VISION YEARBOOK

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A GREAT SCENERY

A GREAT FISH

GREAT GEAR

A HAPPY CAMPER

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Now that I´m writing this it is deep winter here in Finland, as you can see :) Some of you are already fly fishing, but we still need to wait for our home waters to open. Once again I am writing this foreword - either because I am the boss, or because the oth-ers in our team just don’t want to do it. Everyone at Vision has lots of fishing stories and pages of photos, and every single one of them is itching to provide content for fishing spreads, for fly patterns, for anything after this page - and that includes me. I believe that traditional catalogues are becoming history. This is why you will find that this catalogue is actually more like a magazine. We are the most successful fly fishing company in Europe. It is because we listen to you. We guarantee that this will not change for the next 15 years - only the means and media we use to tell you about us. Ok, now onto the next pages and the fishing we all love so much.

15 years

Vision Group CEO Juha Koivu

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Photo: Pasi Visakivi

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Photo: Pasi Visakivi

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THE OUTFITS

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Although the general quality of fly fish-ing tackle as a whole has improved con-siderably during the last few decades, there are still some gear related pitfalls, which can cause serious problems for anglers. These pitfalls are especially dangerous for novices.

BEWAREOne of the most common and most severe pitfalls is the proper balancing of the fly fishing set. Being new to the sport/hobby, a novice might buy or get a rod from one place and a reel and fly line from another. For various reasons, sometimes due to the buyer and some-times due to the seller, the combina-tion might be really bad. Casting with a poorly balanced set is not an easy task for anybody and the problems in casting can sometimes make the novice give up the new hobby before he/she even started it properly.

EARLY PHASE CHALLENGESIn any case, the problems with the set will quite often result in adopting wrong casting techniques, especially when the novice is doing it all by himself/herself. Fixing these erroneous trajectories later on can be difficult and time-consuming. And that is just the casting part of the new hobby. Add the need to learn how to tie proper knots for the backing, the fly line and the leader and you’ll start to see, why at the start, just learning the ropes of our beloved hobby is often con-sidered rather demanding.

COMBOS FOR EVERYBODYIn order to make things easier, most manufacturers have introduced ready-made outfits. Combos, where easy-cast-ing rods are combined with matching fly

lines reeled on a decent fly reel. Usually, these outfits are rigged ready (backing, fly line and leader are in place, along with proper knots joining these compo-nents) and all you have to do, is to tie a fly at the end of the leader and you are ready to go. These sets will range from light trout fishing all the way up to se-rious salmon/seatrout/pike hunting. Packed in a durable Cordura tube with a reel pouch, the sets are easy to trans-port and can take a pretty hard beating. Providing great value for money, they have become pretty popular as pack-up sets for even the most experienced an-glers.

RUMORS RUN WILDUnconfirmed reports suggest that in some cases, these outfits have even be-come the favourite set of some really experienced anglers. Hmm, the prices for these outfits might be too low…

ATOM

ZULU

ZULU SETLine # Lenght3-4 8´5-6 9´7-8 9´

ATOM SETLine # Lenght4 8´5 9´6 9´7 9´6”8 9´

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OPAS JACKET

OPAS JACKET

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layered clothing (with the exception of silk) which combines the various spe-cial features so evidently useful not just for sheep in harsh conditions but for us too. However, there are big dif-ferences between various wool brands. The wool coming from merino sheep is in generally considered to be the best and is thus used extensively in this field.

Products: First Skin set, Chill, Subzero socks, Caps, Beanies, Inka cap, Micro 100, Face Polartec mask, Wind block gloves

INSULATIONThe mid layer should be a looser fit than the inner layer. However, it has to main-

Regardless of how cool a rod you have in your hand or how big a trout you spot feeding in front of you, if you are not dressed for the occasion, your mood and well-being will definitely take a hit if the temperature plummets or the afternoon downpour of the cen-tury falls on you after a warm morning.

THE BASICSThese things do happen in the real world, especially if you spend a decent amount of time on the water. Thus it should not come as a surprise to anyone, that for a long time the prevailing trend for proper dressing for various outdoor activities has been layered clothing. It can be described as a way of wearing a combination of special layers of cloth to regulate your body temperature, so you don’t overheat or get cold. You must consider the weather conditions you are fishing in, your activity level and your in-dividual internal thermostat - There are always some guys who can fish in their t-shirts in below zero conditions. These separate layers can be divided into three categories: Inner, mid, and outer. These three layers act in unison (to trap

heat, remove moisture, breathe, block wind, and repel water) but individually each layer performs a specific function.

FOUNDATION The inner layer, also called a base lay-er, is the first layer of clothing in direct contact with your skin. It should hug your body. This lets the material quickly transfer the moisture away from your skin while keeping you dry and warm. Inner layer materials are often made of polyester, polypropylene, or a mix of synthetic and natural fibres, like

polyester and wool or polyester and bamboo. Wool is the only widely ac-cepted stand-alone natural product in

After a fast march, it is time to let out some steam before hitting the river.

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SUBZERO

tain contact with the inner layer to func-tion properly. These materials are de-signed to trap and hold your body heat in small air spaces in the material. Mid lay-ers are also designed to carry moisture away from the inner layer, moving it from the body and pushing it to the outer lay-er. Mid layer materials range significant-ly, but some common ones are fleece, polyester, down, and wool. Depending on the temperature you are in, you may need to wear more than one mid layer. That’s the benefit of dressing in lay-ers; you can add or remove clothing as you need in order to keep comfortable.

Products: Powerstretch Top and Bot-tom, Thermal Pro overall, Thermal Pro jacket and Trousers, Wind Pro jacket, Powerzip Top, Power Hoodie, Micro Top, Subzero jacket

PROTECTIONSome describe outer layers as a shell (i.e., wind and rain type jackets and waders) to protect you from the ele-ments, while being breathable so your internal moisture can escape. As long as the units block wind or water they classify as an outer layer. When looking for a waterproof and windproof shell, you can’t beat the outer layer protec-tion provided by a proper wading jacket and by a pair of high-quality waders. If you don’t anticipate wet conditions, a

lighter jacket (even one which is not wa-terproof) may suit you fine. The outer layer should also be rugged and able to stand up to abuse. If its material rips on a tree branch, you’ve just ruined not only a jacket, but also your layer-ing system if it starts to rain! The thing to remember is to pay attention while enjoying an evening bonfire on a river bank. The materials used in outer layers are mostly notoriously easy to burn, set off by even a stray spark. You can have the best layering system in the world, but if you don’t keep your extremities protected, you’ll feel uncomfortable. According to scientists, a large part of overall temperature loss is through the head, mainly due to the active local blood circulation. Also - when wading in cold waters you have to pay extra at-tention to your wading shoes. If they are too tight, they will result in numb feet, which in turn not only feels awkward but also makes wading more dangerous and can have long-term consequences by damaging the blood flow in your feet. Thus it is extremely important to match your hats, gloves, socks and footwear to the climate and your activity level.

Products: Wading jackets (Opas, Kura, Atom, Speed, Vector), waders (Ikon family, Opas, Kura, Eero) and Bib & Brace trousers.

MICRO TOP

POWER ZIP TOP

POWER HOODIE

WIND PRO JACKET

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KURA JACKET

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INSURANCEDon’t let yourself overheat when you are walking quickly to the next honey hole just around the corner (about 2 km in the wilderness). Take off layers to regulate your temperature when you are hiking, and then add layers when you stop to fish. Before doing that, it’s good to let the sweat evaporate. It might feel tough to change in cold tempera-tures but dry clothes will do wonders for your comfort. Nothing can beat a light down or primaloft jacket in these situations. Additionally, make sure you pack some spare clothes into your back bag along with that jacket, because you never know when you are going to take a dip if you follow the urge to wade deep to get the optimum casting position.

Products: Subzero Primaloft jacket, First Skin set and hoodies

MAINTAININGIt’s important to read the washing and care instructions on your fishing cloth-ing. Synthetic materials often need to be clean to properly transfer moisture, insulate and protect from rain not to mention to get rid of bad odours. Spe-cial cleaning solutions are also avail-able to help restore these properties. For outerwear, a good rule of thumb is that if water isn’t beading on the fabric, you need to wash your gear. Besides cleaning, it is always a good idea to oc-casionally perform a quick check of outer layer clothing, especially when you are heading for a week long wil-derness trip somewhere up north.

FINAL WORDS

Proper layering is one of the most fun-damental concepts in enjoyable fly fishing. Learn how to layer and you’ll be more comfortable outdoors. Stay away from cotton, focus on using the three layers where appropriate, and re-move layers to prevent overheating or add them to stay warm. Make sure that your hydration and nutrition levels stay up, because otherwise you will eventu-ally get cold regardless of what kind of super layering system you are wearing. Follow the above simple instructions and guidelines, and you’ll get a lot more enjoyment from your time fishing.

You better believe when a man in a bright red super-hero outfit tells you something...

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Polartec®’s super fleece, Wind Pro® is 4 times more wind proof than traditional fleece. Because the Wind Pro® is not a laminate, it retains 85% of the breatha-bility of traditional fleece thus keeping you from overheating. The outer surface is treated with Dura-ble Water Treatment shedding the rain and snow and the inner surface traps air providing warmth.

Polartec® Classic Micro Series with Comfort Stretch brings lightweight warmth, great breathability, and comfort to caps. The tight-knit micro-fibre construc-tion is quick drying and non-irritating.

Polartec® Power Stretch® fabrics feature body-hugging 4-way stretch and are very breathable. They keep you dry when you sweat and provide warmth without weight. These are the most versatile out-door and fitness clothing fabrics available today. Many of the fabrics feature a proprietary construc-tion with two unique surfaces: the durable, smooth outer layer is wind- and abrasion-resistant; the soft inner layer pulls moisture away from your skin keep-ing you dry, warm and comfortable. Other fabrics in the series feature compression stretch which can im-prove performance and reduces the chance of cer-tain types of stop-go injuries. Polartec® Thermal Pro® gear is the most visually dynamic and technically advanced of the Polartec® insulation fabrics. Available in a variety of unique surface textures and patterns - many of which are designed to enhance performance Po-lartec® Thermal Pro® materials are great styling options for virtually every end use. New high loft ver-sions have achieved the highest warmth-to-weight ratios of any fabric Polartec® has ever offered. Other versions have the look of traditional wool with all the performance benefits of fleece. Polartec® Thermal Pro® is Polartec®’s most diverse family of fabrics.

Polartec® Windbloc® fabrics block 100% of the wind and offer maximum protection from the cold and the elements. The soft hand, stretch, and Dura-ble Water Repellent (DWR) finish combine to make this the highest quality, most comfortable windproof fleece product on the market.polartec.com

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A VERY TATTOOED WADER MAKER

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To continue at the forefront of wader development worldwide and to secure our leading role in Europe, 2012 will see some big changes in our wader strategy. Although Ikon is selling con-sistently well and Opas is just about to be fully launched, we have already worked for many years on introducing a totally new generation of waders. The main driving force behind this develop-ment has been the overall feeling that at some point the whole industry has taken a wrong turn. The fantastic feel-ing that we had when we moved from neoprene and PVC waders into delight-fully light breathable waders has been gradually evaporating, as modern wad-ers have become increasingly technical (a bunch of pockets, zingers, and other gadgets) and the abrasion durability has been prioritised (by increasing the number of layers in the lower part) at the expense of breathability and usabil-ity. As a result, modern high-end wad-ers are heavy, stiff and their breathabil-ity capabilities are not what they used to be. We wanted to change this trend and feel again that initial do-I-have-waders-on-or-not? - feeling when we wade into a cold mountain river.

THE TECHNOLOGYEvery now and then a disruptive change takes place in every industry. Sometimes these changes are new inventions, which create opportuni-ties to create something totally revo-lutionary. More often these changes are, however, based on a novel us-age of an existing technology. That is the case also with the new ultrasonic based weld technology for making wa-terproof seams for waders. Ultrasonic welding has been used since the early 1960’s in several industries including,

for example, computer and electrical technology, aerospace and automotive design, and in medical and packaging products. The ultrasonic process is ver-satile - you can seam, cut, slit, trim, tack, emboss, or cut and seal simultaneously. The process is efficient, with no nee-dles, threads, or other consumables. The ability to ultrasonically weld textiles and films depends on their thermoplas-tic content and the desired end result. It has been applied extensively to out-door garments, particularly top-of-the-line jackets and trousers for skiing and mountain climbing. Ultrasonic welding has produced strong, waterproof, highly abrasion durable, non -bulky seams without any stitch holes. All features which are highly valued among active outdoor experts. Based on the success in these relevant fields, it should not be any wonder that the fly fishing tackle in-dustry also picked up the method and applied it to sports garments, such as

jackets and later to waders.

SECURE AND FLAT SEAMSThe main differences between tradi-tional and ultrasonic seamed waders, from the usability point of view, are the flat seams. There is actually no notice-able difference between the plain fabric and the seam. Only the additional wa-terproof inside tape will create a small increase in thickness. This is quite the contrary to normal seams in waders, where you have a bulky seam with three (3) layers of fabrics plus the additional inside tape(s). In figures, we can state that an ultrasonic welded seam is al-ways at least 67% thinner when com-pared to normal seams. The bulkiness of a traditional seam also causes a seri-ous non-usability related problem; the large difference in thickness between the plain fabric and the seam creates a sort of a hinge (joint), which increases considerably the level of abrasion.

The difference between traditional and ultrasonic seam is considerable.

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ULTRA FAMILYVision has been actively testing ultra-sonic welding for various garments and models during the last three years and after several non-optimal designs we are finally happy to present ULTRA, our new family of waders using ultrasonic welding technology for the seams. In order to reach our main objectives in terms of usability, we dropped the nor-mal multilayer construction approach. However, in order to make sure that the lower part of the wader, which is constantly exposed to a higher level of abrasion and frequently in contact with sharp rock edges and similar, would live a long and happy life, we used a special woven technique for the lower part fab-rics. It makes the fabric denser and thus stronger and more resistant to outside wear and punctures. The two ULTRA siblings are called Kura and Eero. Wel-come to the future. KURA is the first member of the new ULTRA waders family. These new-era waders have been made with ultrasonic welding technology, which joins fabrics without any stitch holes. This enables us to produce extremely light waders with durable non-bulky seams, although they are naturally taped inside just to make sure. On the surface Kura has one large pocket with a YKK water resistant AquaGuard® zipper. With deep wading in mind we placed this zipper horizon-tally up high so you can still wade deep without filling this particular pocket. Kura has two additional, smaller water resistant pockets below the bigger one. These pockets also have a waterproof, welded construction with the same type of zippers. In addition these waders have a special holder pocket in front for a pliers or a nipper for those of us, who don’t want to wear any carry-ons. These waders have all the other well thought out features like a curved NoSeam cut, matching colour belt and braces, D loops, built-in gravel guards, drying loops, etc. XS – XXL. ML – XLL.MK – XLK

EERO is the first zipper model of the new ULTRA waders family. These new-era waders have been made with ultra-sonic welding technology, which joins

EERO WADERS

KURA WADERS

Seal® zipper) waders are especially suit-able for those of us who value lightness and functionality for example when fishing in some remote destinations, regardless of whether they require long hikes or red-eye flights. These waders have all the other well thought out fea-tures like a curved NoSeam cut, match-ing colour belt and braces, D loops, built-in gravel guards, drying loops, etc. XS – XXL. ML – XLL. MK – XLK.

fabrics without any stitch holes. This enables us to produce extremely light waders with durable non-bulky seams, although they are naturally taped inside just to make sure. Eero is our top-of-the-line wader with our best Japanese made F4 fabric. These waders have no outside pockets, no integrated zingers and no other irrelevant features which will only increase the weight and slow down the drying. These zip model (equipped with an extremely small and light YKK Aqua-

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ÄLVDALENS EDUCATION CENTER. Did you know that there is only one place in the world where you can study to be a salmon fishing guide? And it is in Älvdalen, Sweden. The three-year vo-cational training prepares students for their future profession with thorough and up-to-date training. The salmon fishing guide course at Älvdalens Education Center is one of a kind. The school has trained fishing guides since 1993 and several of the former students have worked as salmon guides on the Kola Peninsula, in Iceland and in Norway. Together with representatives from the salmon fishing industry, such as Vision, Fly-Dressing and Mattias Drugge, the teachers have developed a training course that spe-cializes in salmon fishing guiding. Vocational training is sup-posed to prepare the students for just such a profession and this is a perfect example of how a school system adapts to a specific industry - the sport fishing industry. The training is unique in many ways. First, the students get a complete vocational high school education and

can, if they choose to, continue with further college studies. Secondly, the course provides training in overall out-door skills to ensure a broad education. Thirdly, practical skills in fishing tech-niques are combined with a rafting li-cense and training in soft skills, such as guiding techniques, first aid and safety. Finally, enough time is spent on special skills in salmon fishing to enable the students to learn all that is required to work as a salmon fishing guide. To ensure a high standard of education, the school aims to develop a broad international cooperation with companies within the sport fishing in-dustry. Currently, two students are do-ing their internship in Scotland at River Dee. The students are guaranteed a minimum of 15 weeks internship during their three-year education. To sum it all up the Salmon fishing guide course in Älvdalen is a real screamer! alvdalen.com

FORSHAGA AKADEMIN You’d like to make a living out of this wonderful addiction called fishing? Maybe you see the world as your playing field? If you want to be a pro - you want to study Sport fishing in For-shaga. The sport fishing indus-try is slowly being taken over by young professionals who stud-ied fishing techniques, fishery management, guiding, fish bi-ology etc. at this school. Intern-ships can literally be done on all continents. Aiming for successful partnerships we cooperate with the best in the business. And for many years we have used Vision gear for all our fly fishing les-sons and field trips.forshagaakademin.se

Unique salmon fishingguide education

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systems range from tiny wallet type bags (Mini Bra) capable of having a fly box or two along with a couple of tippet spools to large full-scale chest packs (Mega Bra) and everything between those two extremes (Mycket Bra for ex-ample ). Hot and humid conditions have some special requirements of their own, and so set some constraints for the de-sign process - the result was a belt-like system to be worn around one’s waist (Love-Handles).

COMBINE HOW EVER YOU NEEDThe best part of this modular approach is its versatility; the angler can select the best module according to what is re-quired during an up-coming fishing trip. A combination of products will further improve the usability of these carry-on systems. For those of us, who still want to carry everything, a traditional fishing vest Caribou is still a key part of the 2012 season range. We just wonder, whether we should provide a tube of free anti-inflammatory cream for the inevitable muscle pain…

MORE IS LESS?By the beginning of the third millen-nium, most anglers seemed to be car-rying half of their earthly possessions while wading. All the pockets of fly fishing vests ,the concept credited to a famous American, Lee Wulff, were filled with fly boxes, tippet spools, floatants, knives, rain jackets, priests, scales and many other useful, or not so useful gadgets. Shoulder and neck pains be-came anglers’ constant companions and the time taken to pick up the right fly increased considerably. It just takes a certain amount of time to find a particu-lar mayfly spinner imitation among the 300 spinner flies hidden somewhere in the numerous fly boxes stuffed inside the almost equally numerous pockets.

MODULARITY RULESKeeping the above in mind, it shouldn’t be any surprise that during the last ten years or so, the concept of the carry-on system has changed considerably. The modular approach has also gained pop-ularity in this field, and manufacturers have answered the demand by introduc-ing a variety of carry-on systems to com-plement traditional fly fishing vests and pack packs (the Aqua day pack). These

LOVE HANDLES

AQUA DAY PACK

MYCKET BRA

MODULAR CARRY-ON SYSTEMSThe current tackle and carry-on accessories in fly fishing evolved from a mere hook, a piece of red wool and a rooster hackle - plus an additional horse hair or similar as a line/leader. Somehow, during the next 1800 years that transformed into something that could be justifiably compared to a 15 kg suit of full body armour.

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1. Hopper wading shoes, 2. Ikon waders, 3. Koma Plus reel, 4. Vector jacket, 5. Brazil hoodie, 6. Nite rod, 7. Nano silicone floatant, 8. Classic pliers, 9. Slim fit flybox, 10. Classic flybox, 11. “Jamaican-man beanie”, 12. Extreme tippet, 13. Powder float

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“Five-kilo wild brown can take 100 meters of your line almost in a blink of an eye, if he happens to have a good day.” -Mika Vainio / Vision World Team member

Photo: Mika Vainio

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GT REEL CULT ROD

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First of all, make no mistakes, wild trout have very little to do with hatchery fish. If they manage to grow up, you can be sure that they have been there and done that, twice. Based on years of guiding on the outstanding wild brown trout wa-ters of Russia’s Kola Peninsula (River Varzina), I feel pretty confident when I wade in a new river inhabited by big wild brown trout. My knowledge naturally includes all sorts of important informa-tion about insect hatches and suitable flies and techniques for those precious moments. However, if I were forced to use only one type of fly, it would be, without any question, a streamer. To put it simply, streamers are just such excit-ing and rewarding flies to fish with. As an additional bonus, they continuously produce the biggest fish there are. The problems with streamer fishing for wild trout in general are: the lack of variation in fishing techniques, the use of wrong type and wrong size flies and the lack of local knowledge, especially when it comes to baitfish and their habits. This article will try to give some assistance for solving those prob-lems.

LIFE FILLED WITH DANGERIf we decide to stick with purely imita-tion based streamer fishing (flies and techniques) then we obviously have to have some knowledge of the behaviour of our potential catch’s prey. There are numerous different freshwater baitfish species around the world. Luckily, most

of them share a fair number of aspects of common behaviour. To illustrate that similarity, the general behaviour of a migrating roach (lat. Rutilus rutilus) is presented next. This silvery fish arrives in rivers (in fast water sections) in order to spawn in late spring, males first and females soon after that. Trout usually cause the first visible signs indicating that roach have arrived. Terrified roach jump out of the water when they are ambushed by hungry trout. However, if there are no visible attacks, you can try to spot a shoal when it rests for a while in a mild current. The shoals use the protection of rocks and boulders when-ever possible. Roach are swim upstream year after year via same routes, allowing for water conditions of course. It seems that trout often know or anticipate these routes, because in many places there

are some particular rocks in the middle of a fast current where you can see lots of attacks. It seems that trout wait in just these places, ready for roach coming to rest behind those stones. The actual migration reaches its peak usually dur-ing night or low-light conditions. During bright daytime hours, shoals tend to be more passive. That results also in fewer trout attacks. When it comes to the behav-iour of resident baitfish, again we are facing numerous different species worldwide. One group of species that you will most likely expect to find in many European river types throughout the season is sculpin (lat. Cottus). Their backs are normally speckled brown and that helps the fish blend into to the rocks and debris found at the bottom. They are bottom dwellers and trust in

by Mika Vainio / Vision World Team member

A shoal of roach coming to fast water section of the river. Big trout are never very far behind...

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their camouflage to the last second. If they sense that they are no longer fool-ing a predator, they will make a fast but usually short burst upwards and then quickly drop again back to the protec-tion of the rocks. Thanks to the form of its body, sculpin can live in rather strong current areas. However, you will most likely find them in places where the cur-rents range from moderate to medium and the water is quite deep. Sculpin are more active during the darker hours of the day.

TOP PREDATORSIn this article we are first and foremost interested in the feeding behaviour of a baitfish eating trout. This behaviour varies depending on the habitat and the baitfish species in concern. To simplify matters, the hunting behaviour will be divided into two categories:

CASE 1: the target is a shoal CASE 2: the target is a single resident fish

There are many reasons why small bait-fish, such as roach, form shoals, one of the most important being safety in numbers. For a big trout a tight shoal provides a tempting target. But it is very difficult for a predator to lock on to a single prey. To solve this problem, evo-lution has developed a hunting strat-egy common to many predators facing

similar situations. Instead of going after a single target, the predator targets the whole shoal (CASE 1). It charges into the shoal, bites and slashes as much as possible before the shoal breaks up. After the attack, there are two possible ways for the predator to proceed. It can either follow a part of the shoal and con-tinue the attack until it stops to feed or it can do what some really big old brown tend to do. After the initial attack, they swim quickly downstream few meters and then turn to wait for the dead and injured baitfish to drift down to it. After that it is basically, chew and swallow, thank you. When a trout hunts for a sin-gle resident fish (CASE 2), its behaviour depends again of the behaviour of the target species. In the previous chapter, sculpin was presented as an example of a common resident baitfish. It is thus reasonable to use the same species as an example here. Even though it has been well documented that a trout has a sensory system almost perfectly adapted to its environment, I still find it very hard to believe that a trout could find and eat a sculpin when it is basically living under a rock. Therefore, it is most likely that trout will target sculpin, when they, for some reason, leave the protec-tion of the bottom and swim in an open water. To trout, a fat baitfish bursting quickly upwards from the bottom and

then dropping quickly back must be a strong attractor. In generally sculpin are mostly active during low-light condi-tions.

JUST A HANDFUL OF FLIESAfter being familiarized with the ba-sic behaviour of both the prey and the predator, the angler is facing the next challenge: what fly and what size must be used in the quest for big wild river trout. Hardly a question that can be an-swered properly in a short chapter in an article. However, by considerably simpli-fying things again, some guidelines can be given. The single most important fac-tor for selecting the right streamer type is naturally the species of the abundant baitfish, whether migratory or resident. To make the selection easier these spe-cies can be divided into a few clusters. One way to do it, is to put all silvery bait-fish (e.g., roach) into one class (CLASS I), all bottom dwellers (e.g., sculpin) with their big heads and fins into the another one (CLASS II) and then all other non-silvery streamlined baitfish (e.g., perch) into the third class (CLASS III). Besides these species related clus-ters, two additional streamer groups should be listed: streamers for low-light and night conditions (CLASS IV) and streamers for those occasions when we have no idea about the present baitfish (CLASS V).

I am myself at best only a me-diocre fly-tier and don’t like to tie com-plex, time consuming flies. I belong to the wide brotherhood of presentation-makes-all-the-difference. Being a big fan of the KISS principle (Keep It Sim-ple Stupid) as well, I have tried to reduce the number of my streamer patterns to a minimum. At the moment, most of the time I use only four streamer patterns: 1. Super-Tinsel, created by Mr. Hannu Pakarinen in early 90’s in Finland, is my choice for all silvery baitfish imitation. It is also a first-class search pattern for lo-cating trout. (CLASSES I and V) 2. Game bird Sculpin is my first choice for imitating sculpin. Don Gapen’s leg-endary Muddler Minnow will also pro-duce lots of strikes. (CLASS II)

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3. Little Perch is my number one pattern for imitating yellow perch (Perca flave-scens) but works also for imitating vari-ous members of minnow family (Family Cyprinidae). (CLASS III)4. Black Marabou Streamer will produce anywhere and anytime, but is at its best when it gets dark. Being a silhouette fly, it can be used to imitate any baitfish by altering the fishing techniques accord-ingly. (CLASS IV) These four flies, tied in various sizes (see http://visionflyfishing.com for the fly recipes), have saved my day count-less times worldwide. Some species require really big flies whereas some must be imitated with minute stream-ers and then everything between these two extremes. To make it even more dif-ficult, the average sizes of certain spe-cies vary depending on the habitat and the time of the year. If there is no visual confirmation about the correct size of the abundant baitfish, there are some parameters that you should consider, when selecting the size of your fly:

water depth (deep -> bigger fly)water clarity (stained-> bigger fly) flow speed (fast -> bigger fly) turbu-lence (heavy -> bigger fly)daylight (dark -> bigger fly)fog (thick -> bigger fly) rain (heavy -> bigger fly)

When actively using only few flies, you will learn how to make the most of them. Only then can you concentrate on the actual fishing rather than changing your fly all the time.

GEARING UPIt is always dangerous to say anything about fishing tackle. However, the use of big and sometimes heavy flies sets some basic requirements for the equipment. First of all, the line should be heavy enough to move the fly ef-fectively in the air. My streamer fishing lines are in 8-10 weight classes. If you have to cast a 20 cm long fly all day long, believe me, you need some heavy ammunition. I like full length WF float-ing line but some prefer shooting lines for the task. For high water conditions

or for really deep pools, I always carry some fast-sinking lines with me. The 300-grain Bottom express line will get you down, especially if you cast it up-stream. Another option is to use a long leader and attach some weight to it. To make proper casts with big flies you need, besides good casting skills, a powerful rod that can do the job. A good weight class for this kind of fishing is #8. When fishing for big wild trout, the reel has functions other than acting as mere line storage. Five-kilo wild brown, on a good day, can take 100 metres of your backing almost in a blink of an eye. So, you need a decent reel with a good brake system and enough room for 150 metres worth of backing. Large-arbour reels are handy, in case the fish decides to change direction and swims directly towards you. It’s not only saltwater fish that know the tricky moves, I can assure you. The last crucial piece of tackle

between you and Mr. Trout is the leader. In streamer fishing, there is no room for finesse. You are after big strong fish, which know their environment inside and out, including all the sharp rock edges and log jams. To stay in the game, you have to use a heavy tippet. The di-ameter of my normal tippet is some-where between 0.33 - 0.38 mm. The length of the leader is again a matter of taste, but I rarely use a leader longer than 9 feet. A big brown going after your magnum size streamer is not leader

shy, no matter how wild it is. I attach the fly to the leader by using a Universal Loop. An open loop will give the fly the freedom to react to the currents.

THREE MAIN PARAMETERSThe basic streamer fishing technique has its roots in traditional wet-fly fish-ing. The downstream-and-cross tech-nique will produce an odd fish also when done with a streamer. However, to perform well consistently you have to do whatever it takes to get a bite. In modern streamer fishing for big wild river trout there are no rules. However, there are three main parameters that basically define how well you will per-form.

THE ANGLEThe first parameter is the angle of your cast. While casting down-and-cross, you direct your cast and mend the line according to what is required for the

correct speed for the fly - so no news there. However, in many cases this type of streamer fishing is far from being the most productive one. Especially in wa-ters which are under heavy fishing pres-sure, an upstream approach is normally much more effective. You cast your fly above the location of a detected (or sus-pected) fish. Then, depending on what you are imitating, you either let the fly come down freely with the flow and give it some twitches every now and then, or you start taking the line in so fast, that

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the fly comes down just a little bit faster than the current. The first technique im-itates an injured baitfish and the second one a baitfish trying to escape from the predator. Both cases are very hard for a trout to resist.

THE DEPTHThe second important parameter is the depth where you are fishing your fly. Personally, I don’t like to use weight in my streamers. They are not so lively in the water and are a real annoyance to cast. Instead, I use sinking lines. One of the most productive techniques with

sinking lines is to cast the fly upstream-and-cross, then immediately make a big mend downstream, wait for a while and then start retrieving the line with strong pulls both with the rod and the line hand. The fly will sink well and while ap-proaching the trout it will make a quick turn and give the illusion of an escaping baitfish. Not a relaxing thing to do but very deadly when done properly. For short line techniques, I prefer split shots in my leader. With a long leader and big split shots you can reach even the deepest holes. Again, not an elegant way to fish but some-

times you have to do things down-and-dirty.

THE RETRIEVE The last main parameter to consider is the way that you retrieve your line. It consists of two separate issues: the actual speed of the retrieve and the combination of strips and pauses. The speed is mostly defined by the speed of the current. So, if you have cast your fly almost directly upstream and you want to imitate a fleeing baitfish, you must re-trieve the fly very fast. If you cast down-stream-and-cross with a sinking line in cold-water conditions you shouldn’t strip at all, at least not until the fly is hanging below you. Between these two extremes, the speed of the retrieve var-ies according to profile of the water and the species of baitfish to be imitated. The combination of strips and pauses is much more difficult to catego-rize. Sometimes, you have to strip with a fast constant rhythm and sometimes random stripping is the only thing that works. As a general advice, it is usually a good thing to start with a rather slow constant stripping. If that doesn’t work, you should start testing various strip-pause combinations. Certain types of water require a certain type of rhythm. There are no short cuts here. You just have to be out there enough to get the hang of it.

WHAT THE TROUT WANTS?In order to successfully optimize the above parameters, you have to know what the trout is targeting. To keep things simple, let’s stick to those two main cases mentioned in the first part of this article (Prey, predator and proper flies), i.e., the case when a trout goes after a shoal of baitfish and the case when it targets a single resident bait-fish, sculpin as an example. The case when a trout targets a shoal can be very problematic. If you happen to be at the right spot at the right moment, you can get lucky by casting your fly quickly into the area of the first attack. Luckily, the fish tends to favour a well placed artifi-cial baitfish imitation over the hundreds of real ones. Maybe it is the difference in swimming pattern (i.e., your stripping

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speed and rod movements) that attracts it to our fly. Seeing a 5-kilo fish airborne, your flashy streamer glittering in its jaws, just a moment before you strike with all that you have, is a view that lasts long in your memory. However, in many cases, you only have one shot, before the situation is over and the prey and the following predator are on their way out of your effective casting range. The only constantly productive way to solve this problem is to learn the river and the be-haviour of the fish living there. It means that if some particular current edge has been a place for multiple attacks today, it will most likely be that also tomorrow if the other conditions (i.e., the presence of the fish, the water level, etc.) stay the same. To take it even a bit further, the same goes with consecutive years. This is the information that you will acquire by fishing the same pools day after day and year after year. There is always an easy way to gain this knowledge - get a competent local guide. If the trout is targeting sculpin, there are usually no visible signs on the surface. The fisherman must estimate where the predator might be lurking. Sculpin don’t like fast currents and they prefer a rocky bottom for the sake of cover. A good way to fool a sculpin-eating trout is to use a long leader and attach some split shots to it. Flip the fly upstream, let it sink close to the bottom and then, by using the rod tip, make the fly jump up some thirty-forty centime-tres. Immediately after that let it sink back and then repeat the procedure. This will imitate the natural movement of a disturbed sculpin. Another tech-nique includes casting almost straight upstream and letting the weighted fly come down in the current head first. Again, the idea is to imitate the behav-iour of a sculpin forced to leave its safe surroundings.

TIMING IS EVERYTHINGIt is always good if you can fish a full day (24 hrs) on the same section of a river. By doing that, you will get first hand experience of the trout’s current feed-ing behaviour. However, this is normally not the case for the most of us and so, we have to decide very carefully when

to spend those precious hours that we can use for fishing. In general, it could be stated that dusk and night time are definitely the best times to fish with streamers. Most of the prey is active and that in turn will naturally activate the predators. Low light conditions will pro-vide shelter for both and you can expect to find even big trout in shallow water. If you are fishing in total darkness, the best strategy is to wade to definite good place (learn the wading routes in day-light), from where you can cover some of the hotspots. Cast constant length line and use short and heavy leaders with big strong silhouette streamers that can move the water. Even though you might find the idea of wading and fishing with your eyes basically closed stupid, it is definitely worth the effort. Night is consistently the time when the biggest browns are hooked. The mo-ment when you switch your lamp on to net the fish is unforgettable. A big wild brown opening its jaws in dark water is a sight to remember. In its habitat a big trout is the ultimate predator and bad news for the smaller fish.

THREE MINOR TACTICSAbove, some basic issues of streamer fishing techniques for wild brown trout were presented. Additionally, there are tens if not hundreds of techniques for fooling a wild brown trout on streamer.

Instead of trying to list those techniques (mission impossible) I have selected some minor techniques that I have found very useful in certain conditions and in certain environments. See vision-flyfishing.com for details.

UNTIL NEXT TIMEMost wild brown trout start feeding heavily on baitfish when they reach cer-tain size (if the habitat supports that, of course). This will guarantee that there are always plenty of good sized fish looking for baitfish for their main course. To perform constantly well with your streamers, the most important thing to remember is that it all comes down to understanding the relation-ships existing between the predator and the prey. If you have at least some kind of idea of the basic behaviour rep-ertoires of the currently most prominent baitfish species, and of the trout you are aiming for, then you are already halfway there. Although at a very general level that has been the main goal of this ar-ticle. I am hoping that the next time a big brown starts feeding on a four-inch baitfish in front of your eyes, you will know what to do and that is not to try to match the present sparse hatch of small baetis mayflies with a size 18 Parachute Adams...

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with ice cold VB beers, cracked open a few coldies, then quickly set up the tent and got our fishing gear on. We walked through the thickest bush I’ve seen in my whole life, Just a little bush-bash-ing mate, nothing major, we’ll be right!; said Fraser, our guide. There’s easy ac-cess to the river from many of the park-ing lots, but with a little effort and bush walking you might end up finding a spot unvisited by other anglers, which makes it all worth it. You should still pay atten-tion while navigating through the Aus-sie bush, since you will more than likely come across Wombat holes, venomous Spiders and poisonous Snakes, compli-cating your journey. So hands up, look down and stomp your feet! Just like the children’s song tells you to do!

The river runs as a small, turbulent al-pine stream, trickling down from the mountains through the thick Snow gum forest of Kosciuszko National Park. Downstream the river opens up through wide gorges, transforming into a large boulder sewn stream, providing more room for casting .I noticed immediately it is far easier to wade the river than ne-gotiate the thick scrub lining the banks of the river. Wading upstream, accurate pocket fishing and French nymphing would be the only techniques to suc-ceed in such fast clear water.

When we finally made it through the bush to reach the river, it felt like an enormous pocket of space. After mak-

Family vacation in Sydney? Done all the compulsory sightseeing and been to the famous beaches? A road trip to the mountains could take your holiday to the next level. Grab a rental car, your rod and book an experienced guide for your perfect weekend to the Snowy Moun-tains, only few hours drive from Sydney, on the way to Melbourne. Crisp moun-tain air, crystal clear water and eager fish. Although it’s a quiet and peaceful part of Australia, you should never un-derestimate the dangers crawling and slithering in the bush.

After a busy week at work behind me and all the fishing gear packed and ready to go, it felt unbelievably good to leave the stress behind me and drive the five hour trip to the Thredbo River in the Snowy Mountains. Hiace fully packed with food, drinks, fishing gear and three top notch fly fishermen, we drove past the concrete hole called Canberra, and then set camp on the banks of the Thredbo River, maybe the most popular river in the state. Although, the Snowy Mountains aren’t that high, our camp was located 1200 meters all the way above sea level. Whilst setting up camp, you could immediately notice the differ-ence between the crisp, clean mountain air and the moist, salty air of Sydney.The Hiace, with its fresh sweaty stench finally rolled into Ngarigo, a quiet camp site on the banks of the Thredbo River. We started to unload the van no, firstly we unloaded the electric fridge packed

ing the first cast we realized it wasn’t. Bare overhanging trees burnt by bush-fires are difficult to see against the sky, restricting your casting. Coupled with huge boulders scattered across the riv-er, accurate casts with absolute minimal false casts are a must. A short belly line that loads the rod at close range is the tool of choice to conquer these pock-ets. Also, a 10ft rod will give you a large advantage when mending your line and tracking your flies. It was essential to cast to the upstream pools from the pools below, so that we maintained our low profile for these wary fish. It is here where a 10ft rod excels. A medium to fast action rod helps punch out a dry fly-nymph combination.

by Antti Vappula / Vision World Team member

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The Thredbo River has a diverse range of insects living in it. Over the summer months Caddisflies, Stoneflies and Mayflies are all present in large num-bers. The evening rise is a dominant feature of this river, where fish rise heav-ily in the slower larger pools. During the day time the fish feed opportunistically, rising for large attractor style dry flies such as Royal Wulffs and Humpys. In the evenings, the fish become more selective. At this time, close imitations such as a Parachute Adams, and deli-cate presentations are key.The fish we targeted were 45-50cm

Rainbow and Brown Trout. They can be found holding deep in the faster water. It pays to search the water thoroughly, covering even the smallest pockets. Comb the water as you would comb your hair after a big night and you will be re-warded with an aggressive strike. Crikey what a fight they put up!

BACKGROUND. The Vibes are totally new way to choose and use a fly line. They are marked with actual head weights and lengths and we have given our suggestion in which lineweight rod they perform best. Our Vibe lines(65, 85 and 125) have a long lasting slick and supple coating which remains memory free even in cold conditions. The slickness is achieved by adding Teflon® particles to the coating and this way the slickness doesn’t wear off either. The low stretch core helps you to feel the takes and it also transfers casting energy far more efficiently than traditional cores.

The most epic fly fishing adventure in the Australian bush is only five hours from the steps of the Opera House. Make sure you grab the Crocodile Dundee lookalike guide to make your day. What are you waiting for mate?

VIBE65. New Vibe 65 fly line has only an 6.5 meter long head. The head’s weight is clearly marked in grams and grains for easy comparison and they have also suggestion for ideal rod rating. The 65 is heavier compared to AFTM standard. Therefore, for example line which is suggested for rods 4–5, performs well in stiffer and more powerful #4 weight rods or softer #5 weight rods. Vibe 65 is at its best in places with very limited casting space and performs extremely well with switch and spey style casts. It has a slick and supple coating which remains memory free even in cold conditions. The aggressive front taper turns even heavier weighted nymphs over with ease. The readymade loop makes it easy to attach the leader.

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PRISMA FLUORO TIPPETS Prisma is the vital fluorocarbon in our range. It has great knot strength and it is easy to tie, thanks to a special coating and slightly bigger stretch. It is still hard material so it gives you great turnover if you are using heavily weighted flies and be-cause of fluorocarbon’s density it sinks, making it ideal for wet fly use. Used extensively on stillwaters and competition venues.

NANO MONO TIPPETSNano Mono tippet material performs best when you need to use small flies with delicate presentation. It has superior knot strength and it is very easy to tie. It has more stretch than our other tippet materials so it acts also like a shock absorber, a great feature when using thin tippets. Because of this stretch you can even use thinner tippets than before because there are less sudden breakages. It works great in stillwater angling where side droppers are used as part of long leader rigs.

EXTREME TIPPETS Extreme has been in our range basically from the beginning and why not, it is great tippet material. Very reliable and that’s what you want. It is the ideal choice for heavier use when you want to use monofilaments because it has relatively low stretch and it is stiffer than the Nano Mono. Extreme like all other Vision tippet materials, comes in colour coded, snap to-gether & rotate spools.

TIPPETS &FLOATANTS

NANO SILICONE is a nontoxic, silicon floatant that doesn’t leave an oil slick on the water. Thermally stable it will not harden or become too thin in differing weather conditions. NANO LIQUID posses the same features as Nano Silicone, but as the name states, in more liquid form. It is an all-natural, environmentally- friendly product designed by a chemist to float dry flies and yarn strike indicators of all types and sizes. CDC was designed specially to float CdC flies although it works well on all dry flies. Non-toxic and temperature stable it is great for all weather conditions. Apply a drop to your fly before you cast and reapply as needed. All three available in new 20 ml easy to use transparent bottles equipped with small chains. No need for additional bottle holsters. Just attach them to your lanyard or to some zingers.

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After a long and harsh winter every fly fisherman longs to see a surface feed-ing trout. In the northern latitudes, the first main hatch to occur is the Febru-ary Red (Latin Taeniopteryx nebulosa). There is usually still plenty of snow on the ground when you wade into the river and for the first time for several months, you can tie a dry fly to your leader. The winter is over and a new season has started.

EXCEPTIONAL STONEFLYFebruary Red belongs to the family of stoneflies and is common throughout Europe. Unlike most of the stoneflies, the dark brown coloured (with a hint of orange underside) nymph requires for its habitat to have soft bottom with lots of debris. It favours areas with mild currents and is most active during the

night. The nymph is 10-18 mm long and it has rather long and strong legs. The male is smaller than the female.

FROM NYMPH TO ADULTWhen the nymph feels that it is time to emerge, it crawls or swims to get out of the water. The nymph requires some solid ground for the actual emerging and rocks and tree-trunks are among their favourite places. The date of the actual mass emerging depends on many parameters, among which is defi-nitely the weather history during the growth phase of the nymph. The warm-er early spring has been, the earlier the hatch will occur. The geographical loca-tion of the river also affects the date of the hatch. Generally speaking around each 100 kilometres north in a south-north direction equals one week later in

the beginning of the hatch. In Finland the first hatch in the south will occur around March 10th and the last hatches up north will take place as late as in ear-ly May. The actual time of the hatch var-ies also considerably. Sometimes, you can have a good hatch during an early morning snowstorm and sometimes the main hatch happens when it starts to get dark. Normally, though, the best condi-tions for a proper hatch occur during af-ternoon hours on a sunny and warm day.

SKATING FLIESThe colour of the just emerged adult is orange and the wings have a light cream colour. From the fly fisherman’s point of view, this is the most important phase. When the insects are drying their wings, they commonly end up blown on the water by the gusty winds. Until the

by the Vision staff

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wings are fully dried the insects are in the mercy of the currents. If they sur-vive this dangerous phase of life (not drowned or eaten by a fish), they will start to use their wings to skate/fly on the surface towards the shore or a rock. For a successful imitation, the fisher-man has to make his fly to move in the same direction as the naturals are mov-ing. This is usually based on the direc-tion of the prevailing winds. Any normal proper coloured skater will do the trick.

WHERE TO FIND FISH?The best piece of water for the February Red fishing during the hatch is normally where the fast water flows into a large pool or a lake. There you can find the highest concentration of insects, which are coming through the fast water sec-tion. The fish will be there, on both sides of the fast current. You will find some fish on the lower section, where the cur-rent dies out. These fish specialize in eating crippled or dead insects that are transported there by the currents. The other excellent areas to fish during the hatch are the neck parts, which are the areas just before the rapids start. If the

river starts from a lake, that area can be excellent. If there is still some ice on the lake, the edge of the ice cover is normal-ly very productive if you can reach it. The nymphs will swim up to the underside of the ice and then crawl to the edge to emerge. After emerging, some of the newly emerged insects will end on the water and directly into the mouths of hungry trout patrolling near the edge of the ice.

COLOR CHANGERThe lucky ones that manage to get off the water will climb up to some trees and bushes. Their wings will dry com-pletely and the colour will change grad-ually and the body colour of the adult will be very dark, almost black, and the colour of the wings is light grey. The male calls for females by using its rear end as a drumstick against some solid surface. Shortly after mating the males will die. The females will live longer and their egg-laying flight can be a very important event for the fishermen. Sometimes, hundreds or thousands of females will start their final flight at al-most the same moment, and if the pre-

vailing winds are coming from the right direction, the fishermen can expect to have excellent fishing when the females land on the river.

LOOK FOR THE RISESThe early season stonefly fishing is tra-ditionally fishing for a surface feeding fish. The problem with the early sea-son fishing is the unpredictable spring weather. It can be sunny and warm and then a snow blizzard starts at the next moment. So, if you see an active surface feeding fish, act quickly. Get to the cast-ing position, run if you have to, and try to get your fly onto the feeding line of the fish. Sometimes, you have to find out the rhythm of the fish and offer your fly when the fish is coming to take the next insect from the surface. Be patient, oc-casionally you have to cast several times before the fish will react to your fly. Ba-sically, all you need is one low riding or-ange coloured dry fly, which represents the newly emerged stonefly. One of the best is definitely Potemkin, developed by Mr. Matti Huitila (see the instructions from www.visionflyfishing.com). It has been extremely productive during the

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last decade. Sometimes, regardless of the fact that you have the right fly and the right fishing technique, the active fish will not take your fly. It will keep on eating real insects but ignore everything artificial that is offered to it. This is fly fishing at its best.

BACK-UP STRATEGIESIf the weather conditions are really ar-tic and there are no active fish feeding from the surface, you will need some back-up strategies. There are always

plenty of nymphs moving around before they start to emerge and fish are feed-ing on them. So, some dark nymphs fished slowly close to the bottom will take the odd fish from here and there. Sometimes, there are active fish feed-ing on the surface even though there are no stoneflies emerging. In those situations, the fish are most probably feeding on small two-winged flies, i.e. midges. Always carry a bunch of Grif-fith’s Gnat dry flies in sizes #16 - #24 for adult midges and some Goddard’s Suspender Midge Pupas (black, olive, red) in the same sizes. If both nymphs and midges fail, you can always change your line into a sinking one and attach a large streamer to your tippet. With that package, you can go and pounce on the deep runs below the rapids. The big fish will be there waiting for the start of the stonefly hatch. Not the method you would like to apply when you are fishing for the season’s first major hatch, but sometimes you don’t have an option.

THE BEGINNINGWhen you see the first real rise after the long winter months, your heart will be filled with joy. It is a promise of a new season. The February Red Stone-fly hatch can be one of the best local hatches of the whole season. The size of the insect is big enough and the num-ber of individuals can be high enough to activate even the biggest predators in the river, if the weather conditions are favourable. And if you are lucky, every now and then you will hit the water at the right moment and you are in for a real treat. Big fish with dry flies and the whole season ahead. It just can’t get better than this.

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Russia’s Kola Peninsula is widely known for its world-class Atlantic salmon fish-ing. It is not so well-known that it can also provide some of the world’s best brown trout fishing. For example the riv-er Varzina hosts a healthy stock of mon-ster size browns that are eager to take a well-presented streamer or a mouse pattern. These browns are among the biggest in the world and there are plen-ty of them. Altogether 4 of us at Vision HQ have worked as fly fishing guides on River Varzina, so we feel that it deserves a short story. After all, it is one of our home waters.

LOCATIONSituated on the northern coast of the

Europe’s last true wilderness, the Rus-sian Kola Peninsula, the river Varzina starts from the huge Enozero lake. Even though the river itself has a good number of resident fish, the big fish coming from the lake, are the ones that create the quality fishing. They migrate from the lake down the river in order to feed and find spawning grounds. The spawning takes place in late autumn, but the fish start their journey during the late summer months. Being the big-gest and the meanest of them all, these fish are aggressive and eager to defend their position in the pool. Sometimes you might have two or three big fish chasing your fly at the same time, com-peting for which one will have the first

bite. If that is not nerve breaking, then nothing is. They are at the peak of their fitness and the runs and jumps can be unbelievable. Fish close to one metre long are seen on a regular basis, but landing one of those brutes is a tough job for anybody. They have no rules and they know all the tricks of the trade. But hooking of one those larger-than-life-sized browns is definitely an experience of a lifetime.

TACKLEThe Varzina is not a very big river. How-ever, there are some pools that are quite wide and it is always good if you can cast your fly line out easily. Sometimes there is a strong wind blowing straight from

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the Arctic Sea and then the casting can be quite difficult. That’s the main rea-son, aside from the fact that the brown trout are big, why so many anglers there use modern fast action graphite rods in AFTM class 7 or 8. An additional reason for using these heavy rods is the fact that there are usually some Atlantic salmon in the same pools - and it is very difficult to land a 10 kg salmon with a class 5 rod in fast water. The reels used in Varzina usually have good disk drag and a large capacity backing line. There have been occasions when a 70 cm (~5 kg) brown trout has taken more than 100 metres of line while running downstream. The fly lines that are used are mostly float-ing lines but it is always good to have at least one fast sinking line or sink-tip for exploring the deeper holes of the pools. The most critical element of the tackle, however, is the leader. In many places in the world you can easily use a 0.25 mm tippet for big browns, but in Varzina there is no reason to go under 0.30 mm when fishing with streamers. The rea-son is not that these browns are super strong, even though in many cases they seem to be, but the fact that there are numerous stones and cliffs with almost razor sharp edges. It seems that the big-ger the fish get, the better it knows how to cut the leader in half. If you are using 0.35 mm, you’ll have at least a slight chance of landing an old and wild, giant brownie.

FLIES AND TECHNIQUESThe list of the best brown trout flies in Varzina varies a little year by year, but some flies are always among the best producing ones. These include Black Marabou Muddler (streamer), Super-Tinsel (big flashy streamer), Goddard Caddis (adult caddis), Elk Hair Cad-dis (adult caddis), Parachute Adams (mayfly), Montana Nymph (stonefly), Rhyachopila (a caddis specie) pupa imitations and various mouse/lemming imitations. More important than the fly itself is the right fishing technique. Especially, when fishing with a caddis pupa, the presentation, i.e., the cast and the direction, the speed and the pauses of the movement has to be perfect be-fore the fish start to bite. Also, mouse imitations produce best when the natu-ral arc of a swimming mouse is imitated. Some of the biggest browns are particu-larly attracted to very large and bulky lemming/mouse imitations. The scenes from the movie Jaws come easily to your mind when you see monster size brown coming after your mice pattern. When fishing with a large streamer, you have to vary your casting angle and stripping methods according to the conditions of that particular place. Generally speak-ing, it is a very good technique to cast your streamer slightly up and across the main channel and let it come freely downstream. Add some twitching from time to time with your rod tip, and you

can be sure that somebody will be try-ing to eat your fly before it swings back to your side of the river. The basic rule of trout fishing, also in Varzina, is that the bigger the fish the better the place it will inhabit. The rank of a place is based on few main parameters: shel-ter, food and current. Normally, a very large fish needs to have a fair amount of water above its head, especially dur-ing the daytime. That is the reason why the main channel of the river is the best bet, when looking for the big fish. Sometimes, even the biggest fish will move into shallow water, and the reason is normally a high concentration of food items. Usually, it the mass emergence of some caddis species, that will lure the big ones from their shelters. How-ever, there have been occasions, when a good mayfly hatch has started their surface feeding behaviour. The third pa-rameter, the current, is related to trout’s in-built need to optimize the use of en-ergy. A healthy fish will not move with-out a reason and it will always try to find a location where it can stay with as little energy use as possible. When you con-sider these three parameters, you can quite easily spot the best places where you can find the biggest fish. After that it is just question of selecting the best fly for the occasion and getting it to the fish.

THE BEST OF THE BESTThere might be a couple of Atlantic salmon rivers that are as good as the Varzina but there is hardly any other river in the whole world that can provide this kind of fishing for huge wild brown trout. These are fish that have been there for a long time and which don’t seem to know, that a brown shouldn’t do greyhounding i.e., being more airborne than not, just like a 100 pound tarpon in the Florida Keys. That is really addic-tive stuff if anything. Varzina is a place where you have to use all of your skills to fool the biggest browns. It may also take some extra effort in a form of long walks, but the rewards are well worth it. Don’t take our word on it - try it yourself.

Contact: varzina.com

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OPAS JACKETThis technical jacket is made with the best materials and components available. It features Riri’s highly wa-ter resistant Aqua Zip® main zipper and YKK’s AquaGuard® zippers on pockets - available in dark brown or in white. The cut is a bit longer and a slimmer fit type with strongly curved sleeves. 6 pockets, including a big cargo pocket on the back, give you a lot of space for your boxes and acces-sories. The fleece lined high collar protects your neck from nasty winds even when the hood is down or rolled inside the collar. Available in king siz-es too for those who want a bit more freedom for their belly!

zippers horizontally so you can still wade very deep without filling these pockets. Opas waders are made us-ing our latest Japanese made F4 - fabric improved seam technology and tens of years of wader making know -how. Their lower part is made from strong and abrasion resistant 5-layer fabric whereas the upper part has fully breathable 4-layer fabric and the ratio of the usage of 4- and 5-layer fabrics has been conceived with the best breathability in mind. The built-in high density neoprene support belt gives you extra comfort on long fishing days. These waders have also all the other well thought out features like a curved NoSeam cut, matching colour belt and braces, D loops, built-in gravel guards, dry-ing loops, etc…

OPAS WADERSDo you like to wade deep? Do you find yourself floating down the river, with pockets full of water, wet mobile phones and car keys every now and then? Well we can’t help you with your habits but at least we can offer you a wader with a totally, fully and really waterproof pocket. The Opas wader’s main pocket is welded stitchlessly in-side the wader and the entrance zip-per is a white YKK’s fully waterproof zipper. A feature which you can’t find from other waders, yet. This pocket is big enough for your important items and even fly boxes. On the surface we have two additional, roomy and water resistant pockets. These pockets also have a waterproof, welded construc-tion but their zippers are the YKK’s water resistant AquaGuards®. With deep wading in mind we placed these

Opas (guide or ghillie in English) is our top-of-the-line product family. Desinged for harsh conditions and heavy usage.

OPAS FAMILY

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It is a known fact that grayling are om-nivorous and they can sometimes eat nearly everything they can catch. Small fish are also a part of grayling nourish-ment and that’s why mini streamers work especially well when fishing gray-ling and especially when fishing them in autumn.

HARSH CONDITIONSFinnish and Nordic lakes near the Arctic Circle are frozen from the surface for six months beginning in autumn. The water in rivers and lakes begins to cool down in September and grayling fly fishing can be continued usually to the end of November depending on geographi-cal locations and the weather condi-tions that change yearly. Near the Arctic Ocean, Northern Norway, the fishing season ends usually in the beginning of October. Over the years it has been no-ticed that the best time for fishing gray-ling is when the water temperature is below ten degrees Celsius. At that time grayling begin eating more actively and prepare for the long winter ahead. Gray-ling are well fed and fight harder at the end of the fishing season.

AUTUMN BEHAVIORSAs the water get colder grayling change their location in the river. The way the habitat is formed affects very much the behaviour of grayling. If there are a lot

of lakes in a river and between them there are only small rapids then most of the grayling are mostly in the lakes and only seldom come to the falls to eat. If the river is formed of tens of kilometres of flowing water the grayling tend to be located in the fastest flowing parts of the river. Grayling change their location in the river if their habitat, specifically the currents and the temperature in the stream change. The height of the water is the most important property when trying to catch grayling in the autumn. When the water is low the fish are clearly located in the main part of the current. During autumn floods, even outside the active period, grayling are located near the river banks, even in water as low as a half a metre. When the water cools down grayling can be increasingly found near the rapids of rivers. Absolutely the best place is the lower part of a rapids section where the current gradually slows down. As the autumn continues the grayling seek waters with lower currents. Finally they move to deep waters for the winter. It has also been noticed in October that there are also grayling some stronger currents. This might be due to the fact that grayling migrate or follow young fish.

GRAYLING IS A TRUE PREDATORGrayling eat small fish as well as in-sects. The well-known, Polish, grayling

fly fisherman, Stanislaw Cios, has noted this in his research into fish feeding habits. Cios has travelled extensively in Finnish grayling fishing places. Small (young) fish are found from the stom-achs of grayling all year round but re-cently it has been noted that grayling favour these fish particularly in autumn. Grayling eat small sculpins, minnows, perches and roaches. This is logical be-cause this way the grayling gets energy much more efficiently than by catching small insects from the surface of the cooling waters. This has been noted many times since grayling with stom-achs full of young minnows have been found weighing as much as a half kilo-gram while being only 35 centimetres in length. While fishing at the river Pitein Sweden we found out one 44 centime-tre grayling that had two six centime-tre undigested sculpins in its stomach. Stanislaw Cios has even found a young pike from the stomach of a grayling. So, even the bigger streamers work well with grayling.

MODELS OF MINI STREAMERSMini streamers are usually tied to hook size 8-12. The fly model decides which hook model can be used - long or short wire. Traditional hook models with a strong wire are common. The main idea with mini streamers’ fly patterns is that we try to imitate small (young) fish with very simple patterns. Sometimes pro-

by Mikko Halonen

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vocatively coloured models are much more effective than exact imitations. A very important thing is also the shape and liveliness of patterns. This must be kept in mind when you are tying and thinking about which materials to use. Materials make your fly come to life. Along with the naturally col-oured mini streamers, different kinds of blue, red, orange, purple, white, black and brown tones work as well. It has been noted that the colours that fish like best change nearly yearly. Later in the autumn darker colours work better. Often it is good to have a clear strike point on the body or on the wing of the fly. Some glimmer can also be added to the wings. Also the clarity of the waters affect the colour tone of the flies. The ties can be weighted but it is better to use external lead weights with these flies. Weighting the ties weakens the lively character of the flies.

ABOUT THE FISHING TECHNIQUEWhen fishing with mini streamers it is always better to use two or three flies at a time. By using different colour combi-nations one can easily bracket the best colour for the situation. It is recom-mended to change fishing techniques when using mini streamers because

grayling seem to change their eating habits in the autumn when the days become shorter. A floating or interme-diate line at the most is sufficient. It is important to have the streamer clearly under the surface. If the grayling are not found in the intermediate waters one should start bracketing the different depths of water by adding weight to the fly. The grayling eat from the bottom of the stream at times so then the fly must be delivered there with the help of ad-ditional weight. Repetition increases ef-fectiveness so when you find good plac-es for fishing you should take advantage of them. Where you can find one gray-ling you can definitely find more.The fishing location affects the choice of fishing technique. The traditional wet fly technique (dead-drift) where the fly is cast diagonally downstream and is carried by the stream works when fish-ing intermediate waters. When the fly is carried freely in the stream it is possible to make small lifts, just when the fly comes to the edge of the current. The hand twist technique is worth trying and the rod can be slightly nodded multiple times in addition. On the other hand the classic nymph fishing technique where the fly is cast upstream and is ei-ther controlled of carried freely by the

stream can be used. The rolling nymph technique is one of the most effective when using mini streamers and fish-ing the edges of the stream. Diagonal movement of flies works well upstream. When fishing the calm lower part of rapid, an effective method is to let the fly be still when floating downstream quickly, and then make small move-ments near the surface when the fly is right on a slow flowing location such as by a boulder. The small vibration from the fly sometimes activates the grayling to strike. Later in the autumn the flies’ movements have to be calmer.

TRY THEMNo exact directions can be given for the best fishing times of the day. In Septem-ber the best times for fishing are one to two hours before complete darkness. The afternoon can also prove produc-tive. In October grayling are very active around sunrise. Later in the year the ac-tive time is nearer the middle of the day. So the shorter the day gets the earlier you should go fishing. Wherever and whenever you have grayling in Europe a streamer can and should be tried.

See pro-flyfishing.fi

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River Teno’s Mini StreamerHook: 10-12, Kamasan B175Rib: fine copper oval Body: 1/4 fiery claret SLF (#13) and 3/4 black wool dubbedWing: brown-black Arctic Fox tail, 4 fibre of Pearl FlashabouHead: dark grey Arctic Fox Tail fur dubbed and brushed

River Konkamaeno’s Mini StreamerHook: 10-14, Kamasan B175Body: black woolWing: brown-black Arctic Fox tail, 4 fibre of Peacock Crystal HairThroat Hackle: few fibers turquoise blue cock hackleHead: dark grey Arctic Fox Tail fur dubbed and brushed

Mantissa BleakHook: 8, TMC 9395Tail: light brown bear fur / squirrelUnder body: woolBody: flat silver mylar tubingWing: black marabouSides: fiery claret (#13) SLF dubbingThroat Hackle: white squirrel fur or Arc-tic Fox furHead: grey squirrel fur dubbed (fur chenille dubbing loop method) and brushed

By Mikko Halonen

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3.

HOPPER SHOES

VECTOR JACKETPOWER HOODIE

NITE REELMAG ROD

ATTACK FLY LINE

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1. Mako wading shoes, 2. Kura waders, 3. Kura wading jacket, 4. Gt four rod, 5. Cdc reel, 6. Vibe 125 flyline, 7. Micro Hoodie, 8. Mega Bra, 9. Nano mono tippet, 10. Vision trout net (brown chassis and black net), 11.“Grey beanie”.

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“I fished the Tweed, Spey, Tummel and Dee. You name them, I blanked on them.“ -Jim Fearn / Vision World Team member

CHAPTER

Photo: Pasi Visakivi

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by Antti Guttorm / Vison World Team member

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You can argue that different kind of wa-terborn casts are the most important casts with two handed rods without a de-bate. You could even argue that you do not have much use for an over head cast after you have learned different kind of spey casts well. I do not agree with the latter, although it has some truth to it.

EASY AND EFFECTIVETwo handed rod is a powerful tool and it gives you a lot of extra distance com-pared to single hand rod. But more im-portantly it makes casting and fishing easier and you do not have to use as much effort for the average distance as you would with a single hand rod. Swing fishing is the most popular way to fish for Atlantic salmon and this style of fishing is really where two handed rods thrive. You can especially notice the ease of using two hands in tight places where you might have trees or other ob-structions behind you. This is where you need spey casting.

WATERBORNE CASTSIf you are not familiar with this style of casting let me break it down in few words before I go in to different styles of spey casting. Speycasting was origi-nated in Scotland’s Spey river where it was used for salmon fishing in places where you could not use a conventional over head cast. Basically the difference with over head cast and spey cast is in the back cast. In spey casting you an-chor your back cast to the water (or in the water as you will later find out) be-fore your forward cast, instead of letting it unroll fully in the air behind you like you do in an over head cast. This means you do not have nearly as much line be-hind you to make the forward cast. Actu-ally you can do the cast almost without any space for the back cast.

SPEY RULESThe most famous spey casts are the Sin-gle Spey and the Double Spey. The sin-gle spey is what we call a touch and go cast and the double spey is a sustained anchor cast. All spey casts can be divid-ed in these two types of casts. In a touch and go cast you anchor your fly line to the water. This means you only let your

fly line and/or leader anchor briefly to the water during the backcast and you make your forward cast as soon as the line touches the water. In a sustained anchor cast you first position your line to the water and then you anchor your line in the water. This is a slower cast because first you position the line to the water, like you do in a double spey, and you really start the backcast after the positioning. For a better description and more details I would need the whole article for it. But the objective with this article is to explain the different styles of spey casting. So for more informa-tion about the principles of spey cast-ing I suggest you contact a fly casting instructor or some one who is famil-iar with the subject. He might also be found from your local club. There are three basic styles of spey casting. Traditional Spey Casting, Scandinavian Spey Casting/Underhand Casting and Skagit Casting. Although there are subtle differences with cast-ing techniques itself the real differ-ences between the styles comes in the equipment that you use. The fly line especially is the difference maker and the head lenght and weight of the line being the most important factors. Here are the definitions of the three styles:

TRADITIONAL SPEY CASTINGIn traditional spey casting the head lenght of the fly line is normally over 20 metres. The density of the lines are everything from floating to sinking al-though I would not recommend sink-

ing full spey lines to other than experts who know what they want from a sinking line and have browsed through the op-tions. Both types of spey casts are used the touch and go and sustained anchor. You could say that this style is closest to original spey casting what ever that may mean. With this I am referring to the evolution of spey casting. Although we nowadays call this style traditional spey casting it is quite different from the style used in the early days of spey casting just because of all the new equipment we have let alone the development in the casting technique. The rods and especially the lines have developed so much that handling a long line is easier than ever before. The long line gives a good caster the most distance of all the styles and good control during the swing.

SCANDINAVIAN SPEY / UNDERHAND CASTING

In Scandinavian spey casting the fly line is a shooting head with a separate running line attached with a loop to loop connection to the head. The head lenght is normally between 10 - 13,5 metres. In the original underhand cast-ing originated by Göran Andersson only the leader or a polyleader with a tippet anchors to the water. This is why Anders-son favours very long leaders even 20 feet long. Only touch and go casts are used. The cast is made with dominate lower hand with the upper hand serv-ing mostly as a pivot point. Many scan-dinavians use some kind of modifica-tion of the pure Andersson underhand

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cast,in regard to the technique and also gear, that is why this style is nowadays referred more as Scandinavian Spey Casting. In the modern Scandinavian spey casting both touch and go and sustained anchor casts are used. Every-thing from floating to sinking lines can be used. Sinking lines are very popular in scandinavia for atlantic salmon fish-ing and this style is very good for using them because you only have to manage the short sinking shooting head. And it is also easy to change from density to another by only changing the head. This style is also good for very tight places and if you want to add speed to your fly by stripping the line. Once you have ended your swing with stripping the line your shooting head might be inside your rod guides from where it is far easier and faster to cast out than a longer line.

SKAGIT CASTINGSkagit line is basically a heavy multi tip shooting head. You can change the den-sity and lenght of the tip with a loop to loop connection. Many fishermen using this style make their own tips for exam-ple from T14 or other similar sinking lines. These are now available factory made. The classic guideline for the head length with the tip is 3 - 3,5 times the rods lenght. So for a 13 feet rod the head lenght would be 39’ – 45’ which is 11,9 – 13,9 metres. The trend nowa-days tends to be shorter heads than the classic guideline with the floating head being around 7-9 metres long. The sk-agit head is far heavier than the usual scandi head. This is because the steel-head fishers of the Pacific Northwest of North America who originated this style wanted to use lighter two handed rods to cast sink tips and large heavy flies. With a heavy short line this was possible by using sustained anchor casts like the snap T, Double Spey, Perry Poke etc. It is also very good for tight places.

SUMMARYThere are some of the differences. The styles are evolving all the time and also mixing. It is starting to be a fine line be-tween the styles.

For example who is to say what is the difference between a skagit line and a heavy scandi head with tips or a long scandi head and a short belly spey line? For a beginner I would recom-mend a shooting head (scandi or skagit style) or a short belly spey line with the head lenght being approximately 13,5 - 16,5 metres. It is also much easier to start with a floating line before moving to sinking lines. Remember that two handed rods are not only for big rivers and salm-on fishing. There are a lot of lightweight two handed rods in the market that are suitable for example trout and grayling fishing and some use two handed rods also for pike and surf fishing. In the last couple of years switch rods have also gained popularity a lot and for a reason. They are good compromise between single and two hand rods. For me the most important reason for us-ing a switch rod is that you can have the ease of casting with two hands and the lightness of handling a ”single hand” rod. This comes handy in rivers that do not have room for an over head cast and where you have to actively retrieve your fly. Now go out and try out what is your style. You might find that you like to use them all but for different situa-tions.

PROFILEAntti is the first certified fly casting instructor in Finland. Antti is qualified Two Hand-ed Casting Instructor (THCI) and Master Casting Instructor by Federation of Fly Fishers (F.F.F.). Known for his smooth casting stroke especially with the two handed rod. Antti holds his popular casting clinics and fishing courses in Finland and also more and more abroad. He has guiding experience from Kola Peninsula and his home river Teno (Tana in Nor-wegian). His favourite quarry is Atlantic salmon but he has experience on many type of fishing from pike to saltwater fly fishing. Antti works for Vi-sion Fly Fishing and is a part of their world team.

ANTTI GUTTORM

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CULT DHThe Cult is our softest DH rod. But don’t let that fool you, it has power enough to tame the gnarliest flies and strongest fish. It comes in weight classes #6 – 12. The lightest weights are perfect for small to medium salmon, sea trout and steelhead rivers. This year we added the big guns for fighting the elements, for example on Tana’s Storfossen (Alaköngäs in Finnish). These rods will suit just about anyone because of their forgiving nature. They will feel as comfortable with spey lines as with shooting heads. This is our go-to Skagit rod series. Light and easy is the description most anglers will give after they’ve joined the Cult.

- Our softest DH series- Light, easy and forgiving- Spey, scandi or skagit – will do it all

GTFOUR CATAPULTThe GTfour Catapult is for guys with big balls. Our strong-est, fastest, heavy duty, hard core DH rod. Match it with our Ace shooting head and you’ll have the Ferrari of fly fishing. It comes in weight classes #7- 11. The lightest is more of a switch rod with the three big brothers being the genuine thing. It’s the favourite of many Scandinavian salmon fishermen with shooting heads, but it has gained a strong following on the Scottish salmon rivers as well. Because of their fast action they are as great for overhead casting as they are for different spey casts. So if you are looking for a traditional fast Scandinavian rod, or a not so traditional fast rod for spey lines, look no further.

- Fastest of our range- Strong, powerful, HD, HC- Will excel with Scandinavian type shooting heads- Looking for a fast spey or skagit rod – look no further

vs. Cult DH

GTfout Catapult

We try to offer our clients a range of double handed fly rods that will cover the needs of everyone, whether you are fish-ing the mighty Tana river in northern Finland/Norway or a small steelhead river in BC. This means we need to offer a wide range of rods with different actions. Here is a comparison of our most mellow and fastest rod, Cult vs. the GTfour Catapult. We have two other DH rod series which have an action that lands between those two, the Nite Catapult and the Siks.

CULTDH

GTFOUR

Cult DH

GTfour Catapult

VS.

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In late 1800, Finland was a dream des-tination for wealthy international game anglers. Salmon rivers were abundant and several of country’s numerous trout rivers were absolutely out-of-this-world. In that atmosphere it was no wonder that a new branch of industry, created around fishing tackle, was born in Fin-land. The Finnish pioneer of this emerg-ing industry was Mr. Herman Renfors, who started his business in 1870 and received several prices and nominations internationally for his ground-breaking fishing tackle. The business grew rap-idly and in 1910 Renfors factory was equal in size to famous the James Hed-don (USA) range, producing rods, reels, lines, spinners, flies, fishing literature and many other related items. Being very much a family business, Herman Renfors’s sister Maria went to England in 1876 to study fly tying skills and is considered to be the founder of the Finnish professional fly tying, especial-ly when traditional full-winged salmon flies are considered. Many products made by the Renfors family have been passed on from one generation to another and can be found in various antique auctions quite frequently. It is not unheard of in some parts of Finland that you might still see one of their early reels attached to a modern salmon rod. That excep-tional operational reliability combined with the elegance of these no-nonsense reels inspired us to design a new reel se-ries, aptly named as Renfors. The nos-talgia issues, regardless how important they might be for some of us, have not been the only motivation why we decid-ed to introduce a new reel series with a traditional approach. Highly popular large-arbour reels have many excellent features as we all know. However, there is one ma-

jor negative feature related to the line capacity. These reels have a shallow spool which means that in order to get enough line on the reel (sometimes necessary when targeting large and strong fish species) the outer diame-ters of the reels will increase to a level, where they start to resemble old cen-tre-pin reels. In fly fishing, where cast-ing is normally required frequently, the momentum caused by a large diameter reel can feel annoying to say the least. One way around this problem is to take a step back in history and abandon the concept of large arbour reel and use the capacity of a deep arbour spool to the maximum. By increasing the volume of the spool you can have a lot of backing in a reasonably sized reel. The Renfors reel is just as at home with an old cane rod as it is with a top-of-the-line modern carbon rod. Its antique grey matt finish together with a

large number of ever increasing holes towards the outer rim will give it a clas-sical outlook. When you pull the line out of the reel, the loud clicking sound will bring back lots of memories at least for the older anglers. Memories of that big fish, which after the initial run, held silently in the depths of the pool and which gave no warning other than few subtle clicks from the reel before the long loud crescendo indicated that the fish was running for its life towards the rocky rapids looming somewhere be-hind the turn of the river. But do not let the outlook or the sound of this reel fool you. Inside it is a first-class brake pack-age well capable of stopping that run-ning fish in due time. This reel has truly a winning combination of old-age looks and modern technology. Salmon, sea-trout and steelhead around the world, beware, Vision Renfors reels have ar-rived.

RENFORSHeritage on steroids

Line # Diameter Volume Capacity7-9 96 mm 134 cm3 Slide Spey 8-9 + 183 m 30 lb Dacron9-11 108 mm 194 cm3 Slide Spey 11-12 + 183 m 30 lb Dacron

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I don’t think many salmon fishers would argue the point that the springer is the greatest of prizes in salmon fishing. I have often thought how a salmon is the most remarkable and best looking fish that is impossible to improve on, with remarkable colouration, sharp in shape and this is most certainly the case when they are in the prime of condition in the spring. Link this to big powerful rivers and cold clear water, this offers some of the most exciting conditions we are like-ly to fish. It’s not hard to see why rivers like the Dee are a hive of salmon fisher activity in the opening months. For as long as I can remember I’ve been fasci-nated by pictures of past generations, of springers fresh from the sea lying in the snow. Is there a better sight in fishing? It was pictures such as these that started the fire for me in my salmon fishing ca-reer.

For the many charms of spring fishing, the stakes are high. There is plenty to put the fisher off at this time of year as, to state the obvious, February and the first half of March is actually winter. This can feel especially so in Northern Scotland. The cold northerly winds ripping their way through the river, with hail thrown in for good measure, can soon become something that one didn’t really have in mind. Standing in icy water trying to stop yourself from violently shivering is obviously a bad start, not conducive to the necessary mind set that’s needed to continue to fish hard. This mind set being one of the key points in trying to catch spring fish.

It turns out fishers of old, and I mean way before waders and catch and re-lease were conceived of, would pretty much wet wade (no waders) in early spring, only retiring to the bank if part of their anatomy turned a light shade of

blue. Clearly made of sterner stuff than I, and clearly fishing for the kill. Thank-fully these days, the perseverance that’s needed to keep the fly in the water doesn’t also involve the pain and hypo-thermia. The point being failure to ad-equately prepare for the worst weather in terms of clothing is going to cost at least a couple of fish over time.

All this is obvious enough, and comes with the territory you might say. What can be difficult is the hit and miss af-fair it can be at this time of year. I have known salmon fishers better than me lose their heads over this one. I’ve heard them swear that for them, they’ve done with springers. There’s just too much luck required, preferring to save their enthusiasm until more prolific times of the year. I don’t need to look too far back in my own diary to be reminded of

a blank spring period. As an even cruel-ler twist I probably fished more in the spring of 2007 than any other. I fished the Tweed, Spey, Tummel and Dee. You name them, I blanked on them. That year, by the time of my first fish (July) my confidence was close to breaking point. I kind of dig how salmon fishing can do that to me.

I have seen how complete beginners have taken the only fish of the day at this time of year. A respected ghillie/ cast-ing instructor has told me on more than a few occasions about times that he has had brand new fishers on the beat, armed with only a shaky overhead cast, nail the only fish of the day when some highly experienced rods were fishless. It was once pointed out to me that when the fish are scarce they can fall to any-body. Only when they are about in num-bers will the experienced fishers shine through. Comforting words for the

blank spring of 7, but does this mean then that its all down to luck and perse-verance to succeed in the spring? They play their part, for sure, but we need more.

Other factors for consideration are fly-casting and equipment. One thing with the early part of the season is that it gives our casting skills a real challenge; more than at any other time of the sea-son save for late autumn. I have heard it said often enough that one doesn’t nec-essarily have to be a good caster in order to be a good fisher, but where the spring on big rivers is concerned, I have seen little evidence to support this theory.

A few years ago on one blustery spring morning on the Tweed, I was fortu-nate enough to take three springers in a morning, from pools that had been

fished already by another angler, The angler in question was a good all-round-er in course fishing, sea fishing and had also had nailed his fair share of salmon on spinners it turned out. His casting though was weak and his equipment I later found out was far from suitable. The conditions were beating him and he appeared to be casting no more than fifteen yards. For the record, I’m no dis-tance caster and didn’t need to be as it was only twenty five to thirty yards I was putting out. We have all had our pockets picked so to speak and others will always catch fish behind us. Some-times we think we know the answers and can explain why it happened and other times we are at a loss. In this case I be-lieve the reason was obvious. There was no magic on my part; the fish were hav-ing it, each one as I remember smashing the fly. Any salmon fly fisher worth his salt would have caught them. I remem-ber feeling sorry for this guy driving

by James “Jim” Fern

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home with a blank under his belt, when things could have so easily been differ-ent. The spheres had lined up, but bru-tally he wasn’t in a position to capitalise on the luck in front of him. Poor casting techniques coupled with sub-standard gear stood in his way. You might expect that when travelling great distances most people would cover these angles, but many ghillies have confirmed to me that these two factors alone continue to trip many fishers up.

I’ll finish with a brief story that will hopefully illustrate how vital it can be to arm yourself with what I believe are the bare essentials for spring fishing. Cast-ing ability, equipment, perseverance and an element of luck. I go back to what I refer to as the grue trip of 2008. Prior to this I had never experienced grue, other than on old salmon fishing videos from the 80’s and in books. For those that don’t know, grue is ice parti-cles forming on the surface of the river giving the impression of mini icebergs coming downstream. We arrived at the beat after overnight temperatures had

gone down to somewhere around -15. Not surprisingly, we were the only fish-ers to turn out and it was forecast to be more of the same for the next day. It was worth a good recce before we de-cided to call it off. The biggest problem with grue is that once the cast has been made, your fly is often sat on a patch of ice, exposed to the air rather than swimming seductively through the lies. Even if your fly doesn’t land on ice, the chances are your line will instead, and assisted by the current the ice will then slide under your line to bring your fly to the top. Tricky! We walked the beat and between us had come up with enough positive angles for donning our waders. Number one had to be that rarely would we have such a beat to ourselves. Num-ber two was that the inside bends of the pools seemed nowhere nearly as badly affected. Three was that there had to be fish under the ice, right? And four, the true saviour, was a line we all had in our armoury. A type 4 shooting head that we had a plan for. A degree of patience, looking for gaps in the ice and aiming there. If timed right, the line would sink

below the ice and swing round as nor-mal. The result was that we caught a skipful of kelts and a respectable num-ber of springers. A very memorable trip for me because it felt like we had really done something right, triumphed in the face of adversity if you will.

As I write I’m only a couple of weeks away from the start of the season. Hope-fully, conditions will be as they have been for the last couple of years where the temperature and water levels suited the lower river, with springers eager to hang around. However, this winter has been a mild one so far so it’s looking like another set of river conditions will have to be adjusted to. But whatever happens, I like to believe I have the nec-essary equipment and at least some of the skills required, if luck does come my way.

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[s iks]THE RODS

We are more than happy to announce that Vision has created for season 2012 two six piece SIKS DH rods, which will change your view of DH rods forever. SIKS rods have a powerful and deep ac-tion making them great all round rods. Action-wise they are situated some-where between the highly popular Cult and GTfour Catapult series. With the Cult being more full- and the GTfour Catapult series clearly faster action rods we feel that we have now the Royal flush in our hands when it comes to double hand rods. These 15’2’’ #10 and 13’4’’ #7 jewels of rods can be argued to be even better than any comparable 3- or 4-piece DH rods in the same action and line class.

THE GOOD STUFFSiks rods handle modern spey lines, shooting heads and skagit heads with ease. The 13 rod packs down to 74cm and the 15to 83cm so you can easily pack them inside your travel bag. The rods are made using the very high qual-ity Pacific Bay guides, Portuguese cork rings and wood & aluminium reel seats. The blanks are varnished but unsanded, to give us the opportunity to build them very light in weight but still strong. The rods come with triangular rod tubes, made from a strong but nevertheless light PVC plastic covered with Cordura

fabric. The triangular shape is very sta-ble when you have to put your rod tube down on the floor of a jet boat while speeding up on one of the steelhead rivers of the West Coast USA, or in the trunk of your 4WD while crossing the rugged landscape of the northern Scot-land. On those rare occasions when you want to drop your rod for a solo trip to airplane cargo, the tube form prevents it from rolling so easily off the belt - an event which happens way too often with normal round shaped rod tubes. Try these 6 piece DH rods yourself, because otherwise you won’t believe us. They are, as an urban proverb boldly states, just simply f....ng unbelievable.

THE BACKGROUNDThe huge salmon on Kola Peninsula’s rocky rivers, the mighty sea trout in Tierra del Fuego’s meandering wa-terways, the aggressive steelhead on British Columbia’s forest streams and the colourful sea run Arctic char in Ice-land’s glacier based rivers have been dream catches for numerous people everywhere in the world. As most of us remember all too well, in the good old times, prior to unfortunate changes in world politics, long distance traveling was easy. Nowadays you are more or less forced to pack your fly rods into tubes, pay some extra money for them, kiss them goodbye, drop them on the

conveyor belt and cross your fingers so that you will get them back in prime condition and hopefully before the last day of your ridiculously expensive trip to the end of the Earth. Solutions for the above problems have been looked eagerly by tackle manufacturers. The only plausible solution has been pretty obvious for everybody: the rod just has to be split into more sections (or the rod just has to be shorter, eg. switch rods). Some companies have been quite suc-cessful in this, when it comes to creating solid travel rods for trout fishing. How-ever, the story has been quite the oppo-site with longer double hand rods. Dur-ing the last few years, there have been some decent multi-piece DH rods on the market, but these rods have never quite achieved the feeling of their three or four piece ancestors. The effect of increasing the number of joints usually does its damage and more often than not, these rods have been considered mainly as backup rods, which will be taken out only when something nasty happens to one’s favourite rod. We set out to change this all. We wanted to cre-ate a rod series, which would include only 6 pcs rods and still include our future favourite rods for any DH fishing situations. We got lucky.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

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The best sea-trout river in the world is not situated in Argentina or in Swe-den, not at least if the number of the fish caught over three pounds per rod sets the criteria. The name of the river is Tungulaekur and it is situated in the southern part of Iceland. Last year’s re-cord was 117 decent sea-trout for 3 rods in one day. It is definitely one of those once-in-a-lifetime destinations.

CONVINIENT LOCATIONIt is obviously great to travel to the end of the world, but on the other hand not everybody has the resources to do that. Iceland is very convenient for both Eu-ropean and North American anglers due to its favourable location between the two continents. The capital Reykjavik (Keflavik) is serviced by several major airlines and there are daily flights from several major airports. The Land of Fire and Ice takes its natural resources seri-ously and every angler entering must show a valid tackle disinfection docu-ment signed by a vet or use the service available at the airport.

PRE-TRIP ITENENARYMost anglers arrive a day or two prior to their scheduled fishing on Tungulaekur. The capital Reykjavik is a real pleasure to visit with numerous first-class res-taurants and bars. Some rent cars and drive to see famous Gullfoss waterfalls and the mother of all geysers, called the Great Geysir. The volcanic landscape with moonlike fields and hot springs will definitely give you plenty of reasons to take photos.

INTO THE BUSINESSEarly in the morning your guide will come and pick you up from your hotel and drive you to the river. The trip will last around three hours and will provide scenery to remember forever. Once you get to the river you will be taken to a nice lodge situated near the main river on a bank overlooking a small tributary, also holding some trout and arctic char. The main man of the river is a guide called Suddi. He is one of those larger-than-life characters you happen to meet every now and then when traveling around the globe in the hunt for perfect waters. He is an outstanding guide and a great chef, but an even greater storyteller. A man who has had his share of action both on the river and elsewhere. Pay attention to what he has to say and you’ll become better angler and you’ll have a bunch of stories to share with your friends. Suddi alone is a good reason to make this trip.

PRIVATE WATERSTungulaekur is not the prettiest river in the world but it has definitely a charac-ter of its own. Being a tributary to a huge glacier river called Skafta, it has been providing spawning grounds for the running sea-trout and salmon since the beginning of time. Owned by a family, this river has been under very light fish-ing pressure during the last few decades and it wasn’t until recently that Strengir.is obtained the rights to sell fishing on the river to outside anglers. The few lucky ones who have fished it so far have been astonished by the quality of the fishing. The fishing area is only about

two kilometres and ends at a beautiful waterfall. The rod limit is four anglers.

TWO PRIME SEASONSLike so many other sea-trout rivers, Tungu has its prime times in the early spring (April) and then later in autumn (August-October). The above doesn’t mean that the river would be void of all fish during the summer months, not even close to that, but the prime periods are very clear and worth noting. The fish range normally from 1.5 kilos to 5 ki-los, but the river consistently produces specimens up to 10 kilos, the record be-ing 14 kilos. The summer and autumn also produce a fair amount of salmon (grilse mainly).

DOWN AND DEEPWhen you go to Tungulaekur you better be prepared to get your flies near the bottom. There are other rivers which are better for dry flies but a large Sunray Shadow here will also produce some fantastic takes for an open-minded an-gler. In general, however, the fast sink-ing grain lines will produce best. When it comes to selecting the fly, you only need one pattern – the Black Ghost. Others will work also, from time to time, but the Black Ghost will always work. It is a very appropriate fly for Tungulaekur. After all, the river is almost supernatu-ral. It is that good.

See strengir.is

by Mika Vainio / Vision World Team member

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HDC VarioverseWith a HDC reel you don’t have the hassle of fiddling with small drag adjustment knobs during the fight while trying to remember drag tightening directions and drag adjustment levels. You don’t have to be aware of the fast back-spinning handle. Once you hook a fish, simply follow your reflex and reel in. The drag will increase instantly and automatically against the fish pull. The only thing you have to take care of before you start fishing is adjusting the upper limit of fighting brake according to your tippet. Once you reach this limit, a slip of the spool starts automatically keeping your drag at the maximum, no matter whether you carry on reeling or not.

HDC stands for Handle Drag Control meaning that by reeling in or by turning the handle backwards you can instantly vary the drag ac-cording to your fighting tactics. For preparing your next cast, turn the handle back until it stops to instantly provide a comfortable stripping drag level without spool overrun. Clever.

Many may think this innovation is so out of the world that it can’t even be true. Well, it is. We joined forces with Georgi and Stefan Chivarov, designers of the patented (EP 1993353, US 7,694,907) and genius Varioverse™ mechanism. It is the ultimate answer for a hard core fly reel. It has not only a big functional advantage over Anti-Reverse reels but is a giant step ahead of Direct-Drive reels.

For more information visit varioverse.com

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All things in the world are bound to change eventually. Even what must be the most traditional part of our beloved sport- salmon fishing. Long and heavy double hand rods (spey rods in North-ern America) are gradually making room for shorter and lighter DH rods, and traditional reels have been chal-lenged by modern large arbour reels. The biggest change has nevertheless happened in the field of fly lines. Many anglers, even in the most traditional markets, have changed from using full length spey lines to modern shorter spey lines or Scandinavian type shoot-ing heads instead. Vision has been in the front-line of this development, introducing

long ago, an extensive shooting head family called Ace. Being extremely easy to use (ready-cut lengths and later also with ready-made loops) and great to cast, these lines rapidly gained loyal fol-lowers worldwide. The introduction of a modern spey line, called Spey Ace and later a shorter Slide Spey spey line, ce-mented Vision’s position as one of the key players in the field of modern dou-ble hand lines. In order to further reinforce our position we set-up a team of quali-fied anglers, all familiar with fly fishing product development, to design new members for the Ace of Spey family. This core team was led by Vi-sion’s experienced product manager,

former long-time Kola peninsula salm-on guide Tuomas Rytkönen, accompa-nied by a well-known Swedish casting instructor/guide/product developer Mattias Drugge and a Federation of Fly Fishers (F.F.F.) certified (CI, THCI and MCI) Finnish casting instructor/guide Antti Guttorm. The trio was assisted by a group of passionate salmon, sea trout and steelhead anglers mainly from the Scandinavian countries and from the USA. Together this task force came up with a bunch of new products includ-ing ACE Skagit and ACE Switch fly lines, fast sinking ACE T-tips and ACE leaders. In short they came up with a product family full of KICK ASS ATTITUDE.

Tuomas “Is my hair okey?” Rytkönen Antti “No sleep, only fishing” Guttorm Mattias “You gotta love him” Drugge

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Skagit style was originally developed in the early 1990s by a group of devoted steelhead anglers of North Americas Pacific North West especially on the River Skagit (hence the name) to fish effectively this large river with swift cur-rents. This is the ultimate setup for sink tip fishing. If you need to get down deep, use large and heavy flies and still want to maintain your line control, this is the choice for you. Especially, if you have to cast in confined space due to riverside trees or a high bank. During the last five years or so, some Atlantic salmon and sea trout anglers in the Nordic countries have been eagerly adapting this style for their fishing. We have been develop-ing our Ace Skagit concept all over the northern hemisphere. Building on our extensive experience on ACE shooting heads we are happy to present the Vi-sion ACE Skagit family. They are easy to rig with loop to loop connections, deadly when used properly according to prevailing conditions and versatile as hell if you just keep an open mind.

THE CASTSkagit style is basically a modification of speycasting approach where heavy, short floating shooting heads are used with fast-sinking tips. It utilizes water-born anchor casts, like double spey and Snap T. This is a very easy style to master because of the slow casting rhythm that is required to cast these short and heavy shooting heads. This style is not based on line speed but rather on the weight of the line. The line is like a freight train. When you send it on the right track there’s no stopping it no matter what’s in the cargo. The Skagit Cast is normally directed across the river and the fly is allowed to sink to the kill zone before the tension of the fly line brings it to life and the infamous swing starts. Re-garding suitable rods, you can use any type of double handers to launch these javelins, but due to the slow rhythm of Skagit casting, full and medium action rods perform better than fast tip-action ones.

THE BENEFITSSkagit style is basically a modification

of speycasting approach where heavy, short floating shooting heads are used with fast-sinking tips. It utilizes water-born anchor casts, like double spey and Snap T. This is a very easy style to master because of the slow casting rhythm that is required to cast these short and heavy shooting heads. This style is not based on line speed but rather on the weight of the line. The line is like a freight train. When you send it on the right track there’s no stopping it no matter what’s in the cargo. The Skagit Cast is normally directed across the river and the fly is allowed to sink to the kill zone before the tension of the fly line brings it to life and the infamous swing starts. Re-garding suitable rods, you can use any type of double handers to launch these javelins, but due to the slow rhythm of Skagit casting, full and medium action rods perform better than fast tip-action ones.

RIGHT HEAD FOR CASTING Skagit heads were designed to cast massive, heavy and air resistant flies. Therefore they are heavy, much heavi-er than Scandinavian shooting heads. Nowadays, thanks to the numerous la-bels and products on the market, select-ing a proper fly line for a double hand (DH) rod is not an easy task for an avid angler, little less for a novice taking his/hers first steps into the wonderful world of DH fishing. Traditional AFTM classi-fication has been slowly giving way for direct gram (or grain) based classifica-tion. Vision rod markings have already for some years supported this. For example, 134 #7 Cult is marked with 26-31g, which indicates that 31g (490 grains) ACE Skagit head will work with that rod for sure. Usually this is spot on weight but as it is just a suggestion, you can go up or down in weight, depend-ing on your personal taste. This weight doesn’t include the tip weight, because it doesn’t matter in Skagit style casting.

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best all-around fly line for the full dura-tion of the season and in all conditions, but they are commonly considered to complement nicely everybody’s normal fly line repertoire. They are widely used during high water conditions as well as during the cold water season, i.e. dur-ing the times when you have to get your fly close to the fish. They are easy to use and get the fly out and down when needed. Even when there is no space for full-scale jedi movements with your long stick. Skag on.

SKAGIT HEAD TIPSFOR YOUR FISHING

As said, Skagit heads are designed to cast anything, so you don’t have to worry about the tip weight. The tips length and sinking rate is chosen according to the place you fish, not according what you think the line can cast. So when you fish a shallow, slow moving stretch you can a choose a shorter and lighter tip to get deep enough and then when you fish deep, fast water you need a longer and faster sinking tip to get your flies deep. Keep in mind that the heavier and thick-er tip has better ability to transfer en-ergy so if you use heavy and air resistant flies you might want to use heavier tips.

VISION ACE SKAGIT RANGESThe Ace Skagit head range covers line weights for any rod length and weight. The lightest is 370 grains and suits per-fectly for light two-handed rods and switch rods, while the heaviest 770 grains will load the big guns. See Table 1 for the full range. A big reason for the popularity of Skagit lines is the fact that you can use much lighter rods to cast the heavy sink tips and big flies than with other styles. So you can fight the elements with #7 or #8 weight rather than #10 for example.

VISION ACE SKAGIT head (incl. a T 14 tip and a head wallet)

The Ace Skagit head tips range includes three different lengths: 10 footers, 12.5 footers and 15 footers. Each of the cat-egories has three different weight class-es: T10, T14 and T17. All tips come with pre-made loops in both ends to make your fishing nice and easy.

T stands for Tungsten and the number stands for grains per feet. So T10 means 10 grains per feet. If you take 10 of T10 it will weigh 100 grains (6,5 grams). T17 means 17 grains per feet, so 10 would weigh 170 grains (11 grams). The heavier it is the faster it will sink. If you’re fish-ing a nice even flow with depth up to one metre, just put 10 feet of T10 with unweighted fly and you are set to go. The same day you might be fishing a deeper hole with heavier chop, no prob-

lem. With the interchangeable loop to loop tip system you can easily change to another of our T-tips. The answer might be 15 feet of T17 and a fly that is covered with lead and has tungsten eyes. All Ace Skagit heads are delivered with a T-14 tip and a head wallet to get you started.

SUMMARYRecently, Skagit lines have been getting their fair share of exposure among sea-trout and salmon anglers. However, very few anglers consider them to be their

RodCult 12’6’’ #6 / 23-29g 430 460 490Cult 12’6’’ #7 / 26-31g 460 490 520Cult 13’4’’ #7 / 29-31g 490 520 550Cult 13’2’’ #8 / 29-34g 520 550 580Cult 13’8’’ #9 / 31-37g 580 610 650Cult 14’7’’ #9 / 31-37g 580 610 650Cult 15’2’’ #10 / 34-40g 610 650 690Cult 17’8’’ #10-12 / 40g+ 690 730 770 Siks 13’4’’ #7 / 26-31g 490 520 550SIKS 15’2’’ #10 / 34-40g 610 650 690 Switch 10’11’’ #6 / 23g 370 400 430Switch 10’11’’ #7 / 26g 430 460 490Switch 10’11’’ #8 / 29g 490 520 550Switch 10’11’’ #10 / 34g 610 650 690Switch 10’11’’ #12 / 40g 730 770 GTfour DH Catapult Switch 11’6’’ #7 / 26g 430 460 490GTfour DH Catapult 13’ #9 / 31g 580 610 650GTfour DH Catapult 14’ #10 / 34g 610 650 690GTfour DH Catapult 15’ #11 / 37g 730 770 Catapult DH 113 13’ #8-9 / 31g 580 610 650Catapult DH 115 #10-11 / 37g 730 770 Nite Catapult DH 12’8’’ #7-8 / 29g 460 520 550Nite Catapult DH 12’2’’ #8-9 / 31g 520 550 580Nite Catapult DH 13’7’’ #9-10 / 34g 610 650 690Nite Catapult DH 14’9’’ #10-11 / 37g 690 730 770

Recommened Ace Skagit head weights for all Vision DH rods. The middle weight, marked with blue, will be the safest option for everybody, but more experienced anglers can naturally pick a slightly lighter or a heavier head according to their peferences and casting styles.

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Designed to accompany the Ace Of Spey Shooting Heads and Vision speylines. The 15 and 12 foot leaders are great for all around salmon and steelhead fishing. The 9 feet version is at its best with single hand fishing for bigger fish. It is also a good choice for slower sinking shooting heads. The short 6 feet leader is designed to give maxi-mum turnover for big flies. It can be used with fast sinking shooting and Skagit heads to take your fly really deep. This is also a good base to build your own pike leader by adding a piece of wire at the tip.

ACELEADER

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The Chinese dragon is a very special fly that’s been giving me some nice fish. You can swing this fly like you usually would but the mobility within this pat-tern makes it great to fish in different ways. Try to make the fly drift freely to-wards the fish and then lift it and make it swim away just like you would with a nymph or using an induce-take tech-nique. The Chinese Dragon is in-spired by the string leaches used in the Pacific Northwest for steelhead fishing. The originals were made of black zonk-er-strips, attached to a piece of backing. The hook was then tied to the backing and was thereby allowed to move freely. In that way you got a fly with great mobil-ity. The problem though is that the free hanging hook has a tendency to tangle. One of my friends, Dylan Tomine, solved this by stitching the backing into the zonker-strip. I’ve taken this creation one step further by tying it in colours that are suitable for our rivers and our fish especially with sea trout in mind. And of course, no surprise, I have added rubber legs to make it even more lethal. The special construction makes the fly swim and move at all times, 360°, even when you drift it. It really jigs, wiggles and pumps, which make it a real sea trout candy and I clearly found a favourite in this odd cre-ation. Try it for sea trout in our rivers or on the coast, for salmon, rainbow trout and even brown trout. It has even proved itself as a great Pike treat. I obviously tie the Chinese Dragons in different col-ours, sizes and with different weighted eyes, but this red variant gave the fly its name.Why it’s called Chinese Dragon? Well, have a look. Here’s how it’s done:

Back partHook: Short shaft with big gap. Single/double or treble hook.Thread: Black 12/0.Hackle: Schlappen hackle Grizzly dyed red. 2 strands of orange Mirror-flash and 2 Orange/black rubber legs.

Wrap the thread on to the hook and tie in the hackle feather. Wrap it 5-6 turns and secure. Tie in a rubber leg on each

side of the hook and make sure they are pointing backward. Wrap 2-3 turns of hackle and secure. Tie in one strand of flash on each side of the hook and finish of with a small and neat head.

Front partHook: Any hook of choice since you’re going to mess it upThread: Black 12/0.Eyes: Dumbbell eyes in the weight of choice.Body: Red/black zonker strip in suitable length. Any kind of backing or braided line suitable to make the fly swim well.Front hackle: Schlappen hackle Grizzly dyed red.Legs and antennas: Orange/black rub-ber legs.

Put the zonker strip on the table with the fur side down. Take a large stitch-ing needle and pull the doubled braid-ed line through the eye of the needle. Make sure the loop of the doubled braid is what’s going through the eye. Now stitch your way through the zonker strip zigzagging. Now you should have a loop of the braid sticking out of the strip at the end and two ends

of braid sticking out at the front. Put a hook in the vice and wrap the thread to secure it. Take the zonker strip and measure it in on the hook. Start with the two ends of the braid. Those ends are supposed to go through the eye of the hook and then back again to secure the strip well. Use super glue to secure the braid. Now tie in the strip itself and make sure to leave room for a front hackle and the dumbbell eyes. At-tach two rubber legs on each side of the fly. The legs should be attached so one third points forward and two thirds backwards. Tie the dumbbell eyes on the hook and secure with super glue. Wrap the front hackle in place behind the eyes with 5-6 wraps. Finish the fly by tying in two rubber leg antennas and secure with super glue. Take the fly out of the vice when dry and nip the hook off so only the shaft is left. Now you take the back part you tied earlier and attach it to the fly. Take the loop of braided line and push it through the eye of the back part and you have a loop to eye connection.

by Mattias Drugge / Photo. Jonas Lindkvist.

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THE HISTORYFrom the early 70s some specialized rod man-ufacturers have been designing short double hand rods, which were called switch rods. At the beginning the main customer was a salt-water angler, who was forced to perform long overhead casts from shore time after time when searching for fast moving predators. As time passed, similar rods were used mainly among adventurous steelhead anglers. Natu-rally, the function of these rods was differ-ent from early day’s catapults and they were good, not only for overhead casts but also for water born casts (i.e., different versions of a spey cast). And the rest is, as they say, history.

VERSATILE TOOLIt’s true that you can cast a switch rod with one hand and two hands. It’s also true that you can use overhead cast and spey casts with it. So if you want to carry one rod in salmon, sea trout or steelhead fishing in a small to medium sized river a switch rod is the way to go. You can use it as a two handed rod for swing fish-ing and switch to single hand if you like to try some dry flies for example. The biggest advantage of a switch rod is for active fishing (i.e. stripping the fly) whether it’s for salmon, sea trout or brown trout. This is great because it expands the use of a switch rod also for normal trout fish-ing with streamers. And it’s a heck of a rod for fishing with hitch flies. Sometimes you need to manipulate the speed of the hitch tube to keep it on the surface. So the switch rod is eas-ier to cast in tight places than a single handed rod and it’s lighter in hand than a two handed rod which is good when you are stripping the line. It’s a great compromise!

SUITABLE LINESSwitch rods are at their best with different shooting heads. With a compatible Ace tip shooting head you can cover almost all situ-ations imaginable. The Slide Spey will also work with these rods because of its short head in lighter line weights. Skagit lines are very popular across the pond for steelhead and they fit switch rods like a glove. Very long heads are not so much recommended be-cause it can be a chore to lift a long line with a short switch rod.

Short, easy casting shooting head system for modern Switch rods. Kit includes floating body, floating, intermediate and sink3 tips and they all have loops on both ends. This makes them very easy and quick to change whenever needed. By adding our polyleader to the tip you can fine tune the sinking depth even more. The body will cast also the faster sinking T-tips so this line is very versatile. The body part is 6,1 meters and the tips are 3,0 meters in length. The heads come in 23g, 26g and 29g in total weight. The short total length makes this line very easy to cast even in most difficult conditions. You can keep very small D-loop and cast very accurately when needed.

by Andy Nevercatch

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This year we have developed an inter-changeable tip version out of the Slide Spey line, called SLIDE SPEY TIP. This is the ultimate salmon fishing line for the fisherman who wants to cover all kinds of different fishing situations with just one very versatile line. It comes with 4 different tips; floating, clear in-termediate, sink 3 and sink 7. Tips have loops on both ends so they are easy and quick to change and they also allow very easy attachment to the monofilament- or polyleader. Slide Spey Tip has a different colour running line and the full floater has a dark grey casting marker showing you the ideal casting spot.

BACKGROUNDBased on our great fishing line, the Spey Ace, we designed a shorter, even easier to use, spey line. Slide Spey has three basic head lengths, 13.5 / 15.0 / 16.5 metre, based on the rod rating. These head lengths are easy to handle even if you are not very familiar with spey lines. They give you good fishing distances easily. The Slide Spey’s taper is de-signed to turn real fishing flies or sink-ing polyleaders over with ease. This line is not scared of heavy northern winds or modern, weighted fox fur flies.

PROFILEFor more than 10 years Mattias has been the only fully professional casting instruc-tor in Sweden and belongs to the frontline of instructors and casters worldwide. He has specialized in modern Scandinavian casting techniques and has trained thou-sands of fly fishermen in both single hand and double hand techniques, mostly in Scandinavia but also in Argentina and in the USA. His excellent pedagogic skills and in-depth knowledge of the physics of fly casting have made his casting and fishing schools extremely popular. It is said, that if Mattias can’t teach you how to cast, you are a lost case. Over the years, Mattias has represented most of the largest Scandinavian fly fishing brands. Since 2007 he has, as a consultant, been involved in product development for Hardy (UK) and Rio (USA). Mattias is also an active writ-er for various fly fishing magazines. The main foci of his articles are different tactics, techniques and salmon/seatrout flies related issues. He has a strong background in the world of marketing (AD) and has been trained both in art and design. He fishes with fly for everything that swims and visits regularly rivers in Sweden, Nor-way, Scotland and Canada. Vision Group Ltd, started an extensive co-operation with Mattias in 2011. He has been testing extensively Vision’s current product repertoire during his casting & fishing schools, demo days and freetime. Based on his detailed feedback, Vision has been improving its existing products. Furthermore, Mattias has been a vital part of a team, which is now launching a special product family, called Ace of Spey, designated to take the next big step ahead in this field.Have a look at: druggeflyfishing.com

MATTIASDRUGGE

Intermediate

Sink 3

Sink 7

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by Rob Russell

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The Intruder is much more than a fly pattern. It’s a phenomenon. On one hand, it stands as a monumental inven-tion in the history of fly design. And on the other, it’s a catalyst that drove the development of Skagit-style fly lines, sustained-anchor casting, and the pres-entation of large flies with two-handed rods. For steelheaders in the Pacific Northwest, the Intruder has redefined our approach to fishing. How many fly patterns in history have changed so much for so many?

Everywhere the Intruder has been un-leashed, it has raised eyebrows, drawn ridicule from traditionalists, and gone on to kick serious ass. Today, 20 years after its invention, minds are still be-ing blown, and naysayers are still being converted. Intruders, like traditional At-lantic salmon flies, require an extreme level of commitment from a fly tyer. The sheer difficulty of learning and perfect-ing the fly makes it woefully impracti-cal for all but the sickest of the sick. So why would anyone in his right mind toil for hundreds of hours to master such a complicated fly pattern? That’s the question at the root of the Intruder, and the answer may not be the same for any two anglers. For some, it’s the lofty idea of presenting an exquisite fly to an ex-quisite fish. It’s a ritual through which we can honor the animal and the sport. For others, it’s “nuclear ambition.” The search for the ultimate weapon. What-ever the motivation, there is a common thread in the stories of Intruder fanatics.

They all describe the certainty they feel when they see an Intruder swim. They know they are seeing something spe-cial. Something alive. What follows is my reduction-ist interpretation of Ed Ward’s ingenious fly pattern, with a bow my teacher, Vision pro-staffer Monte Ward, whose own In-truders rival any ever tied:

1. Foundation – Start with a large hook, a Waddington shank, or any appropri-ate wire as the base. Secure dumbbell eyes underneath the shank. Add a .5 cm tag of durable tinsel. Then, tie in a loop of strong monofilament running the length of the shank, sticking up .25 cm, just ahead of the tag. Bend the mono loop forward, and stand up with a few wraps of thread.

2. Split Tail – Add two wraps of medium-weight fluorescent chenille, one behind the mono loop, and one in front. This is the “bump’ that will force the rest of the tail materials to flare away from the shank. Monte hates this idea, preferring some sort of dubbing material.

Clip 6 or 7 strands of ostrich herl, wet them so they stick together into one strand, and tie them in at a 45-degree angle to the axis of the fly. Repeat on the opposite side. Then, add two strands of Amherst pheasant tail to each bunch of ostrich. Tie in a jungle cock eye on either side, and add a single strand of crystal flash on top of each bundle.

3. Palmered Body – Tie in a 12 cm length of fine copper wire as ribbing, and let it hang off the back of the fly. Then tie in a similar length of brightly colored tinsel and wrap forward and secure within .75 cm of the eye of the hook. Tie in a long-fibered saddle hackle by the butt end at the front of the tinsel body and wrap backward sparsely. Counter-wrap the copper wire over the hackle and secure.

4. Three Dubbing Loops – Start a rela-tively long dubbing loop. Clip and grade two small sections of Arctic Fox tail. The first should be 2 cm in length, and spread out to 2.5 or 3 cm wide in the dubbing loop. The second should be

Monte in action.

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slightly longer, spread out in the same way. Spin tightly, brush, and wrap for-ward. Once the dubbing loop is tied off, brush the resulting fur collar vigorously until the fibers are untangled. Wet the collar and slick it back, out of the way.

Start another dubbing loop. Clip a 1.5 cm section of long Amherst pheas-ant tail fibers and place in the loop. Holding the fibers tightly in the loop, with forefinger pressed behind, care-fully separate each strand until they are evenly spaced. Spin, brush lightly, fold and wrap tightly. Wet the fibers and slick them back. The final dubbing loop follows

the same steps as above, replacing the pheasant with 15 to 20 strands of os-trich herl. Spin, brush lightly, fold and wrap. This loop should butt up against the dumbbell eyes when secured. Wet fibers and slick back.

5. Shell-back – Select two prime hackle feathers and create a tent-like set of wings at the very head of the fly. Add one or two strands of crystal flash on each side. Whip-finish and lacquer.

6. Clip the wire shank .25 cm behind the tag and file smooth. Be careful to hold all the materials away from the file to avoid destroying your work.

Rigging shank-style Intruders requires small-diameter junction tub-ing or equivalent and a light-wire hook. Thread tippet material through the eye of the shank, run it down the back of the fly, and thread it through the mono loop. Slide a .5 cm section of small junction tubing on the line, and then tie in a hook using any loop knot. Slide the junc-tion tubing onto the clipped end of the shank and over the tag. Pull the tippet until the rig is tight, and adjust the hook so it rides upside-down.

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We are proud to announce Vision’s land-ing in Argentina. The people in charge of this are a group of well-known pro-fessional fly fishermen, who have been working in the fly fishing industry for more than five years. They are part of the team guiding and managing some of the most prestigious lodges in the world (like Canada, Russia, Norway, etc.), in addition to single and double handed instructors, who have been in charge of developing the Underhand and Spey concept in a young market such as Ar-gentina.The fishing in this country is superb, from the North, where you can fish for Golden Dorado in the jungle or marsh-es, through the North Patagonia zone where the rainbow and brown trout fish-ing is A+, ending up in places like Rio Gallegos and Rio Grande where you can fish the best two sea trout rivers in the world in which 20+ pounders are pretty common.To follow up Argentina Vision Team (AVT) activities as trips, equipment testing, scouting, demonstrations, etc. please check

visionflyfishing.com.ar Tight Lines!Team Vision Argentina

In each of the mentioned conditions the AVT have discovered the ideal equip-ment: Golden Dorado: Venus SW/SWS 690 & 890 + XLA reel 6/7 with Vibe 125 WF Floating/Intermediate in clear water or a Bottom Express 300 if you are look-ing for the big ones. As these are really strong fish, we need a powerful rod ca-pable of casting big deceivers or pop-pers with just one cast, that’s why we picked the Venus as our choice. Rainbow & Brown Trout: GTfour 490 & 590 + GT4/5 reel with Attack or Vibe 125 in floating and Sinking 3. We found this rod a pleasure to fish with. Smooth, delicate but at the same time strong enough to land a chubby 3kg brown trout in the Chimehuin River or having a great 800 grams up to 1.5kg rainbow-trout-fishing session skating dry flies in the Malleo River in northern Patagonia. Sea Run Brown Trout & Steelhead: Nite Catapult DH #7/8 12.8 foot or #8/9 12.2 foot + Koma Black 11 + Ace Shooting Heads Float/Inter/S2-S4/S6-S7 (depending on the time of the season). You have to be ready to land a 25+ pounder migratory fish and after testing them, we can confirm that Nite Catapult can do the job 100%.

PROFILECristian is one of the best-known casters in Argentina. He started fly-fishing at nine years old. He is a fine salmon fly-tier and a pas-sionate on teaching beginners not only with single-handed rods but two-handed techniques also. He enjoys fishing for small trout in little creeks in Patagonia, mon-ster ones in places like Jurassic Lake, Golden Dorado in the North of Argentina and also saltwater species in places such as Cuba.

He introduced the Underhand concept in Argentina in 2001, be-ing one of the very first innova-tors. .Many world-famous brands have counted on his knowledge to start business and fortunately, we can now say that he and his amazing staff are now the refer-ence for people looking for Vision in Argentina.

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BIG ATLANTIC

by Antti Pirinen

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We have been using this well-tested procedure for years, and the results have been pretty good.

THE SEARCHING DRYI would normally start with reason-ably big 2-4 size dry. I’d fish around the seams but in the moving water. Still wa-ter doesn’t produce well. I’d go for typi-cal holding areas, tail-outs, quiet pock-ets, back eddies, spots almost certain to carry fish. I try to get my fly in those clean mirror like windows opening in the current. I typically recast promising looking spots carefully and with several drifts. The idea is to get the perfect drift in the perfect window. I also try to drift the fly in lines in a way creating sectors where it is combing all sweet water. If they are in the mood for dries you’ll get some “love”, but that doesn’t neces-sarily mean a take. They come sniffing your fly, turn under it, touch the surface with their nose. It is very typical that they leave the tiniest mark in the sur-face making you think grayling or a river trout. Nothing could be further from the truth. Big salmon can be such sip-pers when they are in that mood. If they don’t rise again for the bigger fly or turn it down, I move to step 2.

THE SMALLER FLYWith some activity under my searching fly I am encouraged to switch over to a smaller dry. Let’s say moving from hook size 2 to 6 or 8. This is a big enough change to produce a take. They’ll typically activate themselves with the smaller fly. OK, you might need to rest them for a while, but anyway. I’d also use tiny micro shivering to give irresistible life- like vibrations to my fly, tiny vibrations followed by dead drift and then new tiny vibrations and so on. It helps to know where your target fish is. If they still show no interest there are two options left, those described in steps 3 and 4.

THE BIG MONSTER FLYSometimes it pays off to use a big mon-ster fly like a sunray and make some movement on the surface. Big fly turns their attention to the surface and starts generating some steam and aggression. A big wet fly is still more like a teaser in

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this case. A few casts and then switch-ing to the small dry again can produce a great take. Or not. Same procedure ap-plies well with small hitch tubes.

THE SMALL IMITATION DRYIf I am dealing with a really stubborn, passive fish which is still showing some surface activity I will move to a small im-itation fly such as a deer hair caddis (tied properly sturdy enough to a short shank hook 6-10). This is an amazingly effec-tive fly for a difficult fish, a real go-to fly in scenarios where you see a steady ris-ing salmon which is showing absolute-ly no interest in any fly. When they act like trout they should be fed like trout). For some reason small insect like flies makes a dramatic difference. Again, tiny

micro vibrations dialled on top of the target fish’s window help. Honestly speaking this strat-egy can be a day-saver. Seeing a tiniest grayling take in a classic salmon pool and you are inclined to believe that there is no salmon at home. It really can be a good sized salmon just touching the surface. It keeps amazing me. Using small dries is always worth the trouble. Frankly, a small deer hair caddis is my fly of choice in the later season if noth-ing else works (wet flies counted in). This applies even if there is no natural pressure like a fresh run of salmon arriv-ing in the river system. When they are la-zily waiting for the spawning and noth-ing happens, they turn into trout mood.

CASTING DIRECTIONSI am not fixated on any particular meth-od. In my opinion it just depends from which angle you get the drift. Some-times upstream, sometimes across. Even downstream and feeding some slack line. Play it by the eye. Whatever gives a good drift in those windows where I want to operate is the right method for the day.

DEAD DRIFT OR SKATING?I wouldn’t ever really drag the fly. More dead drifts and tiny vibrations, or just a tiny bit faster movement than the cur-rent is what is required. Just faster than the current sometimes works well when casting upstream. What really matters is finding those “feeding lines or win-

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“In the beginning we really start-ed to design a vice especially for tube flies. But as a result we have a 2in1 Vice that works brilliantly with hooks and tubes. In design we paid special attention to ma-terials, ergonomics, form and functionality. All unnecessary parts were removed. We wanted to keep the Vice as simple as pos-sible and leave the stage for the flies. 2in1 has half the parts and twice the features when com-pared to traditional vices”. In this case we can rightly say - “Less is definitely more”.

This revolutionary Vision 2in1 vice, designed by hard core fly tying professionals, will fulfil all your ty-ing needs. It comes with a tube fly needle and head and with more tra-ditional hook jaws. Fly fishing with tube flies has become a viable al-ternative alongside traditional flies. The new 2in1 Vice allows enjoyable tying for traditional fly hooks and tube flies without compromises. It holds firmly all hooks between #4/0 #28. Its new design leaves the maximum space for your hands to tie freely and comfortably. The head rotation has accurate and quick ad-justment. The vice is made from stainless steel so you know it’ll be your lifetime partner. 2in1Designed in Finland by

Ville Porkka & Mikko Juntura

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dows” where they are active and getting a good sight of the fly.

SETTING THE HOOKNot too eager to strike works best. With a longer line it happens kind of more naturally with all the curves and stretch available. With the shorter line it doesn’t harm you to wait until you feel the fish - then the fly is definitely inside the mouth. These are slow moving bastards when in that mood, and pulling the fly out of a 10 kg salmon’s mouth after a slow day hurts like hell. I guess the best rule is just not to miss the take. PS. One additional thing to mention is the length of the leader, which should be pretty long, min. 15 feet.

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1. Opas waders, 2. Opas wading jacket, 3. Subzero socks, 4. Wind pro jacket, 5. Gt4 Catapult rod, 6. Switch rod, 7. XLA reel, 8. GT reel, 9. Ace Skagit flyline, 10. Ace of Spey T-tip pouch, 11.” white funny hat”

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Photo: visionflyfishing.hu

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“On my first strip it is on with brutal force. Line is tight and less than half a second later the fish is in the air doing a 360.” Per Jobs

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During the last 15 years rod length spectrum has widened considera-bly, and nowadays you can find eve-rything from a toothpick all the way to a flagpole. The main reason for this is, besides good marketing peo-ple, the unbelievable development in material technology. Materials and manufacturing processes have been taking huge steps ahead and as a result the rods today are noth-ing like their ancestors. They are lighter, stronger and more durable.

10 FOOTERS ARECOMING STRONGLY

One length category, which has been gaining popularity are the 10 footers. These long single hand rods weigh less than 8 foot rods of the 80’ and 90’ and still they provide a lot of advantages. Longer rods were used, regardless of their weight, constantly on larger reservoirs and lakes, especially in the British Isles, from the early days onwards and the material improvements were greet-ed there with joy. Long leaders with a bunch of side droppers are pain to cast and the infamous hang (lifting your leader slowly out of the water with a clear halt) almost impossible to perform properly with short rods. Ever increasing competition fishing together with stocking fisheries with rainbows created a demand for new

types of large stillwater / reservoir techniques including the use of var-ious sinking lines to reach the fish at any given time of the day. Short precise casts with floating lines for wild brown trout have been gradu-ally changing towards long casts with fast sinking lines - very labour intensive activity with a short rod.

IDEAL FOR TECHNICALRIVER FISHING

On rivers, the increased activ-ity around competition angling, has

acted as a catalyst in developing some of the deadliest fly fishing techniques which clearly require/benefit from a longer rod. These include already well-known Pol-ish/Czech short line nymphing with heavy sedge larva (or similar) imitations and the latest hit French/Spanish nymphing which includes extremely long leader and normally a set of small nymphs. In general, when we are speaking about river fishing, 10 foot rods are extremely suitable for water-born casts, line

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handling and if need be, for longer casts as well.

GET YOUR CASTING IN SHAPEHowever, it has to be emphasized, that a longer rod will not automati-cally guarantee longer casts, al-though it definitely buys you some time before your back cast hits the ground. The challenge of the long rod is that if you have some prob-lems with your casting, whether it is related to timing or force issues, it will only enhance them. From a purely casting perspective, longer rods give you no free ticket for hap-piness, but from a wider perspec-tive that additional foot might just be the thing that separates you and that fish-of-a-lifetime. So, get your casting in shape and you can fully enjoy what modern rod building technology can offer on lakes and rivers alike.

Gtfour 9’6’’ #69’6’’ #710’ #510’ #610’ #710’ #8

Nite Catapult 9’6’’ #7/89’6’’ #8/910’ #3/410’ #4/510’ #5/610’ #6/710’ #7/8

Cult 9’6’’ #49’6’’ #810’ #210’ #310’ #410’ #510’8’’ #311’1’ #4

Mag 10’ #3/410’ #4/510’ #5/610’ #6/710’ #7/8

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The 1980´s saw a dramatic change in UK fly-fishing as many reservoirs and small stillwaters began stocking trout (both rainbow and brown) for the first time - game angling was suddenly available to the average angler at affordable prices.

SLOW STARTFly fishing tackle in these early years was basic and extremely limited, rods and reels were heavy and cumbersome with little or no sensitivity leaving the angler feeling tired and exhausted at the end of the day, often anglers only carried a floating line and perhaps a sinking line yet attempted to tackle some of our largest and most challenging reservoirs with varying amounts of success.

EVOLUTION IN PROGRESSThe last 10 years has seen a revolution in fly-fishing tackle and methods giving the angler more choice and much better products providing a well balanced set-up for a modest outlay, allowing the av-erage angler to achieve results he never thought possible.

LONGER IS BETTERFor me the ideal rod for UK stillwater fishing would be 10ft in length; This will allow longer leaders and multiple flies to be used if required and would be per-fectly suited to both bank and boat an-

gling on all types of stillwaters.

NITE CATAPULT IS THE RODThe Vision 10ft AFTM 7/8 Nite Catapult is a perfect example of this type of rod. It is extremely light allowing effortless casting, it’s medium to fast action pro-vides the angler with enough power to cope with the often difficult conditions on reservoirs yet it is also retains its sen-

sitivity. This makes it the ideal rod ideal for all methods employed by the angler from top of the water dry-fly fishing to deeply fished boobies on a fast sinking line. One rod can be used for all meth-ods and waters. The sensitivity in the Vision blank allows the angler to feel every dive and lunge the hooked fish makes through the rod, it’s an extension of your

by Rob Edmunds

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arm giving maximum enjoyment during the fight and allowing you to exert just the right amount of pressure on the fish in order to subdue it.

NEW TECHNIQUESMethods and tactics have also changed beyond all recognition even in the last five years. Many anglers now fish methods such as the “washing line” technique (nymphs fished on the drop-pers and a booby on the point of a cast

Rob Edmunds

HARD GEAR BAGThis bag is a real multi-purpose bag for the enthusiastic fly fisherman. It can be used as a spacious reel bag, accommodating a big bunch of dif-ferently sized fly reels but thanks to its genius inner wall system you can modify it as you like, according to your needs. In addition to reels you can make a supportive space for your digital SLR or video camera. Or you can use it as a big fly tying bag when travelling. The soft divider gives extra protection when the bag is closed and its numerous zipper pockets keep your small accessories in order and easily accessible. The moulded bottom part is waterproof up to the rivets and stiches, so it can easily be left on the bottom of your boat.

- fished static or ultra-slowly on an in-termediate fly-line) that were once re-served it seems for match anglers. With the average angler now having in excess of 4 fly lines in a range of sinking densi-ties, a cassette reel system is essential as it allows multiple lines to be used on the same system with the minimum of outlay.

KOMA TALKA Vision Koma cassette reel is a perfect match to any rod, not only is it a stylish and modern but more importantly it’s cassette style spool system allows the angler to carry a range of fly-lines (3 spools are included with the reel) rela-tively cheaply; yet despite its modest price tag the reel has other advantages designed to benefit the angler and im-prove performance.The reel allows space for a large capac-ity of backing to be placed behind the fly-line ensuring that the angler will have enough line to comfortably play

that “fish of a lifetime” when hooked. The spool is of a “wide arbour” style so the fly-line is not tightly coiled on the reel meaning less memory (coils/kinks) in the fly- line and ultimately better presentation for the angler; add in the durable but lightweight alloy frame and the efficient drag system and you have a proven product that will satisfy even the most demanding of anglers.

DON’T GET WETOften overlooked by anglers but equally important is the waterproof clothing that we use whilst fishing; once cold, heavy wax jackets were the normal at-tire, but now modern materials provide us with a stylish lightweight alternative with increased performance. Since I first started using Vision waterproof clothing I have remained dry and comfortable in the worst of the British weather.

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These tip action, four piece rods will surprise you with their great balance and looks. The blanks are made us-ing the latest Japanese high modulus graphite and all components are nothing but the best. The series con-sists of four 9 foot rods and five 10 foot rods to cover a wide range of fishing situations. Metallic olive finish with some small orange details make these rods stand out from the mass.

Nine footers were designed to be first-class all-around rods for traditional river and lake fishing for those who like fast tip action rods for their dry fly and nymph fish-ing. They have half wells handles except the heaviest 6/7 rod which has a full wells handle and a small fight-ing butt.

MAG seriesThe fastest of all Vision rods.

Line # Lenght Weight Handle3-4 9´ 82g Half wells4-5 9´ 84g Half wells5-6 9´ 87g Half wells6-7 9´ 98g Full wells with fighting butt3-4 10´ 94g Small full wells4-5 10´ 101g Small full wells5-6 10´ 103g Small full wells6-7 10´ 120g Full wells with fighting butt7-8 10´ 123g Full wells with fighting butt

The 10 foot rods were initially designed for two main purposes - lighter rods for short line long leader river fishing in competitions (and elsewhere) and heavier classes especially for the demanding stillwater and reservoir fishing (multiple flies, long leaders, etc.). All of them have full wells handles (lighter classes small-er ones) and 6/7 and 7/8 class rods have additionally a small fighting butt which might come handy if you happen to hook a real monster.

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I can almost taste the limestone. With a pinch of Baltic salt. I closely watch the underwater landscape change as I wade, no more than knee deep, through the crystal clear Gotland water. A gen-tle glare touches the light ripple of the surface. This is the spot. The seabed goes from flat to more varied; big rocks, some holes in between them and the whole layout is seasoned with our most abundant sea weed - bladder wrack. I can feel it. This is the spot right now. I get my rod ready.

THE COMPANYFishYourDream brings Sweden’s larg-est island, Gotland, and its good qual-ity sea trout to guests from all over the world. We provide guiding, the right gear, accommodation and whatever

else required for a good fishing holiday. The fishing is shore based and we move around a lot to find the fish. More than 800 kilometres of shoreline is a bless-ing and a challenge. Currents, waves, wind and temperatures give us direc-

tions, allowing guests to experience many parts of our enchanted island. The sea trout average somewhere between 2.5 and 3 kg. However, since we practice catch and release we never get the exact weight, just measurements. And a quick

by Per Jobs

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photo of course. FishYourDream tries to run the business sustainably and we are certified with the quality brand “Natures Best”. Almost all sea trout we catch are wild (self reproducing in our streams) and that is a fact worth fighting for, therefore we do all we can to help pro-tect and conserve this fantastic resource and its habitats. This includes teaming up with authorities and organizations. For example, we collect the reports of recaptures of tagged fish atfishyourdream.com.

At the end of my leader is a shrimp imi-tation. The water is November cool, why I need to fish it slowly. I cut some of the tail off my “Pattegris”. Sometimes when the temperature is low the fish just pinches the fly and a long tail is not helping the hook-up rate. I strip the fly

slowly. I let it hang a bit. Nothing. My second cast is placed in between two rocks that just barely break the surface. The bladder wrack around them cre-ates swirls that could be mistaken for a hunting trout by an eager trout fish-erman with all senses sharpened a bit too much. But there it is. I predicted a gentle strike but was proven very wrong. On my first strip it is on with brutal force. Line is tight and less than half a second later the fish is in the air doing a 360. The soft November glare now hits silver.

THE TACKLE TALKThe guides of FishYourDream use mainly class 7 rods with floating lines. An 8 weight sometimes comes in handy when wind is more challenging. Silver, Nite Catapult and Venus series for the rods, and reels are HDC Varioverse, XLA

NITE The Hi-tech brother of our proven GT reel, Nite offers a larger arbour for fast retrieve without the usual increase in weight.Precision machined from bar stock aluminium, with a silky-smooth disc drag and superior XLA style cap-tive spool release. Stunning, gunmetal anodised finish.

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and the new Koma plus. We mainly use floating lines, for example the Vibe WF-lines since most spots we fish are shallow. The choice of flies is of course reliant on many things, but some easy hints are to try and use the more strong and aggressive colours in cool water; black and red or pink etc. Such as Magic Minnow Pink #4 or a pink Pattergrisen. Shrimp imitations work well in the cold water season since the trout seem to prefer easier meals that don’t require too much energy in catching. When the temperature rises in the spring the me-tabolism of the trout change and they turn more into a fish diet again, mean-ing more baitfish imitations end up on our tippets.

FISHING SEASONSWe fish almost all year around, adapt-ing to the different conditions but the two obvious peak seasons are the spring and fall. October through De-cember there are restrictions around more than 20 spawning streams. The two seasons have their pros and cons, but you can always be sure that we try hard to make the most out of every day on the coast. The fishing is generally also good through the whole winter but fishing in these months requires more of the angler in terms of low tempera-tures even though Gotland has a milder

climate than the rest of Sweden.

ACCOMODATION IN VISBYAt Hamngatan 4 in Visby you find the FishYourDream office and our store where we provide the right stuff for fish-ing on Gotland and also our own accom-modation, Visby Vandrarhem which is a high standard hostel within the medi-eval city walls. The perfect base for fish-

ing, you can go in any direction on the island depending on conditions. With a minimum of driving time. You are as-sisted by us, you have the convenience of World Heritage town Visby’s stores, historical sites and a wide array of res-taurants for “after fishing” or night life. Of course we set you up with a cabin if you prefer being closer to nature

Line is running. The fish takes another leap. I slowly move away from the rocky area. Don’t want the fish or the leader to end up on one of the rocks where I found the fish in the first place. Behind me is a pebble bank directly back dropped by an impressive lime stone cliff, remind-ing me of the fact that Gotland is actu-ally an ancient coral reef that rose from the once tropical waters. After a 10 min-ute intense fight I am in a good position for landing the 68 cm silver seatrout. A fish that did not come close to shore for spawning reasons, it came to find an easy dinner in the somewhat warmer water. This lady sea trout truly is one of Gotland’s famous silver treasures. Let’s put it back in the water. Welcome to Got-land and to really fish your dream.

See,FishYourDream.com

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1. Ikon guide waders, 2. Atom jacket, 3. Subzero jacket, 4. Power hoodie, 5. Mag rod, 6. Nite reel, 7. Deep reel, 8. Koma reel,9. Nano Liquid float, 10. Nipper, 11. Strike right, 12. Prisma fluorocarbon, 13. Vibe 125 flyline, 14. Tippet rings, 15. Classic cap

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Photo: James “Merry” Christmas

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“I was frustrated, utterly frustrated when I made my last cast...”Miksu Vaittinen

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When I was a young boy I read fishing magazines that told about these awe-some once in a lifetime fishing trips around the world. These were fishing dreams and I think I lived these through in my mind thinking maybe, just maybe, I could do the same thing someday. Well now, few decades later, I sit at home writing this article. Just weeks ago, I re-turned from a trip that took me around the world, actually if one counts the miles, it took me almost twice around the world. And I just can’t stop thinking about how happy I am that I was able to realise one of my dreams. It was a ride and a half; I met great people, laughed, cried and landed few fishes in the mix. As a proof I have loads of stories, a few photos and a tattoo of a Blue Marlin on my leg.

GET YOU PRIORITIES SORTEDIt all started late 2010 when I decided to take a leave of absence from my work and head off to the Southern Pa-cific to find the perfect fishing spot my own honey hole .On the 15th of Febru-ary 2011, I was standing in a lounge at Helsinki Airport. I had just kissed my girlfriend goodbye for five months, sold my apartment and packed my rods. The final step would be to board the flight to London and then onwards. This was the moment when I would start to realise my dreams.

LONG ROAD TO HEAVENDuring the trip I travelled the South Pa-cific extensively, New Zealand, Christ-mas Island, Fiji,Vanuatu, Tonga, Cook Islands, Australia and Bali on my way back home. I could write a book about the trip, but as this is neither the time nor the place, I will just tell a story about a place called Aitutaki, home of some massive bonefish, and definitely one of the most beautiful places in the world.

IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHEREAitutaki is one of the Cook Islands ly-ing north of the main island Rarotonga. Located in the South Pacific Ocean, ap-proximately 2000 miles north-east of New Zealand, between French Polyne-sia and American Samoa these paradise islands belong to Australia. I flew to Aitutaki from Tonga where I was chas-ing billfish on the outer islands. Aitutaki was my last major fishing destination on my trip, and oh boy it was something. When I arrived to Aitutaki after some RnR in Raroton I was thrilled as I knew that this was a home for some massive fish living in a stunning environment.

MEETING BUTCHThe next day I met with local guide Butch Leone to discuss my fishing pos-sibilities. He told me about the differ-ences to “normal” bonefishing and what would be special about fishing in Aituta-ki. As a preparation I made sure that my #10 weight set would be holding a inter-mediate line and a 20 pound tippet, as per. Butch’s instructions. Bit out of the ordinary I was thinking, but I decided to go with it.

WARMING UPNext day I would start on my own on the flat just outside my beach hut and then spend a few days fishing with Butch. As I had just been fishing for bones on Christmas Island, I was confident that I would be OK fishing by myself. I was wrong. Next day I headed to the flat on the western outer rim of the island just next to the harbour. The day started a bit slow. I only saw few smaller bones and I was thinking - is this it? During the day I was able to hook few and break my tippets on a some better trevallies. While I was walking back to my lodge through the flat I noticed a GT fin stick-ing out of the water. It took me a while to

understand that the fin did not belong to an GT but to a massive bonefish that was feeding in the turtle grass. My jaw dropped and I could not do anything for a brief moment.

GETTING SKUNKEDThe fish was about 20 metres from me and my hands were trembling as I pulled line from my reel to cover the distance. I tried to cast just right; any mistake and the fish would bolt in an instant. As the wind was quite strong and facing me I decided I would try to wade just a bit closer. Obviously this was a wrong deci-sion as the fish took off in a split second

by Olli-Mikael “Miksu” Vaittinen

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as I took the first step closer. I was devastated, and at the same time happy as now I knew what I was up against with, the massive Aitutaki bones. I realised that everything I knew about bonefishing would have to be re-learned. But I could still barely wait for the next day’s fishing with Butch.

RE-DEEMING MYSELFAfter a lousy night’s sleep and a quick breakfast I packed my bag, jumped on my scooter and drove to meet Butch at the marina. After a quick strategy meet-ing we headed out to lagoon. Our first step was a flat nearest to us. We did see a few bones, only after they bolted away. We continued our fishing by poling along the Akaiami Island. We had been poling for a half an hour or so when I spotted a massive shadow in the water just in front of us. The fish was in water about a me-tre deep and cruising along the shores of the island. I made few casts to the fish, perfect casts, but the reaction was dismissive. The fish saw the fly, but just

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started to slowly swim away. This is by the way an interesting behaviour in the bigger fish - they usually slowly rather than quickly dart away.I was frustrated, utterly frustrated when I made my last cast, straight on top of the fish and I did not wait for the fly to go to the bottom before I did couple of quick strips. Stag-geringly, the fish rose from the bottom and took the fly. I was amazed!

A FISH OF A LIFETIMEThe fish took off with speed, first run was about 150 metres and the few times when I got it near the boat it took off again, but thankfully the runs were al-ways a little bit shorter. If I remember correctly, after I was able to land the fish there was a big shout of joy echoing in the lagoon. Oh man! What a feeling and what a fish. I had just landed my first Ai-tutaki bone; 33 inches from tip to fork that would be around 14 lb. according to Kaufman’s Bonefish Book.During the days I spent fishing with Butch, I was able to hook another +12 lb.

fish, drop a few others and I saw many more. Fish that were huge, the biggest ones were well over 15 lb.

TOUGH COOKIESThere is a drop -off near One Foot Island that has a strong current, and yes, you guessed it, multiple big fish cruising the drop. This place, as told by Butch, always holds big fish but they are very hard to catch as the current and deep water makes presentation really hard. Bonefishing in Aitutaki is far away from normal. The fish are huge, powerful and bloody hard to catch. My experience is that you will see 10 to 15 fish a day, cast to 5 - 10 fish and if you are lucky you will catch one. But trust me, it is well worth it. And if you are not up for it you can always target GTs and tunas, they are easier...

QUALITY. NOT QUANTITYThe thing with Bonefishing in Aitutaki is not the amount of fish but the size and power of them. These fish were F1 cars

compared to other bones I have fished, totally different in the way they move, eat and fight. I saw everyday fish around the 15-pound mark, and even bigger ones. If and when you go there, make sure you pack some heavy gear for these bad boys, big reels, heavier rods and big flies. Anything else and you will be ripped to pieces, either by a big bone-fish or GT that is stalking on the same flats..

LOVE AFFAIRAll in all, I fell in love with Aitutaki, the lagoon, the people and the fish. To this day, this was the best fishing I have en-countered. Big hard to catch aggressive fish in beautiful surroundings mixed with a few beers and a South Pacific sunset. What is there not to love?

Check my catches from the trip fromfishare.com/miksu

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It is always a celebration when we ven-ture out for the first time with a brand new rod series. Of course, we have been fishing long and hard with different pro-totypes, but it is something special to pull out the ready rod from the tube for the first cast.

TEST LAB IN PARADISENo wonder our expectations ran high when we travelled to Cuba’s fabled Jardines de la Reina to put our new Ve-nus rods to the real test with the area’s abundant tarpon, bonefish and permit populations. We had a full arsenal with us: #8 weights for plentiful bones, #10 weights for elusive permits and heavy crab flies, and #12 weights for acrobatic and sometimes very large tarpons.

WHITE IS BEAUTIFULLoading our rods on to the skiff roped to the mothership, or should I say

the floating hotel Tortuga, I detected amusement in the eyes of our experi-enced and friendly guide. I didn’t quite get the reason, not until the lodge manager confided that the guides were smiling at the pearly white colour of some of our rods. There were a number of friendly comments about our sexual “preferences” - having white Venus rods and white Deep reels for bonefishing. The novel, ergonomically shaped fly rod handle, called the D-profile, also earned an initial fair share of attention. However, after changeovers to test it thoroughly, opinions changed dramati-cally. At the end of the week, we were getting inquiries ”how do I get a Venus rod with a D-shape handle?”

D-SHAPEThe original motivation for the design of this novel fly fishing rod handle was the observation that the majority of fly fish-

ermen, while casting with traditional fly rods, hold their hands partly on top of the reel seats. This feels uncomfortable. When one combines this with a sweaty hand or a sun lotion soaked cork handle- which both require extra grip to prevent rotation - it is easy to understand where we got the idea to design a more ergo-nomically viable fly rod handle - one where the handle would extend on top of the reel seat and which would help us to provide a firm and easy grip. During the design process it became evident that the cross section of the improved handle should not be round but rather the shape of an egg, making it a better fit to the angler’s hand. While shaping the handle and refining the visual aspect, the cross sec-tion profile started to resemble the let-ter D. Hence the title D-shape.

by the Vision staff

Christeninga new rod

series called

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THE HARD PARTTesting the Venus series required us to comprehensively cruise the now famil-iar Jardines de la Reina fishing grounds and enjoy the incredible variety of game fish species. In addition to daily tarpons and bonefish we were getting loads of shots for permits and we had some close calls with them. Barracudas, jack crevalles, mutton snappers and several other species kept us busy when we were chasing the” Holy Grail” of salt-water flyfishing - the permit. Conditions were perfect for permit hunting and so I wasn’t that surprised when I heard from my guide that Jasper had hooked a good-sized specimen just a mile from our location. We let him fight the fish in peace and once Bemba informed us that the beauty had been landed we hurried there to congratulate the angler and to take some shots of the fish.

FULLFILLING THE DREAMAfter an extended period of high-fives the “red hot” boat was in pursuit of a even greater dream than landing a per-

mit. They were trying for a Grand Slam, which requires, besides a permit, land-ings of a bonefish and a tarpon on the same day. Lucky for them, Jardines de la Reina is one of the best places in the world to do just that. So, after a quick tarpon from the edge of mangroves and a small bonefish from one of Bemba’s numerous bonefish haunts, the deed was done and it was celebration time for the whole group on board Tortuga. Vision World Team member Jasper was the Man of the Evening. And quite right-ly so. Grand Slamming is something special. And on this occasion Extra Spe-

cial because Jasper did it with a brand new rod series on its debut outing. The statistics were positively sumptuous:

BONEFISH WITH #8 VENUSPERMIT WITH #10 VENUSTARPON WITH #12 VENUS

Every now and then, dreams come true. This time it happened to Jasper and to our brand new rod series. Venus was her name. Damn, I have always wanted to say that...

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Key West, the southernmost point of the continental USA, is home to passionate tarpon hunters who, like the migratory tarpons, return every spring to fish the emerald green waters of this legendary saltwater destination.

CHALLENGING VENUETarpon around Key West area are not the easiest fish to hook, mainly due to the extensive fishing pressure and active

boating traffic - jet-skis are particularly loved by inshore fishing guides. In con-trast to many remote locations, these fish will not hunt down your fly regard-less where and how you happened to slam it. If ever the term delicate pres-entation can be used in the context of tarpon fishing, this is the place.

SOMETIMES IT HAPPENSString after string of migratory fish will

come towards your boat and, being first in the line of boats, you will have the honour to be the one to offer your light-ly dressed, ridiculously tiny fly to these ancient predators. More often than not, you will either be completely ignored or you’ll spook the whole string. Every now and then, when the planets are in the right configuration, when your fly happens to land in the right place, and when the first twitches and strips have

by Mika Vainio / Vision World Team member

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the right rhythm, one of the big fish will turn slowly towards your fly. You try to control your nerves and listen to what the experienced guide tells you. If you succeed the fish will follow, speed up a little and then you’ll see a huge bucket open and close in a blink of an eye and then the fish turns to go back to the string. Whatever you do, do not lift your rod as you do when fishing for trout on your home waters. Just keep on strip-ping until you feel the weight of the fish. Then you can either do a proper strip-strike or just hold on the line as long as you can while the fish is bolting in some other direction.

FIGHT TILL YOU DROP The next thing you will notice is a huge silvery fish airborne and then all hell will break loose. Let the fish take all the line laying around but don’t let it get tangled around your reel, rod butt or your hand. Then just enjoy the ride, and

remember to bow to the Silver King in order to provide some slack line when the big fish lands back in the water. If you don’t bow, you might very well end up with a broken leader. Tarpon fishing is mostly all about getting some nice shots for incoming strings and hooking and jumping an odd fish every now and then. Fighting these big beasts can be tedious if you don’t know the basics of how to do that, or if your gear is not up to the task. You have to be able to trust your gear 100%, so that you can put heavy pressure on the fish constantly. You can’t rest or the fight will last a very long time indeed. Break the spirit of the fish and you can have her on the boat side within a reasonable amount of time. Let her rest and it will take ages. Good guides will talk you through the whole procedure, so don’t worry.

NON FISHING ACTIVITIESAfter an exciting day on the water, your guide will bring you back to one of the

several marinas near the town. You are free to practise some other favourite holiday activities like having a dinner in one of the several first-class seafood restaurants found in Key West. Then the options are - either going back to the hotel to tie some new flies for the next day, or going out to enjoy the vibrant atmosphere in the town’s numerous clubs and bars. Sloppy Joe and Green Parrot, although usually pretty heavily crowded, are good places to visit. Al-most every older bar in the town claims to be the favourite haunt of the late nov-elist-hunter-fisherman-larger-than-life Ernest Hemingway. If you want be sure that you have been sitting where Papa used to spend his time, you better visit his former house, currently named the Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum located at 907 Whitehead Street. Or you can skip all the above, grab a hamburger somewhere and go night fishing for tar-pon. Strongly recommended but highly addictive.

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1. Venus rods, 2. HDC Varioverse reel, 3. XLA reel, 4. Travel tube, 5. Love handles, 6. Heavy pliers, 7. Prisma fluorocarbon, 8. Chill shirt, 9. Classic cap, 10. Muddler sunglasses

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“People think I’m a little crazy, in most cases anyway when it comes to fly-fishing for pike.”-Niklaus Bauer / Vision World Team member

CHAPTER

Photo: Patrik Johansson

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SPEED JACKET

SILVER ROD

THE VEGETARIAN

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Flyfishing for mullet is the closest we anglers here in Scandinavia get to tropi-cal flats fishing. Warm days, low water, sight fishing, broken leaders and lost fish are just some of the ingredients in this pursuit. The mullet is an extreme fighter, easy to scare, and can grow grey hair on even the youngest angler when rejecting a perfectly placed fly for the 527th time on the same day. Flyfishing for mullet is probably one of the most exciting and nerve wrecking types of fishing we have, but also the most ad-dictive and even obsessive. Flyfishing for mullet is gonna keep you awake at night, you are gonna be dragging your whole family around different beaches looking for this fish and calling in sick at work when conditions are perfect. If you dare to take up the challenge with the mysterious mullet, I promise, you won’t be disappointed!

A MIGRATORY SPECIESSometime during May, the mullet en-ters Scandinavian areas from its winter “vacation” in the south and warmer wa-ters. This spectacular fish stays through-out the whole summer and the season ends sometime in September /October depending on your location.

WHERE TO FIND THEM?Mullet can often be found in small, groups from just a couple of fish or schools of several fish, both in very shallow water, reefs and harbours. This may sound as if they can be found eve-rywhere, however, there are some facts you should have in mind while search-ing and fishing for mullet.

FOLLOW THE TIDESThe tide, when does it peak? On some locations you can more or less be cer-

tain that there will be no fish until the water level rises there won’t be any feeding activity until there’s a change in the water level.

SUN, FRIEND OR ENEMY?Mullet can be found in all types of weather, but sunny, bright days make it a lot easier to locate the fish. But remem-ber, if you are fishing low waters, having the sun behind you can help you locate the fish, but that your shadow over the water will spook every fish present.

KEEP A FISHING DIARYMy best advice is to write all your obser-vations down; you will soon see a pat-tern emerging of where mullet is situat-ed on any given day. Remember, it’s not guaranteed that the locations where the mullet are found in early summer will produce the same result in midsum-mer or fall. One thing you can be almost sure of, once you have seen mullet in a specific area, they will appear again, the question is just, when?

PRESENTATION IS EVERYTHINGWhen you find the fish, especially at low water, don’t hesitate. It’s important that you take your time, observe their feeding routes, and start to fish when you think you know how they are mov-ing. Often the difficult part is not to get them to take the fly, but presenting the fly close enough without scaring any fish. The perfect cast is placed in front of the fish, in the line of where it is mov-ing, far enough for the fly to sink down in front of the mullet, but close enough so it won’t sink too far and without scar-ing the fish. Sounds difficult, no a chal-lenge!

FEW WORDS ABOUT THE TACKLEThe equipment used for this kind of fishing is not far away from what we are used to in seatrout fishing. Rods from #6 to #8, a good reel with a reliable brake, floating line and a good amount of backing. Mostly I use a fluorocarbon leader or at least a fluorocarbon tippet with a diameter around 0.20 0.26mm. Sometimes it can be a good idea to grease up your whole leader except the last part and use it as a “strike indica-tor”.

GREEN FOR THE VEGETARIANSThe mullet is considered a vegetar-ian and therefore most likely to feed on seaweed or other vegetable mat-ter found in the water, and our flies are made with these aspects in mind. Green or flour green flies of only marabou tied on a single or even better a treble hook in different sizes are very often the right choice. Other patterns like a traditional “Red tag” or hackle flies are also very useable. Even if the mullet should be a vegetarian (it’s not entirely true) every now and then worms and small fish get onto the menu, so sometimes imita-tions of these, or simply speeding up your fly can be effective. Sometimes just placing your fly and letting it sink, without moving it, will induce a take. Other times you need to retrieve your fly, slow or fast, for the fish to be inter-ested.

BE WARNEDNo matter when you hook you first, if it’s on your first day or after 10 years, I know for sure that you will be spending most of your fishing during the summer chas-ing this mysterious fish the MULLET.

by Steffan Jensen / Vision World Team member

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The first thing I want to tell you about fishing sea bass in Belgium is - it isn’t easy! Maybe you can compare it to salmon fishing. The amount of effort and time you have to put in it is huge! But saying this, the satisfaction you get catching a truly wild fish in a gigantic body of water like the North Sea is also huge. This is a very demanding way of fly fishing, where the time spent fishing is more important than the fly that you use.

ON THE FLYWe started experimenting on our Bel-gian coast about five years ago. Know-ing the fish were there it was our job to figure out a way of catching them with the fly. There are several aspects you have to consider when you want to go fishing for sea bass. Wind force and di-rection, tides and water temperature are not the least important of these.

SHORELINE FEEDERSThe Belgian coast line isn’t very long and it is always sandy. We don’t have any cliffs or rocks. To protect our shores from erosion our whole coastline is re-inforced with manmade wave breakers. At low tide these wave breakers still provide enough depth in water to en-tice the sea bass to come in and feed close to the shore line. Tides are the most important thing; you have to take notice when they are turning. At high tide the wave breakers are completely submerged. About two hours before low tide the rocks will start appearing and you can start wading in between the formations. Always keep an eye on the incoming waves! I have to say, this way of fishing is not without danger! If you are not sure about anything just wait

until the sea has gone down a bit more. Due to the sandy shore the sea is always brown coloured so you won’t see where you are walking. Frequent storms and strong currents also move the rocks that you are wading on. So one day you can wade on a wave breaker without a prob-lem, while the next day it won’t be the waves alone that will break.

START EARLY, STAY LATEKeeping the potential danger in mind try to start fishing as soon as possible. At the end of low tide and the beginning of high tide currents are at their strong-est and the sea bass are very active. So if you start very early and stay as long as possible (not coastguard-calling long!) you will have more chance of catching fish. Always be happy if you catch one, but days of three or more are no excep-tion.

HIGH SUMMER HI-JINKSThe sea bass season runs from late April up to October. They need at least 15°C water temperature. It is a slow growing species that lives in big schools when young (up to 25cm). Bigger fish live in smaller groups of about three to ten fish. The biggest fish live a solitary life. The average fish caught in Belgium on the fly is about 40-50cm. In the months of July and August fishing is at its best and fish are well fed. In these condi-tions a 50cm fish will test your gear and nerves! Their favourite food is crabs. These are very plentiful and easy to pick up as they get swept out of between the rocks due to the tidal currents. At this moment the record caught on the fly is 82cm! But a 65cm is a real trophy.

SINKING LINESFishing the North Sea requires good

by Mitch Pans

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and reliable equipment. We mostly use a 9ft 9# rod in combination with a sink 7 shooting head line. Why the sink lines I will explain later. A good saltwater re-sistant reel with a medium capacity of backing and a good brake. My set-up exists out of a new Venus D-grip with a GT79 reel, and the line is custom made. Always be sure to have a spare spool with the same flyline. You will lose fly-lines that get stuck in the sharp rocks! For leader I use a 0.50mm fluorocar-bon with a 0.32mm tippet line. We use this heavy set-up to keep our battle to a minimum. Sea bass tend to stay down on the bottom as long as possible, rub-bing your leader and flyline against the rocks. Getting the fish fast out of the water requires the heavy rod and leader. 0.50mm fluorocarbon is stronger than most flyline cores and that’s why I use a thinner tippet line. If I get stuck and have to pull my fly free, the tippet line will prevent me pulling so hard that the flyline would snap. Another op-tion is to use double handed rods. The Switch and Salt series in a 10 weight fits

perfectly in this picture. A pair of heavy duty Mako shoes and a wader that you can pull tight against your body like my old Gillie or the new Opas wader com-pletes my gear. I use a kayak type jacket which has a large rubber band that seals the water against the wader. This allows me to wade to the water at neck height. (the sooner you can fish the better). Oh, and before I forget, use a stripping bas-ket at all times!

BANG ON BITES!When you are all geared up, the only thing do is start fishing. Because of the heavy currents, we use the sinking lines to get our flies (usually deerhair crab imitations) to the bottom. That is the main feeding zone the sea bass are in. We tie all our patterns on circle hooks. They don’t get stuck easily and when they do, a little wobble with the rod tip gets the hook free. A stop and pull or even figure of eight retrieve work very well. But also big deceiver type stream-ers will catch fish. It’s always a case of searching and testing different ways of

fishing once you are up there. Like I said earlier, sometimes you catch a great number of fish and sometimes you will go a week without a bite. They come in with the tide, feed between the rocks and go out with the tide. One thing is for sure, a bite is always Bang On! Followed by violent head shaking. If the fish are not biting it’s always nice to be fishing at the beach in summer. Maybe you will see a seal fishing, or some nice girls windsurfing.

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PROFILEFlyfishing since I was eight years old on holiday in the Bel-gian Ardennes, I was classically taught dry and original Belgian wet fly fishing on my home river the Semois. Fishing as much as possible when I was there visit-ing my grandma I soon got com-pletely hooked on flyfishing, even though I didn’t catch much! Spending most of my pocket money on flies, my mom had the brilliant idea of giving me a tying set for Christmas when I was 11 years old. I really didn’t do any-thing else but tying and flyfish-ing from then (of course, when I was 16 women became of more interest!). I learned to perfect my tying skills in our local club and also did some masterclasses with several great flytiers. At 18 I gained my driver’s licence, and that is when I really began my career of fishing in lakes and riv-ers all over Europe. Trout always being my favourite species to catch I joined Tight Lines Fish-ing Club in my home town and started to fish a lot of lake com-

petitions. I learned a lot of tricks from top anglers. As the fish-ing virus took over my common sense I also started to work for VDS flyfishing Tackle. We have our own brand of fly tying ma-terials “Fly Scene” and we are the distributor for Vision in Bel-gium, Holland, Luxemburg, Ger-many and France! I love working in this industry although it isn’t easy at times. But I really dig the Vision approach to flyfish-ing and I think that’s what keeps me so driven. I recently got the responsibility as a sales rep. for Belgium and France, bring-ing the Vision brand and way of flyfishing closer to the custom-ers. But I keep well occupied taking orders, repairing reels, making fly tying packages, etc. in our home office in Belgium. Working in the flyfishing indus-try I gained a lot of knowledge concerning tying materials and fishing equipment. The clothing and layering systems we have for this season have my special attention. You know when you get wet or cold, fishing time is

over, no matter what kind of rod or line you are using. I am the resident teacher at our club and give demos all over Belgium and Europe at shows or clubs. I’ve also had my first taste of guiding some people and teaching them as much as I can about fishing. These things certainly give me a taste for more! I’ve always loved dry fly fishing on rivers, stripping streamers on reservoirs or even playing a crab fly for Belgian sea bass. But lately I have taken an interest in double hand casting and, who knows, maybe I will try salmon fishing. A couple of things that remain on my list are fishing for bonefish and maybe going on a jungle adventure stripping popper flies for pea-cock bass. So much cool stuff to do and strong fish to catch. One thing is for sure - there is nothing better than watching a nice brownie rising under a tree, casting, hooking and releasing it back in its home river. Or maybe watching my son doing the same in a few years’ time?

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Once you get one it will be your fishing buddy for the rest of your life. These reels are a combination of an idiot (and water)-proof drag system, lightweight top quality materials and a fast spool chang-ing system. This year they’ve got a new, super hard anodized sur-face on them. The new design also has two-tone colour, curved spool legs and added capacity on the 6/7 and the 9/10 sizes. Six sizes to cover your needs. In sizes 6/7 and 8/9 the spools and frames are interchangable.

This year we introduce two new (old) colours: the orange and the electric blue.

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By the beginning of June the big salmon are starting to run in the northern rivers of Sweden. Fly-fishermen are starting to crawl out of hiding and head upstream. Instead, I go in the opposite direction, pull up my waders, grab a line basket and my pike rods and head for the coast, Big Mamas with a thousand teeth and full of bad intentions have spawned, are hungry and will eat almost anything. In my head the thought goes (and I have probably said it a few times) that salmon is great pike food, or Sushi maybe?

WHY PIKE?Most of the salmon fishermen tell me - wait until you catch a big salmon on the fly, then you will stop fishing for your

green slime and realize what fly fishing is all about! I have done that - and so what? Is there a better thing then wad-ing out in a shallow cove, casting your bird size fly as far as possible and letting it soak for a few seconds, and after a few pulls seeing three or four monsters with fury in their eyes trying to kill it. I tell you salmon fishermen, when you catch your first 40 inch pike in shallow water you will see what fly fish-ing is all about.

PLACESRiver mouths and coves are my favour-ite places. Up north pike follow the burbot when it goes in for spawning in small rivers and creeks in October. If you are there at the right time in the river mouth you will be a lucky pike bum. Big fish that have come up from the deep to feast on the Burbot in shallow water are something you will remember and try to come back to over and over again.

COVESI have a place I call comfort cove and in the past it was somewhere, if everything else failed, we could always catch 10 fish or more.My favourite coves are the ones that are the hardest to get to - if you need to drag a boat through thick weed or break a prop to get there then they are good. These coves , called “Marer” in Swedish , have their own ecosystem and attract big fish. Such places will not yield you 30 fish or more on a day, but they will get you on to really big fish.

MOONBark at the moon! Mr Ozzy sang that,

and that is what you can do if it is full, but forget pike fishing. When the moon is invisible, a few days before the new moon, then it is the time to go pike fish-ing.

GEARRods I fish and love are the Big Daddy 8’4” # 9 and the 9 foot 9 and 10 weight, if you load these up with Big Daddy Lines in all densities you are good to go. The non-stretch core in these lines has increased the number of landed fish a lot and the cool thing is that you can actually feel when a pike takes your fly and swims against you, nasty feeling! But whatever you do, don’t leave home without your line basket.

FLIESI just love pike flies, big nasty ones and

by Niklaus BauerFly-Dressing / Vision World Team Member

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by Niklaus BauerFly-Dressing / Vision World Team Member

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great fun to tie. In the last few years I have converted to tube flies, and it is for two reasons - durability and hook posi-tion. I have flies that have landed more the 100 fish and still look okay, okay maybe not, but I have changed hooks on them many times. On hook position, long flies and just one hook in the front is not a good combination; you will miss a lot of fish in cold water when they are just nib-bling at the back of the fly. Today I use a stinger on my flies and I only take it away when the pike is super aggressive and slamming the flies like crazy.

COLOURSBig Mamas don’t like small pike, except for food, so naturally green and green/gold are great. But it is all up to where you fish. If the water is dark and dirty you need to have a bright fly with a lot of flashabou in it, if you are fishing crystal clear water you should be gentle on the bright colours and the amount of flash you put in your patterns.

I use a lot of Sheephead patterns that move a lot of water and that is some-thing that has worked very well. So grab your gear, untie your

boat or pull up your waders and go Big Mama hunting. You will have the thrill of your life. For fly-tying movies and hook rigs flydressing.se

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I want to introduce a pattern which be-longs to the family of the popper and slider - the Gurgler. I fish this surface-fly in various colours mostly for asp and perch. Pike are also very interested in this attractive model, because it is very tempting when pulled with fast moves at the water surface. It is a very interest-ing and exciting fishing and therefore you can attract predators to the surface and to bite. Have fun with this pattern!

Hook: Wide gap streamer hook #4-6. I have used a saltwater shrimp hook like Buyan C870 or Partridge C54. Hooks for popper pattern, like stinger-hooks works fine too.Thread: White GSP 50 or Dyneema Tail: Buck tail green and 8 strands of Crystal flash pearlBody: “FlyScene” Crystal chenille black, Ice hackle chenille pearlOverbody: “FlyScene” Wild foam bee-tle greenLegs: Rubber or Silicon Legs, red and white

by Stefan Bauer / Vision World team member

Tying InstructionsSTEP 1

Place the hook in the vice and wrap a foundation of thread from eye to the point above the hook point. If you like it you can secure with varnish. Now tie in a bundle of aligned green buck tail and strands of Crystal flash along the hook length

STEP 2In front of the hook tie in an 8mm wide stripe of Wild foam. Cut on end at first to a V-shape. So it’s easier to tie in. Above the hook point tie in Crystal and Ice hackle chenille and twist them together to a robe.

STEP 3Wrap the thread forward to middle of the shank. Now wrap the chenille robe to the eye and back to the thread. Tie the robe off.

STEP 4Fold the foam stripe back as shown in the picture and take one wrap under light tension, the thread may cut the foam. Add additional wraps over the first one, you can tie with heavier tension. Cut the end of foam to shape as shown in the pictures.

STEP 5Tie in two 5cm lengths of leg material at each side of the Gurgler and tie off the fly in the middle of the body. The fly pat-tern is now ready.

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1. Big Daddy rod, 2. GT reel, 3. Deep reel, 4. Heavy pliers, 5. Big Daddy flylines, 6. Speed wading jacket, 7. Bib & Brace trousers8. Thermal pro overall, 9. First skin, 10. Face Polartec Mask

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Cover shot: Martin Sommar. Photos: Yoshi Aoki, Gesa Aschoff, Niklaus Bauer, Stefan Bauer, Kalle Bergdahl, James Christmas, Rob Edmunds, James Fern, Juha-Matti Hakala, Mikko Halonen, Tuomas Heinonen, Steffan Jensen, Per Jobs, Jussi Koivunen, Teppo Korsman, Esko Lahtinen, Butch Leone, Jonas Lindkvist, Christian Mammi, Toni Muranyi, Joonas Oksanen, Mitch Pans, Fraser Perry, Kimmo Piispa, Antti Pirinen, Jasper Pääkkönen, Rob Russell, Tuomas Rytkönen, Kasperi Salo, Ismo Siippainen, Martin Sommar, Olli Toivonen, Teemu Tolonen, Jorma Vainio, Mika Vainio, Olli-Mikael Vaittinen, Antti Vappula, Pasi Visakivi, Monte Ward

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CULT, 4-PIECE8’ #4 | 9’ #4 | 9’ #5 | 9’ #6 | 9’ #7 | 9’6” #8CULT, 3-PIECE8’6” #2 | 10’ #2 | 7’6” #3 | 10’ #3 | 10’8” #39’6” #4 | 10’ #4 | 11’1” #4 | 10’ #5

MAG, 4-PIECE9’ #3-4 | 9’ #4-5 | 9’ #5-6 | 9’ #6-710’ #3-4 | 10’ #4-5 | 10’ #5-6 | 10’ #6-7 | 10’ #7-8

ATTACK, 3-PIECE8’ #3 | 8’ #4 | 9’ #4 | 9’ #5 | 9’ #6 | 9’6” #7 | 10’ #7 | 9’ #8

NITE, 2 AND 4-PIECE6’6” #3 | 7’6” #3 | 7’ #4 | 8’ #5 | 8’6” #5 | 9’ #5 | 10’ #59’ #6 | 9’ #7 | 9’6” #7 | 10’ #7 | 9’ #8 | 9’6” #8

NITE CATAPULT, 3-PIECE9’ #5-6 | 9’ #6-7 | 9’6” #6-7 | 9’6” #7-8 | 9’6” #8-910’ #3-4 | 10’ #4-5 | 10’ #5-6 | 10’ #6-7 | 10’ #7-8Nite Catapult SW, 3-piece9’ #7-8 | 9’ #8-9 | 9’ #9-10

CULT FIBER, 3-PIECE5’9” #3-4 | 6’6” #4-5 | 7’6” #5-6 | 7’6” #7-8

GTFOUR, 3-PIECE7’ #3 | 7’ #4 | 8’ #4 | 9’ #4 | 8’6” #5 | 9’ #5 | 9’ #5 | 10’ #59’ #6 | 9’6” #6 | 10’ #6 | 9’6” #7 | 10’ #7 | 10’ #8

SILVER, 3-PIECE, 9’ #6 | 9’ #7

VENUS SW, 4-PIECE9’ #6 | 9’ #7 | 9’ #8 | 9’ #9 | 9’ #10 | 9’ #12VENUS SW WHITE, 4-PIECE9’ #6 | 9’ #9Venus SWS, 4-piece, 9’ #8 | 9’ #9 | 9’ #10 | 9’ #12Venus SWS White, 4-piece, 9’ #8 | 9’ #9 | 9’ #10

BIG DADDY, 4-PIECE, 9’ #8 | 8`4” #9 | 9’ #9 | 9’ #10

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NITE CATAPULT DH12’8” #7-8 / 29g | 12’2” #8-9 / 31g | 13’7” #9-10 / 34g 14’9” #10-11 / 37g

CULT DH12’6” #6 / 23-29g | 12’6” #7 / 26-31g | 13’4” #7 / 29-31g13’2” #8 / 29-34g | 13’8” #9 / 31-37g | 14’7” #9 / 31-37g15’2” #10 / 34-40g | 7’8” 10-12 / 40g +

SIKS13’4” #7 / 26-31g | 15’2” #10 / 34-40g

SWITCH10’11” #6 / 23g | 10’11” #7 / 26g10’11” #8 / 29gSwitch & Salt10’11” #10 / 34g | 10’11” #12 / 40g

ATOM13’ #8-9 / 31g

GTFOUR DH CATAPULT13’ #9 / 31g | 14’ #10 / 34g | 15’ #11 / 37gGTfour DH Catapult Switch | 11’6” #7 / 26g

125

NITE45 | 56 | 78 | 911

GT24 | 45 | 56 | 67 | 79 | 11

KOMA56 | 67 | 78

KOMA Plus56 | 78

DEEP Black, Grey and White56 | 78 | 910 | 11B

ATTACK46 | 68

KOMA Kasette78 | 11

HDC Varioverse79 | 911 | 1113

CDC34 | 56 | 78 Silver and 56 Gold

RENFORS 3, 79 |RENFORS 4, 911

XLA Hard45 | 56 | 67 | 89 | 910 | 11 | 56 Orange | 89 Blue

126

shootingheads

127

128

KURAOPAS EEROIKON

MAKO HOPPER

KURAOPAS ATOM

SPEED VECTOR

SUBZERO

BIB & BRACE

129

POWER HOODIE MICRO TOPWIND PRO POWER ZIP

SUBZERO

POWERTROUSERS

THERMAL PROTROUSERS

FIRST SKINTHERMAL PROOVERALL

MEGA BRAMYCKET BRA MINI BRALOVE HANDLESCARIBOU

130

Photo: Jussi Koivunen

Vision Group HQNiinistönkatu 1,

05800 Hyvinkää, Finlandvisionflyfishing.com

Tel: +358 9 2797 610

Emails: [email protected]

[email protected]@visiongroup.fi

SERBIATravar D.O.O.Marka Miljanova 121000 Novi Sad

SOUTH KOREASpider Fly Shop# 449-4, Gambuk-DongHanam-city456-819 Gyeonggi-Do82-2-477-3333

SPAINDeportes LandaC/Picasso, 348012 BilbaoTel: 34-94-422 18 01Fax: 34-94 421 79 [email protected]

SWEDENFly-Dressing ABFanergatan 1856633 HaboTel: 46 (0)36 46095Fax: 46 (0)36 [email protected]

UKRAINERibolov Servis LtdKolektorna Str. 24/2602160 KievTel: 380 44 562 7742Fax: 380 44 562 [email protected]

UNITED KINGDOMand IRELANDGuide Flyfishing LtdUnit 5, Moor Lane Trading EstateBishopdyke Road, Sherburn In ElmetLS25 6ES LeedsTel: 01977 681300Fax: 01977 [email protected]

ARGENTINAThe South American Angling CompanySan Martin 917Rio GallegosSanta CruzZIP 9400ArgentinaTel: +54 2966 439233Fax: +54 2966 [email protected] www.visionflyfishing.com.ar

AUSTRALIA and NEW ZEALANDClarkson Imports & Dist Pty Ltd1 Naismith CourtRowville. Vic. 3178Tel: 03 9755 5377Fax: 03 9755 [email protected]

AUSTRIA, SWITZERLANDHurch Flyfishing GmbhKuglhofstr. 18A-5020 Salzburg, AustriaTel: 43 662 834427Fax: 43 662 [email protected]

BELARUSSIASalmo Belfishing LtdRevolucionnaya Str. 20 A210001 VitebskTel: +375 296 860 098

BENELUX and GERMANYVDS Fly Fishing TackleLiersesteenweg 29BE-2221 BooischotBelgiumTel: +32 1522 5893Fax: +32 1522 [email protected]

CANADAFish Brooks Tackle810 Herring Cove RoadB3R-2M6 Halifax Nova [email protected]

CHECH REPUPLICHurch Flyfishing GmbhKuglhofstr. 18A-5020 Salzburg, AustriaTel: 43 662 834427Fax: 43 662 [email protected]

DENMARKFly-Dressing ABFanergatan 1856633 Habo, SvedenTel: 46 (0)36 46095Fax: 46 (0)36 [email protected]

ESTONIAGone Fishing LtdTel: [email protected]

FINLANDVision Group LtdNiinistönkatu 105800 HyvinkääTel: 358 (0)9 2797 610Fax: 358 (0)9 2796 [email protected]

FRANCEVDS Fly Fishing TackleLiersesteenweg 29BE-2221 BooischotBelgiumTel: +32 1522 5893Fax: +32 1522 [email protected]

HUNGARYEnergofish Ltd.Helsinki Str. 751201 BudapestTel: 36-1-283 2285Fax: 36-1-421 0181

ITALYOld Captain S.r.l.Via Varese 4721052 Busto Arsizio (Va)Tel: 39 0331 382420Fax: 39 0331 [email protected]

JAPANCaps Corporation2-12-19 Shinmori Asahi-KuOsaka 535-0022Tel: +81 6 6955 2066Fax: +81 6 6958 [email protected]

LATVIASalmo LtdDaugavgrivas 31 A STRLV1007 RigaTel: 371 7467954Fax: 371 [email protected]

LITHUANIASalmolita UabJonavas 254KaunasTel: +370 37 337 [email protected]

POLANDVision PolskaGeneralne Przedstawicielstwo30-418 Krakówul. Zakopiańska 58 Tel: +48 (0) 12 296 41 70Fax: +48 (0) 12 296 41 [email protected]

ROMANIAEnergofish Ltd.Helsinki Str. 751201 BudapestTel: 36-1-283 2285Fax: 36-1-421 0181Венгрия

RUSSIA“Vision Rus” Ltd Saint-Petersburg, Torfyanaya Doroga 7,BC ”Gulliver”, office #704+7812 4412565tel/fax [email protected]

SLOVENIJAHurch Flyfishing GmbhKuglhofstr. 18A-5020 Salzburg, AustriaTel: 43 662 834427Fax: 43 662 [email protected]

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