Fly fishing the Ijse on a sunny November day - How I fell into the smallest trout stream of Belgium? скачать в хорошем качестве

Fly fishing the Ijse on a sunny November day - How I fell into the smallest trout stream of Belgium?

After coming back from Slovenia there was not much fishing left to do in Belgium for the rest of 2025. I still went to our local (meaning only a 20 minute drive) stream, the Ijse a few times, and on one of these occasions I recorded this video. Late autumn fishing on the Ijse is less challenging compared to the summer period, with the vegetation finally not being chest high everywhere, but this year I saw less large (30+ cm) chub, and much less trout overall compared to the autumn of 2024. You will see that I often used an indicator... It is simply impossible to reach some places or get a proper drift with a pure Euro technique here (and don't even think about casting beyond a bow and arrow cast with a normal fly line, that is just asking for trouble in these close quarters). While the day was fun (and I caught plenty of fish), the most memorable moment was still the slight misfortune at the end: somehow I underestimated how deep down the river floor would be while trying to step down to net a fish, and I fell into the river. Even though the water is less than knee deep here, I managed to get fully underwater :D Luckily it was an exceptionally warm day (above 15 degrees Celsius - even the water was above 10 degrees), so beyond the initial surprise, there were no unpleasant consequences. But yeah, this is the story of how I managed to get even my head underwater in the smallest trout stream of Belgium. Setup for the day: Vision Nymph Hero 10' #3 rod Vision XLV Nymph & Dry reel (WF3F Nymphmaniac fly line and 20lb Bäkkäri backing) Microleader setup (~2 rod length) with 3X Vision Nymphmaniac Hi-Viz tippet + 0.178 mm (4X) Cortland Tri-Color Indicator Mono Leader Material + 2 mm tippet ring + 6X Vision Prisma fluorocarbon tippet Timeline: 00:00 First cast at the mill: 1st chub! 00:59 Chub 2 01:47 Trout 1 02:47 Chub 3 03:29 Chub 4 (right after the only fly change of the day) 05:08 Trout 2 05:53 Chub 5 06:23 Chub 6 07:06 Chub 7 07:47 Chub 8 (out in the open section) 08:29 Chub 9 (in the pool where I often see surface eats in the summer) 09:20 Chub 10 09:55 Chub 11 10:21 Chub 12 11:07 Chub 13 (and beautiful autumn colours) 12:31 Chub 14 (another pool with dry fly eats in the summer) 13:40 Trout 3 15:07 Chub 15 and falling into the river :D