This poor dead 50 cm common nase (or nasel) was spotted today in the Sure. As it didn’t show any signs of being hurt by cormorant, etc., the question arises, what happened to him? One possibility is that it became another victim of the Esch-sur-Sure dam and sudden releases of water that are so deadly for every living creature in the Sure. It’s really a pity that 3 of the most important Luxembourgish rivers: Moselle, Sure and Alzette, were so badly managed in the last century. It’s difficult to imagine what the Sure was before the construction of the dam, the task is easier with the Moselle – one hour drive in France and you can already see a nice river which has not been canalised (with such a dreadful consequences).

This is a very big specimen and it is really a pity it had to die.

Calendar says we still have whole month of summer before us so the question remains valid. I recently read a section of the Orvis’ Guide to Fly-Fishing beginners (by Tom Rosenbauer) when it is argued that fishing in warm and shallow water is perfectly possible and even “can offer the most interesting fishing of the season”. The author gives a piece of advice how to succeed in these conditions, this can be summarised as follows:

• Fish at the dawn, when the water is coldest
• Keep your profile low and movements slow, wear camouflage clothing
• Look for fish in fast riffles or behind the boulders, don’t omit entries of tributary streams
• Use small flies, 18 size being maximum
• Light rods (below 5) and tippets

I can well subscribe to all this with the caveat that it doesn’t guarantee anything at all, at least in the local rivers. I know parts of the Upper Sure where no tricks can help you when the water temperature is above 20 degrees and the sun is shinning strong. Apart from it, don’t expect anything bigger than 20-23 cm in a water which looks like this:

Yes, I know some places where fish stay whole year but these are very rare and are normally overcrowded. I also noticed that sometimes when nothing else works trying natural size mayflies brings surprising effects, exactly in the summer. Nevertheless, hot summer is definitely the worst part of the trout season and I cannot really guess how can it be considered the ‘most interesting’ one.

I normally try to go at least once a year to Noteć Forest (Puszcza Notecka) in Poland, an area said to be the least populated in Europe. This can be true, judging from the map:

There, without any effort, you’ll see castors, eagles, cranes, etc. Fish are also there but the summer time is not the best one for fly-fishing, as we all know it. However, I did take two rods, 8 and 4 strong this time. Unfortunately, the conditions in my lakes were hopeless, high temperatures all the time, water at 28 degrees Celsius, so I had no choice but to do some spin fishing. Pikes were completely passive, except for the ones like this:

Perches were much more active but only around 5 a.m., no mercy ;). I had some decent ones like this below:

 But the biggest surprise was when I did some worm fishing at the end:

I had some nice tenches, the fish I caught only once before, in Echternach lake. They are said to be very cautious but these ones were quite aggressive and took the worms like crazy. All were returned to the water, I was probably only one there practicing C&R but anyway. The question is now where one can regularly fish tenches in Luxembourg and how to do it with dryflies?

I often fish with a colleague who has longer experience in fly-fishing. He’s an expert in barbels and greylings, The first ones are beyond my reach so far as I hardly use nymphs, but I do always try to catch some graelings (they are unexpectedly numerous in the rivers here). So far, however, my results are mediocre at best, I only had 3-4 this year. Probably the size of flies has a lot to do with it, when I fish in the sun I must use bigger flies to see them. My colleague catches them much more often and his last fish is great also literally, almost 50 cm! Of course it was released in good shape.
I support a size limit for taking fish home say maximum 40 cm for the trout and greylings. Bigger fish should be released, as well as those not having the minimum size, naturally.