A year in a review. 2015 is over and I’m looking back to a successful year with a lot of nice fish caught and an immense amount of lifetime impressions

Its hard to write down all those great moments I have experienced this year. I don’t know exactly where I should start so I will start somewhere in spring when the season started. My season started this year somewhere in April when the rivers and streams stopped transporting milky snow water from the mountains. Luckily due to the soft winter this happened already very early. Even then the valley and its streams woke up very slowly. The more you go downstream the faster life awakens in the streams. But this is OK! And from week to week the activity increased and you see with each trip to the water more and more potential of the water.

But before I really have started to enjoy the magic of spring I started into a new adventure. The first half of the year is always dominated by the call of the sea. Since I got addicted by saltwater fly fishing in 2011 I travel each year somewhere around the globe in the search of ,, more.. More blueish water, more exotic fish, more strong fish, more of experiences I will remember for my lifetime.
This year I have chosen a destination called Los Roques in Venezuela. And it was epic! Better than everything before. Tons of strong and good size bonefish, tarpon, trigger fish, horse-eye jacks and if this wouldn’t be enough I managed to land my very first Permit on the fly. You can imagine that it was a hard time leaving this archipelago. I spent 4 weeks there with roughly 2 weeks of all day fly fishing. This is something I can’t get enough. It never gets boring. I would call all those experiences as my most memorable experience

So lets continue with summer already back in Austria. This year summer was different because I concentrated much more on trout fishing in small streams and I gained back the love of fly fishing for trouts. All years in the past I was suffering from the non-rewarding fishing for pike in summer which is totally crap. The drift of a dry fly in the flow or the silent blob of a nymph when it drops on the water and perhaps a trout taking the fly. This was my fishing in summer and the early fall and I was loving it. I loved it so much that I will increase the number of waters this year with one ore two more streams. This was my biggest surprise this year

Late fall and winter goes hand in hand and it is my prime time for the northern pike. Like all year before I traveled to Rügen for pike fly fishing that is a class of its own. If you have read the report about that trip you might remember that it was clearly not a stressless week. I fought against all odds and finally had a great trip that also opened my eyes. I realized once more that fishing is not just luck but also the sum of a determination, experience and the courage to try something new. I was forced to try every day something new because all things I knew, and I’m talking about the spots, weren’t fishable. I was rewarded with lots of new impressions and so this was my most stunning thing

The rest of the year was unfortunately a disappointment. Don’t get me wrong, I caught a good amount of pikes but it was not such a year I will remember for long. I’m still hoping that it will be better next year. Hope dies last.

And so I’m sitting here writing you some lines and I’m already thinking what’s coming next? I don’t know at the moment but I will let you know once I know.

All the best to you and may you have a successful start into the new year.

Ph.