout from the coast!
As a point in case, I once spent 14 days solid, fishing from 8 or 9 in the morning until sunset, interrupted only by a break for lunch and answering the call of nature. During that fortnight, I hooked one single Sea Trout, and saw one other! But then that is the elusive nature of Sea Trout.
In stark contrast to the above experience, during a single day’s fishing last year in April, my son had 8 fish take his fly (even though he only managed to land 3 of them). But even now, with such greatly improved odds, one can still experience several fishless days on the trot.
Though the Scandinavian countries have been gifted by nature with magnificent fishing possibilities (just think about the spectacular Norwegian Salmon rivers and the Swedish Sea Trout rivers like Em and Morrum), somehow Denmark was last in line when it came to opportunities for Salmon and Sea Trout.
The few rivers large enough to sustain these fish were treated as little more than industrial sewers during the 1960s and 1970s. But what the Danes may have lacked in freshwater possibilities, they have more than made up for in saltwater. A dedicated and committed conservation effort by anglers over the past 25 years or so in establishing hatcheries, restoring and improving river habitats for juvenile fish, and fighting against polluting industry is now bearing fruit.
This, in combination with the fact the Danish inland seas with their abundance of food are an ideal habitat for Sea Trout to grow quickly, has resulted in the spectacular fishing possibilities that are now available.
As early as the 1950s, people were spin fishing from the coast targeting Sea Trout. The prevailing attitude towards fly fishing from the coast was that it would be far too ineffective, due to its limited range. But by the late 1960s, the first die-hard fly fishers were proving this perception wrong.
Somewhat slowly, but steadily, fly fishing gained in popularity, and is now an established – and highly effective - discipline for catching Sea Trout from the coast all across Scandinavia. Although the fish around Sweden tend to be fewer in number but larger in weight - with 8-10 pounders being caught regularly, fattened up as they have on the herring in the Baltic Sea - in contrast to Denmark, which seems to have a greater number of Sea Trout, but fewer of the very large fish. Then again 8-10 pounders are not unheard of.
At first, the inspiration for this new form of fly fishing came – not surprisingly - from Great Britain, with its fly fishing for Trout in large open reservoirs. Which in many cases aren’t that dissimilar to the Danish Fjords.
The Fish
Experience has shown that the Sea Trout can roughly be divided into three categories:
The “normal” fish that follow the usual spawning cycle and start running up the streams during autumn to spawn and then return back to sea once they have done so.
The “skip’ers”, i.e. the fish that skip a spawning cycle and remain in the sea during the cold months, where they continue feeding, albeit at a lower rate than normal because of a reduced metabolism. A marine Biologist once explained to me that this is Mother Nature’s “insurance policy”, so to speak. If, for some reason, the fish that are up in the rivers were to be decimated, there would still be “reserves” in the sea to carry on the species.
Finally, we have the fish that are not yet mature to spawn, also known as “Greenlanders” (for some obscure reason that is buried in the past). These will typically be around 35-40 cm in size and between a year and two years old, and in peak condition.
Sea Trout can deal with high salinity, and they can also deal with low water temperatures – but they can’t deal with both these factors at the same time. They will either move towards deeper waters, in which case they became irrelevant for the fly fisher. Or they will move into the fjords and bays with lower salinity and more brackish waters and where the water temperature is perhaps a degree or so warmer.
It is particularly during the winter months, that these last two categories can provide very rewarding sport, because not only are they are in excellent physical form, but they often remain in the vicinity of the coast, which puts them within reach of the fly fisherman.
Even though winter fishing – and these are proper Scandinavian winters we are talking about - has by some been called the height of masochistic tendencies. Though with numb fingers, sometimes almost frost-bitten faces, and ice in the rod guides, one cannot imagine why!
During the summer months, when the water temperatures rise and the sunlight hours increase, the fjords can become less oxygenated, as algae start to proliferate. This often drives the Sea Trout towards more open water, either into the sea itself or the inlets of fjords with strong currents bringing cooler oxygen-rich water.
The Seasons
Sea Trout can be caught in Danish waters all year round and in all sorts of weather – in blatant disrespect of all our postulated theories!
That much has been proven time and time again.
Nonetheless, there are conditions and times that have shown to be more productive than others, which the old adages such as “fish bite the least, when the wind is in the East” give an indication of.
During the early months of the year – i.e. January, February and March - fishing is often best on sunnier and milder days, perhaps around midday, and in shallower waters, and the less wind, the better.
At this time of the year, there are few baitfish and crustaceans around, other than in the shallows. Sheltered bays in the Fjords – if they aren’t covered with ice – are also worth a try. Flies fished slow and low are the order of the day since the fish won’t move far in the cold water. And if that doesn’t work, the diametrically opposite approach – i.e. a fast retrieve – will sometime produce results as the sight of an escaping morsel seems to trigger the fish’s predatory instinct.
April-May are conventionally thought of as the best months of the year. By now most of the Sea Trout are in hunting-feeding mode (this is when they develop silvery paper like scales) and are to be found both in the Fjords as well as along the open coast. The food chain will have been kick-started in the shallows so both fry and crustaceans are quite abundant by now. Few things can compare with an evening’s fishing in one of these picturesque charming locations where often the Sea Trout can be seen chasing fry in knee to waist deep water over the seaweed beds.
By June, July and August the Fjords are less attractive and the open coast has become more so. Fishing is often during the evening, with night fishing proving to be very rewarding, as the Sea Trout come in from deeper water to hunt near the coast.
Around September-October, the reproductive instinct slowly starts to kick in, and those Sea Trout that are ready to spawn will start making their way back to their native streams and rivers. Fishing becomes more challenging than it has been so far. The fish have been gorging themselves all summer so tend not to wolf down whatever they see. Smaller flies, sometimes in provocative colours, seem to be more productive. Once again, the Fjords become interesting as cooler water temperatures tend to get rid of algae.
By November and December, the circle is complete and the fish that remain in saltwater are once again the so-called “Skip’ers” and the “Greenlanders”. The latter ones often swim together in small schools. If you should stumble into one of these, chances are good that you will have some rod flex.
The Locations
The locations from which one can successfully fly fish for Sea Trout are too numerous to count, or list. With perhaps the exception of the windswept and surf hammered west coast of Jutland facing towards Britain across the North Sea, the entire country has suitable spots.
In the pre-Internet era (inconceivable for some, but not so long ago for luddites such myself), a common exercise used to be poring over Ordnance Survey maps of coastal stretches. Now a mere click on a map website will show you everything you ever wished to know about a specific stretch.
On the open coast, bays and coves are always worth a try - particularly if they have deeper water coming close in, from where the Sea Trout move in to feed and then retreat once they have filled themselves.
Other features such as boulders, weed beds, stone and sand reefs protruding from near land out to sea are suitable spots. Speckled or mottled seabed – also known as “Leopard” type –has always been considered better fishing ground than just sand bed. This kind of seabed has alternating and varied features, rather than a monotonous and uniform stretch of coast without any distinguishing features to attract prey items. Sea weed provides shelter to fry and crustaceans while the sandy spots often hold sand eels and lugworms – all of which are on the Sea Trout’s menu.
Generally speaking, the same applies to the Fjords but the fish seem to move around a lot here and trial and error will show which areas fish better than others. Some, like Roskilde Fjord, are really not much different than lakes. With brackish water and silt bottom in many places, even the Sea Trout from this Fjord seem more like Brown Trout with a darker colouration than usual.
All The Gear....
For the most part, a 6-7 weight rod, 9 ft rod is perfectly adequate with an intermediate (slow-sink) WF line.
The rod needs to have a bit of backbone and not flex too much in order to be capable of laying out a cast in awkward windy conditions, which after all are predominant.
Regarding fly lines, our experience is that a slow intermediate is superior to a floating line.
Firstly even the slightest bit of wind will cause some wave action on the water surface and a floating line tends to “hang” or “sag” thereby creating slack in the line. And while takes from Sea Trout sometimes come as a hammer blow, they are just as frequently very delicate takes where it feels as though the fly just brushed a bit of weed!
With slack in the line, these delicate takes are simply not felt. The intermediate sinks just below the surface disturbance and gives a better connection to the fly.
Secondly, Sea Trout can be incredibly spooky (perhaps because they themselves are chased by seals and porpoises here in the brine) and sometimes just the disturbance that the wake of a floating line causes, is enough put the fish down, which we have witnessed on several occasions.
The optimal setup seems to be a floating running line and an intermediate head section. One of the most successful fly fishers that I know uses exactly this setup, and in fact he takes it a step further by using only clear intermediate lines. Since his rod catch was 180 Sea Trout on the coast last year, this is advice worth heeding, I believe. The advantage of this setup with an intermediate shooting head and floating running line is that the running line will remain in the upper layers – whereas full intermediate line can have sufficient time to sink to the bottom and get tangled into your wading boots by the time you have retrieved the entire length of the cast, especially during a slow retrieve. And this isn’t hearsay!
But when the sea is baring its teeth – and it doesn’t take a whole lot of wind for it to do so - a heavier outfit is needed, such as an 8 or even 9wt rod, to punch out the fly.
A wading staff is quite handy, whereas felt on the wading boots is a must - unless one wishes to imitate Charlie Chaplin! The rocks and stones can be incredibly slippery and slick!
I wouldn’t be without a wading staff myself, but that is mainly because I am now paying the price of an adventuresome youth in the form of injuries etc.
Stripping baskets are again not an essential, but we have found them highly useful when standing waist-deep and trying to manage excess line being blown about by a gale wind!
And finally, the flies
It must be a testimonial to the effectiveness of (traditional) flies such as Butcher, Black Zulu, Red Tag and streamers such Black Ghost, Mickey Finn and Muddler Minnows, that these were the ones to be found on the end of leaders, during the early days. (Incidentally, all these flies, in “modernised” versions, are still in use on the coast, and Muddlers in particular for night fishing.)
But saltwater and fish teeth take their toll on metal tinsel that rusts, and natural feathers that become brittle.
So when the first synthetic materials, such as mylar tinsel and nylon hair, started to appear on the market in the early 1980s, they were welcomed by the salt water fly fishers. Since those days, Danish fly fishers/tyers have developed very distinctive styles and patterns specifically designed for this type of fishing - and they appear to be getting more and more effective for every year that passes!
Interestingly enough, they seem to fall into two opposing categories! Either the very functional and simple patterns, or the very realistic and elaborate type of flies.
Two of the most successful flies currently in use, are the epitome of simplicity! One is called the “Kobberbasse” (loosely translated “copper-whopper”) and consists simply of copper coloured sparkle dubbing wound around a hook shank and then combed out vigorously! The other is simply a tube of braided mylar, tied down and the excess teased out. Unsurprisingly, it is called the Christmas Tree! Both of these flies have taken countless Sea Trout.
As if to illustrate this point, the only fly we had some limited success with last year on a difficult September day, was simply a bit of red dubbing on a size 8 hook! The fish were completely uninterested in everything else we presented to them!
In contrast to these flies, the opposing category seems to consist of very realistic imitation flies – mainly of shrimp and baitfish – complete with eyes, exact number of legs, feelers and epoxy exo-skeletons!
Local anglers will always have their own preferences, but for the visiting angler, one can rarely go wrong with Wooly Buggers and Zonkers in different sizes and colours, and some smaller (generic) palmered hackle type patterns with a dubbed body – along with a few brightly coloured flies thrown in for good measure!
My own search for “the holy grail” has landed me somewhere in the middle of these two approaches: imitative but not overly complicated.
Some of the pictured flies have already proven their worth, while others remain to be baptised under fire - a task for the coming season perhaps?