My Ammerån - Vårv <in Swedish>
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Vårv
is a very interesting fishing spot in Ammerån. On the south side there
is a large bay, and there are several interesting currents that
requires a visit depending on the current water level. The lower the
water, the longer you wade in order to find the larger grayling, and
eventually you fish towards the shore on the south side. A bit above
Vårv you find Båtlänningen, a nice quiet stream outside of a calm
water that is a hot spot for the worm fisherman early in the season,
and for fly fishermen at the end of the same. Vårv ends up into a
sharp curve, Ajaxstället, with a strong current on the north side and
a really interesting calm water on the south side for the dry fly
fishermen. Below the curve you find Skeftes which holds some fine
grayling streams. Båtlänningen is a nice place to fish early in the
season, and then preferably with a top-knoted rod angled with worm.
Vårv and Skeftes usually get going somewhat later in the season when
the water levels has set a bit- usually around midsummer - and the
fishing is good as long as the river does not begin to rise again.
Ajaxstället requires low tide and rarely gets really good until well
into August. Most of the season, it is the traditional Ammerån-style,
wet-fly fishing that gets you the catch; three flies on the leader and
classic wet-fly fishing where you put your line straight out in the
stream and then letting it run down through the interesting currents.
For each roll, pull out a few inches extra line and effectively fish
every interesting spot in the stream. You should not miss fishing
during the darkest hours, when the larger grayling are the most
active. At the end of the season, dry fly fishing can really work on
hot afternoons. By then, the south side of Våra and Ajaxstället is the
most interesting spots.
IIn
the mid seventies, is slowly started to try to learn tying my own
flies. Simple nymphs was not so difficult to create so quite soon I
could catch fish on self-produced flies. One day I had been playing at
the vise and tied a streamer on a worm hook. The fly looked really
miserable, but my father said it looked like a real trout fly and that
he would certainly try it that evening. Said and done, that evening we
fished Vårv, and my dad got two really big trout on that hideous fly,
and I was of course overjoyed. The fly was after the evening named
"The Trout Horror"..
We spent a lot of time at Vårv. Sometimes just dad and I, sometimes
together with others. Quite often friends and relatives was invited to
follow us go fishing Vårv. Vårv became a place for fishing,
socializing and, when the summer was really hot, for bathing. Vårv,
and it´s streams, have changed quite a lot over the years. Now a days
the pace of the stream has been moved, and at the time two big birch
trees on the beach, pointing towards the water, was really fun for us
kids to play at. Now that birches have long gone drifted away and many
years have passed , but nevertheless, Vårv is the place I prefferr
when fishing Ammerån. In the late seventies, my cousin Jan-Erik, a few
years older then me, often joined my dad and me on our fishing trips
to Vårv. We usually spend the whole evening, anf quite a good deal of
the night, at the river fishing. Jan-Erik always brought whith him
"bag of buns", and we fished, drank coffee, ate buns and had a
generally nice time. After such an upbringing, it is impossible not to
be a fishermen as an adult.
Vårv
was the location where I learned the art of dry fly fishing. For most
of the season in Ammerån, nymphs and wet flies usually work the best
but, some some late summers/falls - when the river is spared from the
rain, which get the river to rise, that most years marks the end of
the fishing season all too early - dry fly fishing can be very
rewarding. 1983 was such a year when the second half of August and
early September offered great weather and an appropriate water level.
Me and Göran spent all free time down by, and around Vårv, and
specifically at the curve below Vårv - a place we named Ajaxstället.
We used to wade out to our respective favorite stone and fished the
stream towards the other side, in the current right aside a calm pool.
We caught plenty of nice grayling at Ajaxstället, and the Ajax Fly
gave us fish almost every fishing trip that autumn. Two years later I
discovered the gutter at Vårv. The gutter is deep and slow flowing and
is located towards the shore at the south side of Vårv. The water
level must be pretty low before you can wade as far as you need to
reach to the gutter, and even bit lower before it gets really good.
Late summer 1985 was beneficial for dry fly and Göran and I had waded
us in position to fish the attractive gutter. On my leader you found a
Bôlôn Favorit, and Göran used a Biegents Black. Göran, who fished the
upper part of the stretch, had seen a huge fish in the surface he
tried to reach, while I fished the lower part where it the grayling
showed them self quite frequently. After a while I had six grayling in
my knapsack and the fishing trip was already fully satisfying for me.
The seventh made it a real success. A stroke that did not look
particularly impressive at all - a lift of the rod - a real heavy
pressure in the end of the line, and after some nervous struggling I
admired what was my hitherto far biggest catch ever in the river.
Göran, who had not yet catched anything when he stubbornly kept on
fishing for the big one he saw in the upper parts, was by now quite
crotchety, and the worse it would be. Finally the big one decided to
take Görans fly, and I saw at once that it was a grayling well in
class with my big one when it jumped. Then his leader went off with a
bang. I have never seen someone be so close to break his rod over his
knee, that Göran was at that moment.
In
the early nineties, the distance between Baracken and Skattlandsforsen
was completely closed for fishing for several years, and thus also
Vårv. When fishing was allowed at Vårv again, the course of the main
stream had slightly changed, but it was not long before we found the
grayling again. During the latter part of the nineties, Vårv became a
big-grayling-place for me. I managed to find grayling in 8 hectograms
and above every summer, and it all culminated in a fabulous weekend in
early July in 1999, when the river showed a fishery only surpassed in
a few of my visit to the grayling hot-spots in the road-free areas
north of Kiruna. The weekend gave twenty grayling between four and
nine hectograms, the majority taken on black nymph, and it is doubtful
if I will ever experience as good fishing in the river again - just
this weekend, all the conditions for good fishing must have been met
by a wide margin. Vårv has been, and will always remain, one of my
favorite places in the river.
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