Opening weeks at Kengis Bruk
Waiting and thinking.
We will come back to the first days of the season in a minute, but first we want to ask a very important question; “Why do we need the salmon?”
All the right things in one photo. That is why we need the salmon in the rivers.
Food or resource?
If we take a look at it as food we will find that not many of the fish that can be bought in the supermarket are good to eat. Farmed fish that are placed close to the routes for the wild salmon when they enter the river to spawn. The farming industry is huge and does not always pay attention to the nature around it.
The Baltic salmon are in the higher ends regarding PCB and dioxins and are not recommended as weekly food for specific human groups. And that is no matter if it is caught in the sea or in the river.
The salmon as a food resource is not the only future.
The hunting gene will be us forever. It's many years ago that we lived out of the rules that there were hunters and collectors, but we understand it to this day today. It is a good feeling to bring food home to your family.
If we take a closer look at the question we asked; If the fish are not good to eat in big amounts, why do we kill so many of them? Have in mind how long a fish will last in your family. There is no need to fill the freezer year after year just to throw away the fish from last year because a new season starts.
The feeling after releasing a big baltic salmon back to river.
As a resource in the river the baltic salmon creates income for business focusing on fishing tourism, the local cities benefiting from guests outside of Sweden traveling to our country and spending money and in the end we are creating jobs.
We know from many scientific tests that catch and release done the right way works! So we can give the fish back to the river, and the river can keep up the production level that we as sportfisher want.
In the end we want to have enough fish for everyone. Also the ones that like to catch a fish and bring it home to the family, but until the numbers stabilize, we all need to take responsibility.
Thoughts on the riverbank.
Back to the opening days:
Opening a salmon season is always special. Everything you have worked for in the offseason is now up for the test.
And we were ready this year!
The first days was with our local friends and Lars, Aslak and Kristian did all they could to catch the first fish of the season.
But it was a slow start this year. We did not see any fish moving or any action happening. We were crossing fingers that it would end up like last year where we did not see any fish, but Kristian hooked into some big ones, but nothing happened.
It was still good to be back in the river and spending time with our salmon friends.
Getting ready for the new season.
Week 23:
Welcome back to our Danish friends!
A week with high hopes, good conditions and flies in the water. This week we hoped for the first ones to show up and our guests were ready.
The conditions were great, good water temperature, water level and all zones fishable. They fished 24/7 changing flies, lines, hours when they fished and zones, but it did not help. There were not many fish coming in and those ones the might passed raced trough.
Good friends on the way.
In a situation like this it is good to have guests that know the game and know that the last cast matters. To see them working hard all week, swinging flies and going home tired, eager to come back and with a smile is worth it all.
Thank you guys for a great week and see you back next year.
Geared up and ready.
Waiting for the first fish to enter the pools.
Undefined flyfishing project:
Emilie, Ted & Lars is once again in the waders documenting life on the riverbank. As a follow up on Home rivers recycled they are now working on a project called Free falling.
Free falling is about the current situation in our Swedish rivers and what the future brings us.
This time they teamed up with huge support from many people and that tells us that life on the riverbank matters to many people.
Lars & Emilie sharing tactics on the riverbank.
And in a difficult year all fish matters and Sunday morning sitting on the bench overlooking the river and getting a call from Emilie that told us she lost a good sized fish in zone 3 was all what we needed and at the same time a big shame.
We all fished hard that day, but no more action happened.
Follow the project here; UNDEFINED FLYFISHING PROJECT
And the blog here; BLOG FROM PROJECT
Now we are looking forward to the upcoming weeks hoping for a later run of fish, so they will start to show up at Kengis Bruk.
Endless hopes for Emilie.
Tight lines!
Aslak
Photos: Aslak, Lars, Olivier & Ted
