July 2018
By Allan Nørskov Johansen
Trophy hunting in River Karup. Part 2.
It’s not just the fact, that the fish of River Karup are big and strong. The challenge also lies within the surroundings in the river valley. Surroundings that present the angler with challenging conditions and obstacles, which forces you to try to make some form of tactical considerations, during the fight with one of the big ones.
How do we tackle these obstacles?
Read more about it here in part 2.
Win and lose.
The fishing in the river isn’t easy, and the fact that it doesn’t always play your way, is part of the charm… luckily. If the big trophy fish were such an easy catch, the river wouldn’t enchant and spellbind so many seatrout enthusiasts :-)
Point being with the tale in part 1 about one out of a handful of good fish I lost during a season a couple of years ago, that losing a big fish in its essence itself, just is “part of the game” along River Karup :-)
Back then, the outcome of that particular fight was a combination of a very strong fish, a couple of big weed ranks of crowfoot, and finally a swamp area, that severely limited my maneuver abilities. All these factors combined, resulted in the fish being lost! And it did indeed deserve its freedom, after the effort it put up :-)
Win and lose.
The fishing in the river isn’t easy, and the fact that it doesn’t always play your way, is part of the charm… luckily. If the big trophy fish were such an easy catch, the river wouldn’t enchant and spellbind so many seatrout enthusiasts :-)
Point being with the tale in part 1 about one out of a handful of good fish I lost during a season a couple of years ago, that losing a big fish in its essence itself, just is “part of the game” along River Karup :-)
Back then, the outcome of that particular fight was a combination of a very strong fish, a couple of big weed ranks of crowfoot, and finally a swamp area, that severely limited my maneuver abilities. All these factors combined, resulted in the fish being lost! And it did indeed deserve its freedom, after the effort it put up :-)
Memorable experiences.
If you do lose your trophy dream trout during the fight, at least you get a memorable experience out of it. To feel the strength of one of the rivers big seatrout, is a pretty unique experience in itself… although you lose the fish!
If you are willing to put in some hours of effort along River Karup, you’re bound to hook up with a true trophy at some point. I’ve been lucky enough to experience this phenomenon several times, throughout the seasons I’ve fished the river. Especially one of these contacts was totally “in another category”!
Memorable experiences.
If you do lose your trophy dream trout during the fight, at least you get a memorable experience out of it. To feel the strength of one of the rivers big seatrout, is a pretty unique experience in itself… although you lose the fish!
If you are willing to put in some hours of effort along River Karup, you’re bound to hook up with a true trophy at some point. I’ve been lucky enough to experience this phenomenon several times, throughout the seasons I’ve fished the river. Especially one of these contacts was totally “in another category”!
How to improve our chances of landing our trophy seatrout.
It’s not just the fact, that the fish of River Karup are big and strong. The challenge also lies within the surroundings in the river valley. Surroundings that present the angler with challenging conditions and obstacles, which forces you to try to make some form of tactical considerations, during the fight with one of the big ones.
That means that the outcome of a fight with a trophy in River Karup, is never given it advance… and there’s no guarantee it's going to play your way. Not even if you do “everything right”.
“But how can we improve our chances of landing our trophy seatrout”?
We can begin with attaining some overview of the physical conditions and obstacles, which we encounter along the river.
How to improve our chances of landing our trophy seatrout.
It’s not just the fact, that the fish of River Karup are big and strong. The challenge also lies within the surroundings in the river valley. Surroundings that present the angler with challenging conditions and obstacles, which forces you to try to make some form of tactical considerations, during the fight with one of the big ones.
That means that the outcome of a fight with a trophy in River Karup, is never given it advance… and there’s no guarantee it's going to play your way. Not even if you do “everything right”.
“But how can we improve our chances of landing our trophy seatrout”?
We can begin with attaining some overview of the physical conditions and obstacles, which we encounter along the river.
Obstacles in the river valley.
Allan Nørskov Johansen originates from the city of Odense, and he is born 1976. Today Allan resides with his family, close to the river. Allan ”caught” his interest in fishing early on, with brown trout fishing in the small local streams near Odense. Later, many hours along the beautiful coastline of Funen went by, in an ongoing pursuit fly-fishing for the beautiful sea trouts. He visited the River Karup for the first time in the late summer of 1998, and immediately lost his heart to the beautiful countryside, and the river fishing for huge sea trout. Allan prefers a fly rod in pursuit of the beautiful River Karup sea trout, and therefore uses a great deal of time on fly tying as well. The "best experience" by River Karup is often when something unexpectedly and surprising happens on the fishing trip, and the fish suddenly act in a way you did not expect! It creates very memorable experiences. Allan also really enjoys helping others "cracking the code" with fishing tips or flies, so that others may experience catching one of the difficult sea trout from the river. His own best catch from the river is a male fish of 92 cm and 11.0 kg, caught at the end of June 2015. The fish was his second trophy fish from River Karup, surpassing "the magic 10 kg" mark, and gave him a long and memorable fight on his single hand fly rod.