01-06-2018

Opening day at Kvennan Fly Fishing ! At last the river is open for fishing again. The conditions seem to be great, the water level is very low for this early in summer and the water temperature is also quite high. I haven't seen massive hatches yet, it really is very early in the season here, high up in the Osterdalen valley.
Soon I will report about Glomma, but let's start this season with a small video I prepared for you. It shows Marius fishing, and why he doesn't catch anything ... Filmed mostly by Marius.

05-06-2018

Today the warm weather is gone, it's quite cold now with a max temp of 7 degrees. Last night it snowed in a village nearby ... The fishing at opening day was nice, Marius and me fished the area close to the camp side. We landed some average sized grayling on dries and nymphs, and there were fish rising, mostly for caddis flies. Check out the little video I made of it !

Like all over Northern Europe, it is a very strange spring here at the borders of mighty Glomma. It should be cold and miserable weather right now, and there shouldn't be any leaves on the trees yet, and there definitely shouldn't be flowers yet. How ever, they are there, the leaves, and the flowers, and a lot of really big caddis flies and alder flies swarming all over my balcony, right next to Glomma. Normally this happens in July ... so this might be a strange season. I keep you posted !

Check out the KFF page on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/KvennanFlyFishing

12-06-2018

Strange but very good conditions for fly fishing right now at Kvennan Fly Fishing. The water level in Glomma is exceptionally low, but there are several species of bugs hatching and rising fish can be found.
Here is a report by Mikael :

"Hey! Here comes a small fishing report from our trip to Kvennan Fly Fishing. We fished between June 1st and June 6th, it was sunny summer weather: Saturday and Sunday, we had very good fishing with several nice graylings between 35 - 45 cm and even some of 47-48 cm most of them took a F-fly, there hatched lots of Caddis on Saturday and Sunday. Then there was a weather change on Monday and Tuesday with low temperatures but we got fish anyway, most grayling but also some trout. Even now they went for a F-fly but we also got fish on the emerger we bought from Tor Henrik at Kvennan Camping. Best regards Mikael and Kurt."

About the pictures : I shot a small film of myself (there was nobody else to film ...) fishing dries at the middle section of the fly fishing zone. Nothing fancy, no big fish, but quite a few small ones and I had a lot of fun with them. Wanna see some bigger fish ? Marius and me have been doing some fly fishing for pike in the fly zone. This pic is just an appetizer, next report I tell you more about it ... 🙂

In case you are thinking about visiting us but don't know exactly how, this might be something for you - if you are living in Holland, Belgium, Germany or France: check out Cast Away Fly Fishing with Peter Sikking from Holland. You might be interested in his beautiful magazine - download it here.

15-06-2018

So I promised to tell you about pike fishing ... Marius and me tried some, last weekend, and we encountered quite a few of these toothy creatures in the Tynset zone. I was not so lucky in hooking them, I missed fish after fish for some strange reason (...) so I gave my rod to Marius. I shouldn't have done that. He landed 7 pike in two sessions, and missed three more. I filmed him of course, and the result is the little film to the right.

There are two big pike on this video, the biggest measured 113 cm and weighted about 10 kg ...

By the way, if you buy the license for the KFF zone, you can also fish in the Tynset zone and the Tolga zone .... 🙂

19-06-2018

Even though we've had some rain, the water level is still falling and we really need a lot of rain before the level will be normal again. The fly fishing, however, is quite good with several insects hatching. I've seen Baetis Rhodani, Baetis Niger, Ephemerella Aurivilli, and several caddis and stonefly species.
What makes things difficult right now is the wind, there is a lot of it, too much for easy fly casting ...

At a few places nearby Kvennan Fly Fishing (for instance the Tynset zone in Glomma) there is Ephemera Danica - the large mayfly - hatching, on Sunday we had a nice time casting large dry flies to rising grayling and trout. Marius landed several good fish: see the pictures.

Saturday I fished with Bernd Ziesche from Germany. As the last years, he is at KFF with a group of fly fishermen from Germany, Switzerland and Austria, and before his fishermen arrived there were a few hours to fish together. See the pics ...

22-06-2018

Weather forecast for the weekend: less windy, cloudy, some rain, about 10 degrees during the day. Next week: from Monday they promise us nice sunny days with temp in the 20's. Still the water level is falling. The flow in the river this morning was 21 m3/sec, normal for now would be 70 m3/sec. There is less then 1/3 of the normal amount. The fishing is good, and I get enthusiastic reports from the fishermen.

Yesterday I met Anders and Angela from Sweden. I asked them how the fishing had been, and Anders told me he landed and released 5 grayling measuring 49,5 cm. When I suggested to round it up to 50 cm he strongly disagreed with me .... I like this guy ! He emailed me this report :

" Nice to meet you today. Thank you for keeping the fly fishing zone in such amazing and extraordinary condition, hope not the power station that is going to be built will destroy the healthy and big population of grayling and trout. Kvennan Fly Fishing zone is one of a kind. We have had great days with lots of grayling between 40-49,5 cm (five round 49 cm) and some nice brown trout. No 50+ yet but we have two days left. Will see 🙂 Anders and Angela "

Sead from Sweden send me this :
" Many thanks for the advice. I had a great day at river Tunna, reminds me of my home waters in Bosnia. Fishing was also great! I landed lots of grayling in all sizes and even a few smaller trout, attached you'll find a nice lady of Tunna river in the range of ~50 cm. All the best, Sead 🙂 "

28-06-2018

There are no changes in the fly fishing conditions at KFF. Some fishermen have great results using dry flies as small Baetis and midge imitations, I've seen some guys Czech nymphing and catching a lot of fish in only short time, while other fishermen were not so lucky.

Bernd from Germany writes on Sexyloops :
" Last week the weather here in Norway was quite cold, windy, and mixed up with some rain. Still we caught a lot of fine fish. This week the weather is warm, sunny and just about right. Fair to say we are having a hell of a fantastic fishing every day now! We caught grayling, trout, pike and perch. A lot of them were in pretty decent size. The fishing (dry fly, nymph and streamer) is at it's best right now. "

Last Sunday I guided Lars and Aadne from Oslo and both gentlemen landed a lot of fine grayling up to about 45 cm. The three flies that worked best : a #14 CDC emerger, #18 zebra and a huge Goddard sedge ...

02-07-2018

Summer now really is back at Kvennan Fly Fishing. Warm sunny days make my fly fishing life here in the North very pleasant indeed, even though this weather is not necessarily good for the fishing ...
The water-level in the river is falling steadily and slowly also the water temperature rises. The fishing is still quite good and I get many good reports from the fly fishermen I meet on the river bank.

The last days I fished with Manja and Bernd, the pictures will speak for themselves I guess.
Let me quote Bernd: "to say we were exited about chasing trophy grayling with you Hein is an understatement to say the least ! We turned out to be spot-on. Again we had a blast fishing grayling Valhalla aside you ... " We fished several very interesting spots at KFF and around in the Fishspot area. We drove all the way to river Rena yesterday and although Rena is also very low now we had very good dry fly fishing and landed a bunch rather large grayling. I think I can edit a nice little movie starring Manja and a few nice Rena grayling, I'll show you later. You might like to follow Bernd on Facebook.

On the way back from Rena we just had to try a few spots for pike. I never was there before, but on the maps these places looked so promising, and with an expert pike fly fisherman with me, the choice was made quickly to give it a shot. I used a special pike leader one of my fly fishing friends gave me. No metal in it, just a nicely tapered leader with a very thick nylon tippet. The one that's on the little pike picture. To make a long story short, my next pike wasn't small at all - I think it was about one meter long, jumping high up in the air and biting right through my special pike leader... Of course the barb of the hook was closed and the fish will loose the fly soon enough, but I will never ever use a pike tippet without steel any more !! 

05-07-2018

Daniel from Denmark was at KFF with his friends.
He send me this report : "We only tried “Czech Nymphing” on the last day in front of the camping area, in no time we landed about 5-8 graylings, when Samuel hooked into what we would call a living log. It was first after he had pulled on the line 3 times that the so called “log” started moving, Very slowly and with no shakes. After 10 minutes of fighting the monster, we saw what species it was when it showed us its big dorsal fin. Yup, a huge grayling was at the other end of Samuel’s #4 10´ Scierra rod that bended like hell. We were all very hyped and stoked of the soon to come Personal Record. The destiny of this catch was of course after 15 minutes of fighting it to lose it when it did a turn away from him. We were all speechless and irked about what just happened. To make it more intense, half the campsite was standing on the river bank watching in awe as Samuel had fought this fish up until the unfortunate escape. This catch could of course have been the perfect ending of a perfect trip, but as we had caught so extremely many fish throughout the whole week Samuel shook it off and went out again only to hook into another huge fish, only to lose this fish too after only after seconds of fight ..."

I should tell you about the power plant that is going to be build in the next years. About 9 km upstream of Tolga bridge, a small dam will be placed in the river, and a tunnel in the riverbank is going to be excavated. The tunnel will have a diameter of about 6 meters, and it will drain the water all the way to the Eidsfossen. The impact on the Tolga zone will be big, but we are quite confident the fly fishing zone will be relatively untouched and unharmed. The built will start this year and the power plant should be taken in service by August 2021. We were informed that this summer, and probably next summer, there will be no digging in the river bed. I will give you more information as soon as I know exactly what is going to happen and when.

10-07-2018

We've had a bit of rain and the water level came up a bit. The weather forecast says it will be warm and dry, but the forecast have been wrong so many times here at KFF, let's hope they can continue being wrong for a while ... In the mean time the fishing can be good, if you know what you are doing. Use mosquito imitations, and flies like daddy long legs and ants are also producing.
Jean from France send me this : " Hi Hein, Here is my report for the period June 27 to July 4. Very good fishing every day except on windy periods. We fished the Telneset area, dry fly only. Average 20 graylings per day average size 40 cm. Each day fish on the 45-49 size only one at 50. Only one 40cm trout. Great place to fish very good river management. No fish killed only bbl hooks. We are 9 fly fishers coming from France and we shall return. Hope for some rain for the river's health and we wish in the future this gem can be preserved. Thanks for what you do for the river and hope to meet you next time! Jean ..."

Last week I took Manja and Bernd from Germany to river Rena. A 1,5 hour drive, very warm weather, very low water and very hungry grayling ! Manja shows in the video how to carefully trick a few of these beauties ...

River Glomma at Kvennan Fly Fishing also has a very low water level, if the warm weather will continue much longer and there is no rain, we may have to consider if the fishing should be halted for a while ... To be continued ...

16-07-2018

Not much news from KFF. The weather is still warm and very nice indeed, like it is in most parts of Northern Europe. The river is low, and the thunderstorms of the last days haven't really helped much, as you can see in the graphic above. The water temperature is high now, and I recommend to fish responsibly: use a thick enough tippet - at least 12/100 but better would be 14/100 - and play the fish fast. Don't take too long with landing it. Release as quickly as possible ! Let's hope the weather forecast is accurate this time, and the predicted rain will come in the next days, and the temperature will drop again...

Torbjörn from Sweden had a nice week at KFF together with his sun Jens. He told me that the fishing was not easy, but they experienced some hectic dry fly action in the darkest part of the night, and Jens had his best year ever at Glomma with several large grayling. Their favorite fly for this trip was a size 14-18 F-fly ...

Pierre from France send me this email: "Hi Hein, it was a very good fly fishing trip; many fish up to 40 cm every day with one grayling 50cm long; very clean river; all fishes have been released; bravo for your river management. Pierre."

If you should need some alternatives for Glomma right now, you might consider to try river Folla near Alvdal, river Atna should be quite good also, river Grimsa is ok, the Hodalen Lakes are fishing great, the trout lakes in the Vingelen area produce and so do the mountain lakes in the close by Forollhogna National Park.

23-07-2018

No changes in the fly fishing conditions. The river is still very low, but there is plenty of water left as the pictures will show, and the fishing can be quite good. A few days ago I tried a section in the middle of the FF zone, I fished dries and tied on a streamer when moving to the next spot. In two hours I fished about 2 km of river and landed about 10 grayling up to 40 cm. Nothing special, not good, not bad. Just normal fishing in fact ...

If you want to try something else : with the help of this website you can find out the water level in a lot of rivers and lakes in Norway. http://www2.nve.no/h/hd/plotreal/Q/index.html

A very good dry fly for the KFF area is, in my humble opinion, the zebra CDC midge emerger. You can find a tying instruction in the video department of this website, or you can find it on the KFF Facebook page : https://www.facebook.com/KvennanFlyFishing

30-07-2018

At last the river came up a bit after some heavy rain showers. The weather is turning now, it can be very windy from time to time, and the air and the water will cool down the next days.

Sami from Holland told me he had rather good dry fly fishing last week, using tiny tiny small may fly imitations, from hook size 20 all the way down to size 28. On the other hand, the same day I met a few guys from Sweden who reported perfect dry fly fishing in the morning using a yellow and grey Super Puppa in size 12 ...
Jaco from Holland told me about good fishing close to Telstad Lodge using a #18 Zebra CDC, one evening there was a hatch of small may flies and Jaco had just the right fly in his box - giving him a few really nice hours of dry fly action, with plenty of grayling between 30 and 40 cm.

This week's video I filmed last year, it shows Jerry from Amsterdam fishing this nice stretch low in the KFF zone.

06-08-2018

For the first time (!) this summer season the water level in Glomma at Kvennan Fly Fishing is at a normal level. And, what's more important, the water temperature is dropping. That's really a good thing, because for weeks the temp as been close to or just over 20 degrees. This morning it was 16 degrees Celsius, and it will drop further I guess. There is some more rain predicted for this week, if this doesn't happen, the water level will fall quickly again ... Of course it's still a very very dry summer.

Fishing tips for now: try big black Klinkhamers, black ants, small brown CDC caddis. Try the fast water.

Last week I guided Anna and Patrik from Sweden. Rather difficult fishing we had, with only a few grayling that took our dry flies. Patrik landed one nice fish just over 40 cm during this session. But even if the catching was lousy, the fishing was great and I was able to learn my clients a trick or two. Patrik wrote me : " Hi ! Thank you for yesterday! Lots of confirmations, and new input that make me much more confident on what I do, increasing the moral when fishing is hard. Got 2x 40+ in the evening and some smaller in short time fishing (not like usual) towards the bank upstream instead of from the bank downstream. We only fished close to Telstad as we got away at 22:00 from dinner... "

At a nice river stretch in the lower part of the KFF zone a brand new gapahuk (Norwegian for fishing shelter) has been built, especially for us fly fishermen. Many thanks to Nils !!
A nice place to shelter for the rain, make a little fire (as soon as this is allowed again, so not right now because of the high risk for forest fires), and to wait for the fish to start rising !

13-08-2018

Because or the rain on Saturday the river came up strong. And the level has fallen just as quick ... We need a lot more rain for the river to reach - and to remain on a normal level. The good thing is that the water temp is normal again, and I guess it will stay normal now. It can be windy at times making casting and fine presentation difficult, but overall the fly fishing conditions are okay now.

A lot of you guys send in fly fishing reports over June and July. Here are some results :
Over June and July 224 fisherman (and lady's) reported their catches. In total 713 fishing days were described, and 6890 grayling were landed. That is 9,7 fish per fisherman per day. 66 Fishers report in total 4903 grayling, so 30 % of the fishermen catch 70 % of the fish.
Size wise, the average grayling is 36,0 cm long, 41 % of the fish is smaller than 35 cm, 59 % is larger than 35 cm. This is interesting I think, because a grayling longer than 35 cm can be considered to be at least 5 years old, an adult fish, and is able to reproduce. The smallest group that can be reported is fish between 25 and 30 cm. That means that smaller fish is not included in these statistics.

People from 15 European countries have reported their catches, the largest group are fishermen from Sweden. There is quite a difference in the average size of the grayling, and the number of landed fish, per nationality of the fishers. The reason for this seems obvious: techniques as "Polish nymphing" and "French nymphing" can be extremely successful. I think these stats are kind of representative. My own results are not in these statistics, but I guess in normal conditions (what ever they might be) I should be able to land about 15 - 20 fish in an afternoon session, some fish would measure between 40 and 45 cm, average would be between 35 and 40 cm, and every now and then I would hook up with a biggy around or over 50 cm.

23-08-2018

There are not many changes in the fly fishing conditions since the last report. The fishing can be slow from time to time, there are not many insects around, and only a few daddy long legs and ants. Small midge patters produce as usual, if you fish good stretches that hold fish. Strong wind can make the fishing difficult, choose your day's fish spot with care ...

Tor Henrik from Kvennan Camping reported a 52 cm grayling on a nymph in the lower part of KFF, landed by one of his Swedish guests.

The last weeks I guided some fishermen from Holland and Germany. Everybody landed grayling, there were some nice ones too, most on dry flies.

25-08-2018

After a lot of rain the river has come up, and on this moment - 10:45 o'clock - it is still rising. More important, the water is dirty. No fly fishing today, or maybe try some streamer fishing ...
All the rivers around have the same problem, so my advice could be to try the Hodalen lakes.

The forecast tells us there shouldn't be much more rain, and I guess the water will clear up quickly, maybe in the evening the river could be fishable again, otherwise it will be tomorrow.

🙁

02-09-2018

Another summer has gone by too fast, and we are in autumn already. The trees start to color golden, the water in Glomma is gin clear and over all the fly fishing conditions are good. The water level is below average, and the water temperature is okay. It can be a bit windy from time to time, but the weather forecast says it will calm down. Only a few times the last week I have seen some hatches, and mostly during shitty weather, tiny tiny may flies can hatch. Size 24, lime green body, double split tails.

For good results it is more and more important that your presentation is spot on, this means no drag in your fly whatsoever, and preferably down stream presentation. Try CDC caddis patterns in the fast water, Zebra midge and Griffith Gnat in the slow flowing stretches. Sometimes a super pupa will do the trick.

06-09-2018

Dry fly fishing is still not as good as it should be right now. The reason for it of course is the absence of bugs - there just is nothing hatching. It must be something with this strange hot summer, but I guess it is the same all over this region - all the rivers around here have the same problem.

But it must be a matter of days, or maybe a few weeks (?) , and then the fishing should explode, like it always does in September. This happens when the small second generation Baetis Rhodani and Baetis Niger may flies start to hatch. And the tiny needle flies. Every day between say 12:00 and 16:00 this event should take place, and during rainy days the hatches should be thicker. Check out this small video from 2012.

So right now it is possible to get a few nice fish on dries, if you manage to find the right spot. I recommend the slower flowing stretches high up in the KFF zone. Be prepared for very small rises and rather large grayling in very shallow water, being picky as hell. Yesterday I guided Bill and Bart from Holland, they asked me to show them specific presentation techniques for Glomma grayling. we found some nice fish and in the end the guys landed about 7 very good sized grayling using dry flies. Father and sun Jaap and Rens report difficult but satisfying fishing with some large fish every day, especially on nymphs.

Local flyfisher Oyvind told me he fished last week with two guys from the Norwegian Fly Fishing team, between the three of them they landed about 160 (!) grayling in about 4 hours fishing, using the Czech nymph technique 

12-09-2018

The water level and temperature are normal for this time of the year. The river came up the last days, but now the level has stabilized. There is a bit of rain predicted for the next days, but I guess the water level will fall slowly again. The wind is a bit lousy, making perfect presentation casts not so easy. Anyway, the fishing can be good.

Fredrik from Sweden reported two grayling between 45 and 50 cm that took a size 16 black Rackelhanen in the middle section of our fly fishing zone, Stefan from Germany told me about a huge 55 cm grayling on a size 16 Zebra ...

19-09-2018

Apart from the wind fly fishing conditions are okay at the moment. The water level in Glomma is a bit under the normal level. In the afternoon there are some hatches of Baetis mayflies, and there will be some needle flies (tiny stoneflies) on the water. The grayling can be extremely picky one moment and heartbreakingly easy the next. Like always, Zebra emerger works perfect, just as Griffith Gnat, Dynamite Harry etc.

During the last weekend of September and the first weekend of October there will be fly fishing competition at KFF, and sections of the river will be closed.

On the last day of this season, Monday October 15, there will be research done by NINA (Norwegian institute for nature research), involving the whole KFF river stretch. This will not be a good day for fishing.