Man, that felt good! (Bohan part 1)

I’m back, and I can’t even describe how good it felt to be out there fishing for 12 days in one of the most beautiful regions we still have left here in Belgium!

I’ve fished (and tied) a lot (and I did a lot of thinking as well), so more posts will follow.

So for now, let’s just start with the beginning.

 

This was my home for the last 12 days. I know, not so many people can say that their car is bigger than their home, but that will change, because I’m already looking out for a bigger tent, especially since I’ve booked a place on this camping site for the whole season (which also means that I’ll be going there a lot more this year!).

 

And as you can see, I practically had the whole place to myself (which is the best way to go camping, if you ask me).

The first weekend, I had these neighbours though. This was a course for living and cooking outdoors, and to teach the basics of canoeing. I spent some time with them before and after the course, and they were really great people. You can find more about their survival and outdoor courses (mostly in Norway, Lapland and Canada) on www.canad.be .

You can also find a youtube film on their site of a canoe trip they did on the river Semois (which is the river I’m fishing in) from a couple of years ago.

But, of course, I took some pictures myself.

But fishing is the main reason I’m going over there, and it was very difficult, which often makes fishing even more fun (if you have the time to experiment).

I only took a few pictures of the trout I caught. One, because most of the fish I catch never even leave the water to unhook them. Two, because all of the trout were between 24 and 30 cm (with one exception of 32 cm), which are not exactly specimens worth taking pictures of. And three, I always arrived by the water with all the fishing equipment I needed, but mostly left my camera either in my car or in my tent.

 

I took a picture of this one though, to show all of the leeches it had on the tail and fins (click on the picture to enlarge). This indicates that the fish were still very near the bottom (some even had a lot more leeches, and sometimes even inside their mouth).

So it all came down to nymphs and wet flies. And I must say that at the moment (you are only aloud to fish from the bank of the river), that’s not my favourite way of fishing.

 

The last five days I was there, there were these huge hatches in the evening of the Grannom
(a small sedge), but you just didn’t see any fish rise (no trout, no chub, nothing), so fishing a dry fly was out of the question too.

 

Luckily, I came prepared. I had enough material with me to experiment. And since I’m mainly a predatory angler,

I focused on streamers (which is a lot more active way of fishing from the bank of the river).

 

So at night, my tent became my small tying room.

The only restriction was the fact that the hook had to be less than 2 cm long (another one of those strange fishing laws at the beginning of the season).

 

So after a lot of tying and fishing, these two became my favourites. In fact, the last couple of days, I only fished with these two, and both of them at the same time (the white one on the tip, and the orange one on a dropper).

I’ve used rabbit zonker (orange/tan) and muskrat (white). And both have a 3,8 mm tungsten in the head.

 

But the real adventurous fishing was in this little water. But that will be for a next post…