2016 / A fly fishing year in a review.

2016 was more than a successful fly fishing year. I’m looking back to a year I caught a lot of fish, had some of my greatest fish ever caught and again made lots of lifetime impressions. The year goes by and I feel good.

Its hard to write down all those great fly fishing moments I have experienced this year. There is so much I could tell you about my fishing this year but I’ll start somehow to tell you something about the three most memorable fish I caught on fly this year. In this years ranking there are two saltwater fish and one sweat water fish.
This year it wasn’t a pike that made my year but different cool fish. I caught my first big brown trout on a tiny 3wt fly rod. I’m so happy about this fish but it was just one out of maybe thousand fish I caught this year. It was a pure gem and maybe this fish is waiting for me next year too. Then there was of course a big GT I caught land based on Anaa. No fight was more intense than this one, No fight brought me close to the limit of fly fishing. I can’t say enough thanks to Petrus “patron of fishermen” that he made me landing this fish. If I had lost that fish I would still cry. Last but not least there is once more a shark in my top 3 ranking. No fish made me more happy to catch than the sharks on Anaa. I consider sharks as the most funniest fish to catch on the fly and in the sizes I caught them they are not just funny but also challenging. You must try! Write that into your new year’s items if you want to experience the same.

What did I do different this year? I did something intentionally different and it turned out to be good. In the past years I was mainly focused on fly fishing for pikes all year, wasting time to chase salmonids in summer when they are best to catch. Pike fishing in summer isn’t good but trout and grayling fishing is. I knew this already before but I started to really live it and went trout fishing all summer. And I had a great time and exchanged frustration not catching pikes against excitement catching tons of trouts and graylings. I couldn’t have done anything better. And now, when its could outside, I went pike fly fishing and had the excitement pike fly fishing. I caught a lot of nice pikes that finally round off the year positively.

On the other side I had much more waters to fish this year and it was also something I started to enjoy. Having many water to fish offers totally new possibilities to fish an entire season. And plans for the upcoming year. Still I haven’t seen all my waters. Roughly two thirds are still not fished by me. Not all waters are interesting but there will be some new places I will cast a fly.
My biggest surprise this year? Ha, I still can’t believe it. I fished a totally wobbling rod this year and I liked it. More to come in my next blogs but I found out that there are more than just super fast Sage fly rods that can make fun. This also widened my fly fishing horizon and I’m very hot to try it out. Its a butter stick and its my new project!

What are my planes for next year? To be honest, I’m growing with my job. I have a good job and I like my job but its getting more demanding from year to year. Being realistic I’m happy if I can go fishing as often as this year. Not even considered catching big fish but they will come for sure.
And I’m marrying my boss. The big boss, The boss of all bosses. After 11 yeas I asked her and we will get married in 2017. And I have a good boss. She wants to get married on the Cock Islands. Lets go back to Aitutaki. This means as much as. In the morning before wedding quickly catch a few bonefish. I’m a real poor guy next year. :)

I wish you all the best and may you have a successful start into new year.

May the fly fishing force be with you!

greetings and tight lines
Philipp