Viking Lars | Saturday, 17 August 2024
Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, they say. More than that beauty can be defined in many ways, which in this case speaks to my advantage. I’ve spent hundreds of hours fishing through the night and I really still enjoy it, but the reality of family, work and other interests just means that I rarely do it any more. I used to be able to come home after sunrise, catch a few hours of sleep and remain functioning the rest of the day. Not so any more, so it’s rare these days, although it happens. That’s one of the reasons I always look forward to August. First of all the sea trout are fully on the run up river and night falls early. That means that I can still get a good few hours of fishing into the darkness, come home and not be completely dysfunctional the following day (I was never good at sleeping in).
A long evening and early night in the river valley with little or no wind and preferably a cloudy sky (I should go fishing to night) is a wonderful experience on its own, but also good fishing weather. An old and time tested, highly effective and exciting way of fishing is casting big flies across the river, letting them swing producing a bulge. Sometimes you’ll see sea trout leaving the opposite bank to follow the fly, often only to reject it as it comes into your own bank. Sometimes they’ll hammer it as soon as it starts swinging. Sometimes so hard that if it wasn’t for the pull on the line, it would be hard to tell the difference between the take and someone having dropped a refrigerator from a helicopter.
Many, many flies have been developed for this method over the decades and this is where I get back to the headline. See, I’ve always said that fish should be caught on beautiful flies. What’s beautiful? In the eyes of the beholder, but none the less I’d say that most of my flies contain some degree of objective beauty. All of them, but one. The one exception is in today’s PoD - “Kosten”. “Kosten” translates directly to “The Broom”. The fly was invented by Danish fly tier and fly fisher (and *very* succesful coarse fisherman as well) Peter Rødsgaard Jensen. It is by far the ugliest fly in any of my boxes. I can say this here, because I’ve also told Peter the same thing on several occasions.
However, and this is where I *really* get back to the headline, I simply redefine beauty as efficient. This fly is efficient and designed with the sole purpose of bulging and pushing water. It’s apparent why and how. The name obviously refers to the shape, but certainly also the fact that it really can sweep up sea trout.
I have some evening/early night fishing planned next week and wanted a few more in the box. Let me repeat something I’ve set before in the context. As I was digging out the materials I was reminded once again to buy plenty once you find good, natural materials. Buck tail especially. It’s easy enough to get, but good quality is very hard to find. I missed the opportunity in April, when I visited Scotland and fished with Sean Stanton, the famous ghillie on the Dee. He runs a fly tying business as well and he carries buck tail in really good quality. I was shopping for nayat, which he also carries in really good quality and it’s hard to get in Denmark, so I forgot all about the bucktail. The black bucktail in this fly is really poor quality, which the fish cares nothing about, but I do.
I have some tied and ready now, so I thought I’d share it here, since it’s an odd construction and an excellent fly. Even if it’s (objectively) ugly. Sorry, Peter :-).
Tie some and try them on your local river as dusk falls. It’s exciting and fun.
Have a great weekend!
Lars
PoD: “Kosten” - The Broom.
Tube: Pro Sportfisher Classic Tube.
Thread: Orange 6/0 Uni.
Butt: Blue GloBrite.
Rib: Blue Mini FlashBraid from Lagartun.
Body: Originally flat silver tinsel, here flat Opal Mirage.
Hackle: Blue.
Wing: Black over blue bucktail, tied collar style. Pearl and blue flash.
That’s it. A straight forward tying. If you cut the broom at an angle the fly will get a more erratic behaviour as it swings.