Saltwater Fly Fishing in Europe
Saltwater fly fishing in Europe is more or less reduced to sea trout fishing in Denmark and Sweden. Despite this there is some excellent fishing in some parts of the Adriatic Sea at certain times. So go there, if you want to get in contact with False Albacore and other members of the tuna and mackerel family.
Saltwater Fly Fishing in the Adriatic and Mediterranian
There had been some rumors about great saltwater fishing in the Mediterranian and the Adriatic Sea. However I did not care too much as I used to fish regularly in the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean. The surrounding there is so fantastic that there was nothing that could drive me to fish the Adriatic. That was a fault. The Adriatic and especially Montenegro can provide you with some spectacular fishing at certain times of the year. There is also not too much known about it so it is still a lot to explore. However, I am sure to be back there soon.
Saltwater Fly Fishing for Sea Trout
If it comes to saltwater fishing for sea trout, I have to admit that I am not very fond of it. Casting into that big pond called the sea is something I really do not like very much. There are times when the seatrout move on the surface and you can spot them and even catch them on dries. This way of fishing I like very much but blindcasting into the sea is definitely too boring for me. I still remember a day at Fünen (DK) when I was fishing together with my friends Sepp Fuchs and Michael Greve. Sepp is an excellent stillwater fisher(no wonder he comes from Holland) and the way we had to fish for sea trout at the Danish coast that day was just the way Sepp was used to fish in the Netherlands. We were fishing for seatrout with mysis imitations because the water was very cold and no bait fish were around. So we were supposed to retrieve our flies very slow, centimeter by centimeter. To make it short: Sepp casted to one and the same spot on a distance of appr. 20 m for 3 hours(!) in a row after he caught a seatrout there. I nearly drove crazy by only watching him doing this. I was changing spots from time to time always looking for good leopard grounds but only got a take. All the time when I was coming back Sepp was casting like a machine - to the same spot. Suddendly I asked him: "Sepp, how can you stand doing the same thing all the time? Why don't you move at all?" He answered shortly without interupting his 5 cm pulls: "Why should I? They will come back anyway!" Of course he was right fishing that way because the sea trout usually do come back to good spots. At the end of the day Sepp was the only one having caught two fish. Michael and me caught zero.
However, this way of fishing is definitely not the way I like to fish no matter if it is productive or not. It makes me fidgety if I have to make the same thing for hours and do not see a single fish during that time. For me this is very close to masochism. I definitely do not like to travel far for this sort of fishing. I better like to spot fish and go for them - like a hunter. I like fishing for sea trout in rivers much more. Without any doubt you can have a great time at the coast when lots of fish are around and you search the leopard grounds carefully. You can even land many and also large fish a day.
The situation is of course much different if you live close by the sea trout's feeding grounds and you can just go out to do some casts, but if I have to drive a long distance I prefer wading in moving water and feel the element. The best sea trout destinations are at the Danish and Swedish coast. The best time to be there is in spring but there are a few spots where fish hunt constantly close to the rocks and where you can catch them more or less all year round except the time when they are in the rivers to spawn.
Other species to be caught frequently at the European coast line are: