15-05-2010

As all over in Europe, it has been a cold winter in the Glomma valley. And when I say cold then I mean really, really cold ! Minus 42 degrees Celsius was measured for several days, and the ice covering the river was quite thick this winter. There is still a lot of it left,  as the pictures show. However, the grayling don't mind to much, they are hungry anyway. I fished with Marius for a few hours around the Kvennan Isles, and we had about 20 grayling between us measuring 38 - 45 cm. They all went for a Glomma Dog streamer. We didn't fish nymphs, we wanted to see if we could get some trout. I managed to get only one of moderate size.

The water-level is still quite low, because spring is late, and it has been cold the last weeks. As soon as there is a little sun, at a few places in the river it's possible to see grayling rising for small and medium sized stoneflies.

18-05-2010

Things can change fast. Glomma has come up 125 cm since Saturday, and most of the ice has disappeared already. So now the water is high and murky, and fly fishing is lousy. We will have to wait with fishing until this first flood is over. There is still a lot of snow in the mountains, and it seems that the season is at least two weeks over due.

The image to the right shows the amount of snow that is still present. (image from www. senorge.no).

24-05-2010

Last week spring arrived in the upper Glomma valley. Daily temperatures reached 20 degrees Celsius, and the river came up further to a very high level on May 21 : 589,65 at Hummelvoll.

The two pictures to the right show Eidsfossen waterfall, looking like a huge washing machine and sounding as a big train driving through the river bed. No place for fly fishing right now.... The normal water-level for these days should be around 588,30 and the run off about 100 m3 per second, at the moment I made these pics, the run of was three times as high. Quite impressive indeed ! Today the level has stabilised at 589,03 and the water is clear again, but it is still to high for fly fishing. The air temperature has dropped to max 6 degrees again and I think Glomma will fall to a more normal level in a few days.  But there still is a lot of snow in the mountains.

27-05-2010

As predicted the water-level in Glomma has dropped a lot, and conditions for fly fishing are as good as they can be in this time of year. No fishing for me the next days, I will be in Holland at the Fly Fair, together with fly fishing guide Ivar Øyan, to present Kvennan Fly Fishing.

03-06-2010

Water-level in Glomma is more or less stable. This morning the level is 588,21 (meters above sea level), quite normal for this time of year. The water is clear and at some places rising grayling can be observed. Fly fishing conditions are not bad for the weekend, it will be possible to fish dry flies (stone fly patterns, size 12-14) but nymph fishing will be more effective. If you want some information about other fishing possibilities in this area, have a look at www.fishspot.no , a brand new website, initiated by local communities.

06-06-2010

Good circumstances for fly fishing now, the water-level is below average for this time of year. Four fly fisherman from Holland : Walter, Jan, Arien and Arie reported spectacular fishing using nymphs, Czech style. They had many, many fish and Jan was so lucky to land 3 50+ cm grayling. Early season fishing - you might hit the jackpot!

11-06-2010

Glomma reacts a bit nervous on a little rain, there is still a lot of water in the ground I think, so the water-level can change fast. When it dries up, the river will be more stable. Rising water-level is not good for dry fly fishing for grayling but yesterday I had good fishing in the fly fishing zone using dry flies - stonefly imitations. Biggest fish was about 45 cm.

12-06-2010

Today fly fishing conditions are lousy - the water in Glomma is not clear enough. The rain of the past 24 hours make the river look like coffee. If the rain stops, the water will clear up fast.

From today Kvennan Fly Fishing opened a small office in Tolga, where you can buy a fishing license. Opening hours are from 09.00 to 11.00, 7 days a week. We are located in the same building as COOP supermarket, during the week you can use the main entrance. On Sunday's you'll have to use the entrance at the east side of the building.

But the easiest way to buy a license is using internet, if you have a VISA or Mastercard credit card, just fill in the form and after paying you'll get an email with a PDF file. Print the file, this is your license.

13-06-2010

Fly fishing is not possible now due to the (very) high water-level. The water is clearing up though, in a few days time the river will be fishable again and the fish hungry.

Most of the snow in the mountains has melted now.

15-06-2010

Glomma water-level has fallen again to 588,19 and fly fishing conditions are reasonable good. The normal level for this time of year is 587,94. Weather forecast tells us today and tomorrow it will be dry, from Thursday on there will be rain again, and maybe strong wind.

Yesterday evening my fly fishing buddy Michel and me fished the Hodalen lakes. The water-level in the lakes is also quite high, it was difficult to reach the hot spots for pike. We managed to catch only one decent pike on streamers, and we had a few small grayling. But the views were as usual:

Spectacular!

17-06-2010

The last days fly fishing conditions have improved further, and the first mayflies are hatching. Most important one is Baetis Rhodani. Per from Sweden reported a 50 cm grayling on a dry fly, Michel from Holland had fun using nymphs, he had several grayling measuring about 45 cm. The water-level in Glomma is more or less stable now, only a bit high for the time of year, many good places in the fly fishing zone can be fished.

19-06-2010

Heavy rain fall in the last 36 hours made the river come up again, today fly fishing conditions are ones more very lousy. In only one day the river came up 80 cm, and the water is a bit murky. These are unusual circumstances, I have never seen Glomma reacting so nervous. The weather forecast is not bad, it should be dry for some days, so the water-level will drop, I think the river will be fishable again in two days.

If you want to fish now you have to go to the Hodalen Lakes: the water level will also be high, but visibility will be good.

🙁

21-06-2010

The water-level in Glomma is not sinking as fast as I hoped, today the level is 588,60 (meters above sea level) and this is still a bit to much water for serious fly fishing. The level should be below 588,50 to make fishing possible at a few places, and below 588,00 to reach many places. Maybe in the evening things will be better, maybe tomorrow.

23-06-2010

Slowly the water-level is dropping in river Glomma. Yesterday the isles at the campsite were reachable again, so together with Bernd Ziesche and his two friends from Germany I fished for a few hours. Between us we had about 80 fish, mostly grayling of course, but Bernd had two decent trout on his streamers. The grayling we caught measured between 25 and 45 cm. We had good fun, and quite nice fly fishing !

In the beginning of our session there were no fish rising so we used nymphs. Later on I noticed a few rising fish, they were standing is fast water. I couldn't exactly make out where they were rising for, haven't seen a single insect on the surface, and I managed to get only three using a size 12 stonefly imitation. But, like I mentioned, it was good fun and it's great the river is fishable again. Not perfect yet, but if you bring that wading staff and a lot of courage, it's very well possible to have nice fly fishing !

For the next days some rain is predicted, but overall it should be nice weather.

26-06-2010

After the rain showers the river game up a bit again. The level today is 588,15 and this means that fly fishing is possible, but wading can be difficult at places.

I got several reports of nice grayling up to 48 cm the last days, but the dry fly fishing still can be difficult. There are no steady hatches yet, and catching a few grayling means changing your fly often. They can be picky also, I hear many stories about refusing fish because of a not perfect enough presentation.

30-06-2010

The fishing is improving, but still there are no major hatches. In the afternoons the water temperature can reach about 14 degrees, and nymph fishing can be very productive in the fast stretches of the river. Bram from Holland reported good nymph fishing yesterday, he also had quite a few grayling on dry flies. He used a size 14 dark grey parachute, and a size 16 CDC pattern. A long day fishing with about 50 fish between 30 and 42 cm.

06-07-2010

Last Saturday heavy thunderstorms visited us with the obvious result: high water level and a brown river. It took Glomma about 24 hours to clear up again, and now the level is just below 588,00 again. Not perfect, but good enough for fly fishing. The water temperature has slowly come up to about 14 degrees Celsius now, and more hatches can be observed. The pic to the right shows my buddy Bram from Holland, he had very good results last Friday using a size 14 dark parachute dry fly. He fished the fast water in the FF zone, and reported about 15 fish over 40 cm, three fish were measuring about 47 cm.

07-07-2010

Yesterday I fished the Hodalen lakes, there was a light hatch of Ephemera Vulgata may flies going on. I caught a few fish using dry flies, but nymphing was working better. The trick was to let the fly sink to the bottom and then to make it rise to the surface fast, and as vertical as possible. A great way to do this is using a high floating strike indicator. I caught a nice bunch of sik (mountain whitefish) and had a good time. Peter from Sweden reported a 1,8 kg trout from the Eidsfossen zone. Dry fly, C&R.

Well done Peter!

09-07-2010

At last water-level in river Glomma is normal again. Many good places can be reached now, and fly fishing conditions are very good. The water temperature is about 15 degrees Celsius and on certain places in the fly fishing zone good hatches can be expected.

I took a few pictures of the Vulgata my flies at the Hodalen lakes. Every day now there are good hatches of these insects in the lakes, and many fish are rising for them.
They are great models for a photographer: they respond very well to the command
"...now sit ! and stay ! " . Very nice, when trying to shoot caddis or stone flies things are not so simple, they run around like crazy.

11-07-2010

Friday I fished with Pieter, Alain and Jeff from Belgium. I guided them into the fly fishing zone. There were not many fish rising but fishing at the right spot and using my green emerger  worked just fine and the guys had a few good sized grayling.

The weather forecast is a mixed bag: rather nice weather, but almost every day strong wind is predicted, to make it worse, the wind is changing all the time. In the mornings it comes from the south, during the late afternoon it suddenly changes to the north putting down very effectively all the rising fish. It seems to be a difficult year for the Glomma fly fisherman.

15-07-2010

After the rain, two days ago, the water-level in Glomma came up again. It will take a few days before the level is normal again. Fly fishing is quite good, size 14-16 Klinkhamers in green and olive work well at the moment. In the Hodalen lakes the Vulgata is still hatching providing exiting dry fly fishing for several species: grayling, sik and perch.

19-07-2010

Water level in Glomma this morning : 587,61 - about normal for the time of year. The weather is still quite unstable, wind can come from all directions, and so is the fishing. There are no major hatches going on, but there are several patterns that work just fine. Try ant imitations, Daddy Long Leg's, Klinkhamer in several sizes and colours, superpupa in yellow and black, small black nymph's. Jaap from Holland reported good dry fly fishing, he had about 20 grayling in 5 hours fishing, 11 fish over 40 cm, 4 of them between 45 and 50 cm.

22-07-2010

There was rain yesterday, and the river came up again. I guided Steffi and Astrid from Germany, they had reasonable results using dry flies: Klinkhamers size 12 - 16. Steffi landed a nice trout about 40 cm long, and both had a few good sized grayling. For some reason nymphing is a bit difficult now, the best patterns seems to be small and black. The weather forecast for the next days : maybe a bit of rain, wind from all directions, sometimes sunny.

26-07-2010

Dry fly fishing conditions are quite good now. A few days ago I fished with Nikolai from Norway and we had nice results - some good grayling. We used size 14 Klinkhamer style flies - sparsely dressed, olive colours, Super pupa in yellow/black, pheasant tale nymphs fished as they were dry flies, emerger type flies: they all worked well. Marius had a 52 cm grayling on a spent may fly pattern. These guys know the river very well, and they have constant and good results. I also get reports from fisherman who only manage to catch small (< 30 cm) fish. They are doing something wrong! You have to present your fly perfect, so that means down stream presentation. No drag, long drifts, of course it helps to fish at a good spot.

Something about wading shoes: bring shoes or boots with felt soles, do not try these new plastic or rubber ones, you'll be very unstable in the river, if you manage to keep standing at all!

03-08-2010

The water-level in Glomma is stable, and the level is normal for the time of year. Fly fishing is not so easy though, there are no major hatches at all. This means you have to search the water using several dry fly patterns as ants, emergers like Klinkhamer, super pupa. Don't forget to try the shallow water ! Nymphing is still difficult, streamer fishing can be rewarding.

The pic to the right shows Hanafi with a beautiful 45 cm Glomma grayling, that took his CDC pattern in fast water.

09-08-2010

There are no changes in the fly fishing conditions. No major hatches, not many rising fish. Find some grayling, present them a dry fly : CDC or emerger, super pupa, Griffith gnat etc, try the fast and shallow water.

20-08-2010

There are no changes in the fly fishing conditions. No major hatches, not many rising fish. Fishing is good when you use black ants, wasp imitations, small and dark Klinkhamer, Griffith gnat : terrestrials.

26-08-2010

There are no changes in the fly fishing conditions. No major hatches, not many rising fish.

The water temperature is falling now, maybe this will result in more insect activity. The fishing is good, I recommend dry fly fishing using ant imitations. The pics show Jaco from Holland, I guided him in the FF zone. He had about 20 grayling up to 42 cm in 3,5 hours fishing.

31-08-2010

A group of 7 fly fishermen from my home town in Holland visit the fly fishing zone. Some of them are real novices in the world of fly fishing, others are more experienced, but none of them caught a grayling before. Now this has changed: they all had grayling and some trout up to 45 cm, using dries and small streamers.

Patterns that work : Griffith gnat, ant imitations, Baetis patterns (size 18-20), minnow imitations, now and then there are small hatches of Caddis flies (brown, orange body, size 12 - 14).

13-09-2010

Fly fishing conditions are good. The water level is still just below normal, water temperature is about 10 degrees. The best fishing time is in the afternoon, and both in the fast water and in the slow water dry fly fishing can be great. Try Griffith gnat, ant imitations, small brownish Baetis patterns, brown sedge patterns size 12-16, small stone flies. Several 50 + cm grayling were reported in the last weeks, I had one myself on a Bibio imitation. The fish weigted about 1,3 kg.