Sunshine’s page: Fly fishing in Denmark 2004
My family and I spent our summer Holidays in Denmark this year. In August, we went to South-East Jutland and stayed in Lojt Kirkeby, near Abenraa. Before we left home, I had already found some fishing information on the Internet. It can be quite difficult to find clear information about licences, rules and regulations for some countries. This does not apply to Denmark though. It took me just a few minutes of ‘googleing’ to find a link to a website with information about the national angling licence and day tickets for several streams.
If you want to fish in Denmark, you will need a national angling licence, and a valid ticket (day, week or otherwise) for the specific water you want to fish in. A national angling licence can easily be obtained near where you are staying. You can find an address nearby via the following link:
http://www.fiskeridirektoratet.dk/info/fiskepleje/salgsliste.html#A
It is even easier to obtain the natianal licence through the internet. Just go
to:
http://www.dagkort.dk/fisketegn/?lang=eng
and follow the instructions. You pay via your creditcard, and after a few
minutes you will see your own licence on screen. Just print it, take the paper
with you to Denmark en carry it while fishing. You will get an immidiate
confirmation by Email, which contains the same licence again. That’s all there
is to it. The card will cost you 134 DKK (The Danish currency) which is the
equivalent of approx. 18,57 Euro. The licence is valid for a year from the date
you bought it.
The ticket for the specific water you want to fish is not always
obtainable through the Internet. Some tickets can be ordered via the next link:
You will have to follow the instructions in Danish though. Another option
is to buy your ticket in a town near the water that you want to fish. Most post
offices, grocery stores and gas stations can tell you where you can get a
ticket. Chances are they sell them themselves.
I also found the address of a tackleshop in the Town of Haderslev, some
15 minutes driving from the place where we stayed. This is one of the “Go
Fishing” shops in Denmark. I went there to have a look and get some
local info. The shop has both fishing tackle and hunting gear. They had quite
some fly tying material and fishing gear from Orvis, Scierra and other
manufacturers. Staff gave service with a smile and advised me to fish the Konge
A rather than smaller streams if I was planning to fish the daytime, because it
had been quite warm that week.
During our stay I only fished the Konge A near Foldingbro as advised. The
Konge A runs from the vicinity of Lunderskov all the way to the west coast, about
7,5 kilometres North of the town of Ribe. You can reach the town of Foldingbro
by taking the E20 motorway, which runs from East to West and vice versa. Take
road 417 at intersection 69 and follow it southwards. You will reach foldingbro
after about 8 kilometres. You can easily find the Foldingbro Camping, some fifty
meters from the river. The grocery store/camping-administration sells day
tickets for both the downstream stretch and the upstream stretch. The downstream
stretch is about 2 km long and starts westward in Foldingbro. The ticket price
is 110 DKK (about 15,35 Euro) This ticket also gives you fishing rights for the
Sneum A and the Holsted A. The upstream stretch runs eastward from Foldingbro
and will set you back for 70 DKK. This does not mean the stretch is of lesser
quality though. Both tickets come with a small map on which you can see where
you can fish, and where you can park your car.
The Konge A near Foldingbro is a typical Danish stream. With a width between 5 and 12 meters it is somewhat bigger than quite some other streams in Jutland. The stream runs through meadows, patches of bushes and marshy bits. Fishing is typically done from the bank. The stream is to deep to wade in most places. There is quite some vegetation in the water during the summer. A bit like a chalk stream. Dry fly, streamers and heavy nymphs can all be successful. You can catch Grayling, Brown trout, Sea trout (if your lucky), Rainbow trout and an occasional Brook trout. In some slower flowing parts you will also meet Roach.
The
Konge A near Foldingbro.
My first day of fishing the Konge A was far from ideal. With a temperature of 27 degrees Celsius and a clear blue sky I did not expect to catch much. I started on the downstream stretch. I saw some small Roach rising and caught a few on a # 16 Black Para Style dry. I didn’t see any other rises for some time.
After a while I changed my tactics. I had tied some deer hair hoppers the evening before. The Easy hopper pattern I tied was quite simple because I had only taken an emergency tying set. I tied one of the hoppers on, #10 and a 10 ft leader with a 6X tippet. I made short upstream casts as near to the bank as possible. This proved to be the key to the afternoon. After a few casts a nice Brown rose and took the hopper with confidence. After a nice fight and a quick photograph I slipped 43 centimetres of brown trout gently back into its element. I paused for 5 minutes, savouring the moment. The fish I just caught was in splendid condition and beautifully marked. I caught several other browns that afternoon, some almost as big first one, others smaller, all in perfect condition.
A
43 centimetre Brown Trout in perfect condition fell for a simple deer hair
hopper
5 days later I fished the upstream part. I started at about three in the afternoon and fished on until dark. Thinking you should never change a winning team, I started off with the hopper again. I hardly rose a fish. After catching some smaller browns with a #14 CDC Sedge the weather changed. The wind grew stronger to a stiff breeze. It went cloudy and a small shower fell every now and than. I tried a heavy weighted # 10 Goldbead Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear nymph. I used a 9 ft level 6X leader and cast the nymph upstream in the clean lanes between the vegetation. Made a dead drift and stopped the drift downstream, thus lifting the nymph. This also brought some browns to the bank (and back in the water again).
When it started to get darker, I changed to a #8 Lucky streamer. I changed my leader to a 10 feet leader with a 5 X tippet. Casting the fly slightly upstream, as close to the opposite bank as possible, I fished the fly back to my bank, downstream and across just under the surface and over the vegetation. After a few minutes a massive fish turned out of its hiding place and rolled over the streamer, missing it and leaving me almost in cardiac arrest. This was the proverbial “one that got away” for this year. I can still see the fish, appearing almost in slow motion rolling over my fly and vanishing again. What a beautiful moment. I couldn’t even be sorry it missed the fish. It was just a memorable moment in a fly fishers life. The rest of the evening I moved several other fish and caught and released some more browns, one over 40 centimetres. I didn’t see or catch any Grayling.
This being a family holiday, that was all the fishing I did. I didn’t spend many hours on the river, but it certainly was quality time. Fishing from the bank in nice scenery, no hurry en beautiful fish in splendid condition. What more could a man wish for?
M.M.R.,
"Sunshine"