Möhne river Germany, April 30th.

[Marcel_Karssies]

On April 30th I was on another trip to the Möhne river.
Instead of directly hitting the water we visited the fly-shop to pick up our licenses and stock up on gear.
I need a net to decently land fish at the stretches of the river with the steep clay banks, to bad the shop was out of stock.
My intentions where to fish the shallow river parts so the net was not an item I needed directly.

It had been raining quite heavy in the previous days so we asked the staff how the river fished. We where told that the high waters had receded, the water was still a bit off colour though.
We got the advice to fish the upper stretch with streamers and
sinking lines. I still intended to fish my 6ft. #5, nymphing in the overgrown parts of the river where you could wade.



Low water at the Mohne.

On my way to my stretch I first fished a couple of minutes with the other guys at the so called senior citizen stretch (because there are no trees to hook on the backcast).
Fish where only present in one section and the bites where very subtle, almost like the shiners we fish for back home.
It did not take long for the first rainbow trout to hook up, despite the fish activity I decided to move on.
I noticed that the water level was pretty low, the parts where two week before fish rose where now so shallow that they would probably not hold fish.
There where to my surprise some rising fish but these where very small, probably not trout.


Mohne river.

I had to take quite a hike to find some deeper water, I was exactly at the same spot where I caught some nice rainbows on the last trip.
The pool in question yielded no fish but I noticed the racket of rising fish in front of me.
Under a tree a fish continuously rose, that was my target.
Since the fish rose irregular I continued fishing the nymphs.
After a few casts the fly landed directly on the target, the fish rose … and tried to eat my strike indicator.
In a reflex I struck but of course in vain.
A couple of casts a little upstream yielded an instant strike and I was into a nice rainbow trout.



Rainbow trout.

Some parts of the river where void of life, the part I was in was teeming with fish.
I had a couple more strikes on the strike indicator before I was into fish nr.3 of the day, a small brown trout.


Brown trout.

After a while I had the idea that the pools I fished could better be left alone to be visited later in the day.
I headed further upstream to fish the front of a large weir.
That place was always shallow and would be even more deprived of water now but the deeper water under the ledge could hide one or two fish.


The weir.

To the left of the weir a small bypass fed water to the river.
The majority of the water was led away above the weir to a nearby powerplant.
In the low water I could determine a long black shape, it moved thus it was a fish.
The nymphs I threw could not entice the fish so I tried it with the dry fly.
A balloon caddis was tied on and launched near the bypass inflow.
As soon as the fly landed on the water a rainbow trout shot in the air and dove on the fly, it missed.
It was not the fish I had seen before but it showed that even the skinny water could hold some fish.
Five casts later the same fish nailed the balloon caddis, fish nr. 4 of the day was a fact.


On the dry fly.

It was late in the afternoon by now so I backtracked to the other guys to get something to eat. My friends had fished the same place all day and had caught quite a few rainbow trout all on nymphs.
After lunch I headed back to the shallows, my friends stayed at their honey holes.
A second session through the deeper pools yielded a couple of takes but I could not stay connected to the fish.
I climbed onto the weir to fish the deep water above but with all the trees behind me And the lack of a good landing net to decently net the fish from the steep banks I called it quits.

I decided to fish the pools I had just left downstream with a black zonker streamer and then to my friends for a couple of last casts.
As soon as my streamer landed on the water a fish was on it, for a moment I was into a trout and then the line went slack.
That happened three times in a row and by then I figured I had scared all trout in that place for the day.
I joined my friends who had continued their success from earlier that day.
I fished the streamer in their section and had some fabulous fish hitting and missing the streamer.
At sunset I caught my last rainbow trout of the day, in the middle of the river on a black zonker streamer.
My buddies had both ten and eight trout that day, I had five.
In the fading light we sad goodbye to the river and vowed we would return … soon.

[golfinjoe24]

Nice report

[flynhokies]

sounds like a great day...i have been enjoying reading your reports...keep 'em coming