The Morrum Swedish fishing is just a bit different than our basic fishing here in the Northwest. I flew into Copenhagen and was picked up by my fiancee "the German" if anyone fished the Sauk & Skagit on a regular basis, that was what everyone called him. We drove 3 hours across lovely Denmark took a ferry and drove across Southern Sweden. Sweden is a beautiful country with 80% of it's 8 million population living around Stockholm in the North. The country side was exquisite with thousand year old rock walls separating the farms and cute little country wooden homes in various shades of red, green and mustard colors. The Morrum is a lake fed river that runs about 30 miles down into the Baltic Sea the fish we were after were Atlantic Salmon ranging from 10 to 60 pounds. The largest one being caught was 80. The Morrum is very strictly regulated and only 75 tickets are sold per day and only 500 season tickets are given to the local residents. The fishable water starts ONE MILE out of the sea and is only a 3 mile stretch divided into 32 pools. The beauty of it all was that these pools were designated as fly only, gear only or both depending on the water. It was wonderful to fish water that you knew no corkie had gone before! The stretch was divided in two and depending on your color you were required to switch at 1pm to either the upper or lower half depending on where you started in the morning. If there was any fish rage, fish snaggin, littering or unruly behavior you lost your ticket and your right to fish for a couple of years. And the game wardens were everywhere! Kind of nice to see one for a change. If you happen to catch a salmon you had to immediately take said salmon to the Lauxen House and weigh it and record it. It's a proud moment of glory to do that. The river is only really hot for 2 weeks and if you're lucky enough to get a ticket than you have more of a chance. The catch would be 20 to 30 fish per day. On the off weeks it would be 1 to 10. Now the thing about the Morrum is it is the toughest river in the world to fish, it was dubbed the Wimbleton of Fly Fishing... Why you ask? Trees trees everywhere.... Above you, on the sides of you, below you. You better be good with a spey cast with as little room as possible to move. The other tough thing is you have to cast down stream. I was laughing and in stitches when I watch the Europeans casting than I discovered why. They did some kind of side arm half spey, since I'm a novice I have a hard time to describe it but as my Swedish friend Olle said. "Seattle, you must forget all you've learned and do it our way." and after some coaching I did. It's fairly easy but it would be considered a BAD HABIT to cast that way here in the Northwest. It's noisy too, you would drag your trebled hook fly through the water and wack it out a couple times, drag & wack, drag & wack till you got it the distance you wanted. It was UGLY... but if you are an excellent spey caster like I'm sure most of you are you got it out there first time without the noise, I unfortunately did not. Oh yeah, NO MENDING! The water was the color of a very strong tea (due to the water flowing through peat moss) and brown, yellow, white and black were the colors of choice for flies. I got to see everyones flies and didn't come across anything classic. Everyone used the "Blice Fly" meaning bite in German. It was tied with Artic Fox, Dog Hair, Flash, and Jungle Cock. Treble hooks were used because they didn't want these fresh fish getting lost. They shook their heads at my large single hooks. Technique... You could only get the fish when they were moving and it seemed they were on the bite at certain times 11am to 2pm and 5:30 to 8:30 in the morning. We were wondering why no one got up at the crack of dawn and it was nice to sleep in. To catch a Salmon you had to see one roll first and than hopefully he'd take your fly. Everyone took turns and lined up to fish just pockets. It was very social. And to sum up the fish.... They fight like only fresh from the ocean bright steelhead do but stronger. They do series of long runs... no dogging down, not much jumping, no going up stream, just hold on and palm it. It was well worth going, the advice I give here needs to be heeded because as when fishing other parts of the world forget all you know and do what the natives do. Did I forget to mention, little or no wading? The bank just dropped off into holes on most of the rivers. There were life perservers everywhere. A couple of people drown every year. Tightlines... Angie
