Finally the dream came true...

By Jesper Havshoi - Fish & Outdoor - Fredericia, Denmark

This date, the 20th of May 2011, will be printed in my mind forever. This was the date my biggest dream regarding fishing came true. My friend Thomas picked me up from home at 6 in the morning. We were on the road for another trip to Skjern Å. Once again we would try to get one of the spring salmon.

We arrived at the river around 7.30 AM. Not too many people were along the river at this time a day, but a few other fishermen were already fishing. The weather was beautiful, no wind sunshine and temperature around 15 degrees. What a great day for fishing.

We have decided to fish the area around Albæk. It is a stretch of the river I only fished a couple of times earlier. The water was clear and the water level was quite low due to lack of rain in the last month. I decided to fish with a floating line with sinking leader and a small 1 inch tube fly.

For the first hours nothing happened, so Thomas wanted to make some casting pictures because of the weather was so nice. We got some nice pictures and decided that it was time for a break. We spoke with some other fishermen and the story from them was the same: no action at all.

After the break we wanted to fish a straight stretch, towards a big turn on the river. Thomas wanted to fish a little bit further down the river. As I got closer to the big turn, I was more or less loosing the faith in the fishing for the day. And I was thinking just one more trip to Skjern å without any action, but still what a great day to fish.

Then it happened, just before the fly reached the bank where the big turn started, my fly was taken by a fish. My heart started to pump like crazy and the legs were shaking. The fish just followed easily up to me, without any problems and I really had my doubt about the fish. Was it a salmon or… A few seconds later there was no doubt anymore, the fish made a small run to the middle of the river and turned heavy and wild in the surface.

After this the fish took a 60 meter quick run downstream ending with a big jump. Holly crab, nice salmon! After this Thomas was by my side and filming the rest on the video. Also two other fishermen came along to watch the fight. After the big run the salmon came back to me. It was still making some small runs but nothing to worry about.

The salmon was starting to run out of power and started to show in the surface, now it was just a matter of waiting for the right moment to land it. After 15 minutes of fight it was done. I put all the pressure on the fish and it reached the bank where one of the other fishermen lifted it the last way up on the bank. Yeah!!! Yeah!!! My first Danish salmon. 93 cm and 7,9 kilo of pure silver. My biggest dream of fishing just came true, a Danish salmon.

The other guys congratulated me and a lot of pictures were made, some phone calls were also made. After this great moment we decided it was time to go home. None of us felt for fishing anymore that day. But what a great day it has been, really nice weather and a beautiful Danish Salmon.

So what is the new dream for me after this? Well at the moment I don´t know, but it could be another Danish salmon, why not it was simply greaaaaaaaaaat!!!

Tight lines!

Jesper - Fish & Outdoor, Fredericia - Denmark

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