Hans van Klinken — The Floating Fly

1. Choice of equipment Rods, reels, fly lines, fly floatants, clothes, glasses and other useful items.

For the rod choices it looks a simple question but the answer all depends on where you fish and what kind of species you try to catch. Dry fly fishing for me in its purest form was mainly done in rivers in Scandinavia, the UK and Central Europe until I started to travel more and more. During these journey’s I discovered dozens of other great places to catch many (unknown) species on dry flies. I fish for Atlantic salmon with dry flies quite intensively since 1971, and that went through spectacular changes and improvements over the years. In the 1970’s trout and grayling was hard to find in our country so I taught myself how to catch all kind of species of course fish by using dry flies as well.
I think the best what I can do is to answer the questions regarding my river fishing for trout and grayling because I mainly do that with the same rods. It doesn’t matter if I fishing for grayling and trout in Alaska, Yukon, Norway, Finland, England or Mongolia. Most important for me is buying 4-piece rods to make travelling a lot easier, and to hide the rod in a simple travel bag. I experienced how quite a number of rod cases went missing while customers travelling when I worked in lodges and out post camps. For my normal river fishing I either use a 4 or 5 weight rod with a length of 9 ft. I feel most comfortable with those. For small rivers or rivers with many overhanging trees I go down to 3 weight with a length of 7 up to 8th feet.
Many people asked me what rods they should use and I think it’s a very personal choice. Just try and fish. During 50 years of fly fishing I used many brands for my workshops and classes like: Loomis, Fenwick, Orvis, Winston, Powel, Sage, Stickman and Thomas and Thomas. However, personally I use all kind of models from Thomas and Thomas for more than 30 years. The Helix, LPS, Paradigm (new and old model), and the Horizon are my most favourites for trout and grayling fishing. With T&T it’s an easy choice because you love them or you hate them. I fish often deep in the wilderness and have workshops and classes with dozens of kids year after year and T&T is an extreme reliable rod. I had several breakages mainly due to stupidities from other people during my demonstrations and classes, but personally. I broke only 3 rods myself in 50 years of fly fishing and only one of them was a T&T.
As reel for my classes in river fly fishing I mainly use the old System 2 reels given to me for my workshops with the kids by Barry Welham many years ago. With good maintenance and the luck of having many spare parts they still work perfectly for the kids. For myself I prefer Shilton reels that are manufactured in South Africa. They are not so well known in Europe and the US but they are amazing reels with extraordinary quality and an enormous pleasure to fish with.

Regarding fly lines for river fishing: I mainly use weight forward lines but from good quality because even the most expensive rod with a poor quality fly line doesn’t work. I learned that lesson very early somewhere in the seventies when I swap from fibreglass to carbon fibre and had a great rod with bad line. I only use one floatant and that’s Dilly Wax from Fly Rite. I use it for my flies, for my lips, for my line and for my leaders and tippets and I love it. Never have find anything better.
Clothing depends a lot on the species that you are after and how clear the waters are that you fishing. There are species like yellowfish that you only can catch in crystal clear water when being extremely well camouflaged. Even a tan hat or rod movement can scare them away. For my normal river fishing I prefer a tan hat because that keeps mosquitos better away than a dark one. I use hats and caps with a dark colour at the inside what gives your eyes clearly more peace. In some places fish doesn’t care and you can catch them even wearing a white T-shirt while at other places you absolutely need to wear colours that fade completely away against the background. For me personally my strategy is when I can see the fish, that fish can see me 10 times better, and that’s how I behave during my fishing and what I wear. In general I wear natural colours.
In high summer or at warmer area’s I prefer wet wading because I don’t wade very deep anyway. In Arctic or sub-Arctic regions where the water is still icy cold I wear a 4-layered high quality wader. My Polaroid’s always have moose coloured glasses and because I wear glasses I let somebody produce special Polaroid glasses that I can over my normal glasses. I find the moose colour most relaxing while fishing. Some might call them tan coloured glasses.
I use a sling instead of a vest since several years because the vests start to give me pain in my shoulders and back. (Probably because I overload them!) . A sling is much smaller so I trained myself to bring only the necessary items. A smaller sling also gives me less problems when I pack my bags for air travel too. There is plenty to bring so I made checklists for the places and area’s that I fish more frequently and update them after each trip. That means my list for Canada looks different than for Mongolia and the list for Malaysia is different from South Africa or Cuba but all 5 list have several common items too.
Wherever I go I have a small fly tying kid with me, just in case I need different flies or see strange hatches and unknown insects that fish are feeding for.

2. Leader material, build up, length and knots.

I make my own braided leaders since 1981 and developed them together with the late Leon Chandler, who was a great fly fisher in the USA. My entire backing-fly-line and leader system is totally knotless. I worked on my system after loosing a huge salmon and smaller grilse at the same day in Norway in the early 1980’s.  I had lost my entire fly line because the fly line-backing connection broke off while playing a big salmon and lost my leader on a grilse just a few hours later where it was connected to the fly line. In both cases it was a knot problem for sure and it set me thinking, and all I wanted was that it never would happen again. It took me a whole winter together with my friend Leon Chandler to find a good solution and we managed and I use the same system still today. Of course improved a little and very useful for my extreme large dry flies and kid classes as well. One leader last a full season for me and I can use it for five weeks classes with kids.  The only knots in the system are where my tippet is connected to my leader and of course where the flies are tied to the tippet.
For my tippets I only want the best of the best monofilament.  Therefore I tested many monofilaments and fluorocarbon over the years and I picked Stroft monofilaments made of Polyamide and Polyamide alloys as most reliable and durable. My test is simple when I check monofilament for tippet. I make a knot in it and pull hard and when it breaks I never will use it as tippet material.  Maxima is very reliable too especially Chameleon but its far thicker in diameter than Stroft when it comes to same breaking strength. I use that in my classes when using wet flies but we talking about dry flies here so all I use is Stroft N, ABR, GTM and LS. I make my tippet choice usual on the riverbank depending on the bottom structure and species.
My leaders are maximal rod length. I see my leader and tippet as two spate parts and I adapt my tippet length to the weather and water conditions. In clear water I often go longer while in windy condition I shorten the tippet checking on the wind. When there is no wind at all I also don’t use very long leaders because I love to use the wind in benefit of my casts. I only use one diameter tippet that I tie directly on my leader. My leaders went down from 30-20 to10lbs and all parts are connected without any knots as well. The biggest benefit after developing this backing-fly line-leader-tippet system was the unbelievable success with casting my big Klinkhåmers. Thus because the braided leader reduced wind knots till minimum while in the same time it lets turn over my large parachute files very smoothly and the precision was far above all expectations.
I never use breaking strength but only diameter and I hate al those different sizes so to prevent myself from going crazy I just stick to diameter-breaking strength. I use for trout and grayling 0.10mm-0.12mm and 0.14mm. The breaking strength for me is only important to compare the strength with other brands because I know exactly what diameter I use for what species. Like in Norway and Finland I use 0.12mm for normal rivers with sandy bottom or fine gravel and change to 0.14mm when there is a rocky bottom. In Mongolia for example I use 0.14mm right away and had no breakages. It is also a feeling that you learn by time and experiences.  My braided leader system is sailfish and tarpon proof as well but I use stronger braids and thicker diameters.

3. Approach and stealth.

Never walk into water right away. Always fish from the banks first wherever you go. Never run or make quick movements. Don’t shout around loudly because some species will move down. When rivers are clear wear clothes that fade away against the background. Always move slowly and prevent any or too many fast dry cast. I prefer using Amadou instead doing dry casts. Only cast once and when your cast is wrong let it go and first pic up the line at the end of your drift and redo. Always stay low at high banks and when there is no cover or trees around make some side casts. When possible carefully get in the water and hide you against the high bank and present your fly with a roll cast. Observe well because often when you arrived at a good-looking spot all fish moved down but when sit down low and watch cleverly they usual return within 10 minutes again. I also fish intensively for fish on sight.

4. Reading the water.

I love unknown rivers probably because in my early years I was fishing intensively in Scandinavia. In my prime time I went to Scandinavia 12-14 times a year. This was possible because I made so many hours in the army and I let me pay in free time instead of money. After several weeks working constantly 24/7 there was a lot of compensation too and Scandinavia was easy accessible from the camp where I stayed in Germany. I worked with the best topographic maps and a compass to guide myself to expecting hot spots on the maps. Usual connections between lakes turned out to be crazy fishing places and they were easy to locate on the maps but sometimes hard to reach. Everything was done without gps and all by feet and camping out in the wilderness, sometimes for weeks in a row and completely alone. This is how I find most of my hot spots in Scandinavia and all this walking beside rivers taught me a lot how to read rivers, how to respect nature and wildlife and how to catch fish.
The good thing with dry fly fishing is that if the hatches are on and fish feeding well its quite easy to read the rivers. The big problem for most fly fishers starts when there is no surface activity at all. Because most of my lessons learned at very lonely and remote waters and in close relationship with my Klinkhåmer Special, I have build up strange fishing strategies too. I know what my fly can do and that it will seduce fish that are not feeding at all, and I use that in my advantage too.
Over the years I learned by experiences a lot about feeding seams, feeding lies and food seams. I learned to recognise the corridors from migrating fish from lakes to the rivers and most important of all. I discover the spots where big grayling recovered after the spawning

5. Casting ability which casts are essential.

I always tell my friends that I am NOT a caster but a fly fisherman. Of course I can cast and taught many kids over the years how to present a fly, but I learned my casting all by myself so it’s quite a bit different then most books and clips will tell you. I have very weird cast too, especially when I am standing in my favourite dry fly waters with strong currents and always broken surface water. Friends who made quite some video while we fishing capture a lot of my casting and it’s indeed hard to analyse actually what I am doing. I have crazy casts too and while many fly fishers hates the wind I really love it and use it in my benefit while present my flies. This because I had to handle a lot of unpredicted mountain winds while fishing so many places that were quite windy. Lots of people are focussed on casting especially when it comes to distance. I see it at almost every show and the rods than can casts out the entire line usual are the best ones. I am a fanatic and very enthusiastic river fisherman and I hardly have to cast further than 15 meters. I also have bad experiences when a fly land at 28 meters and the fish grab it right away. To be honest I learned my fly fishing by catching my fish and every fish I caught gave me more experience, in playing and casting too. So I learned tricks and those that caught most fish simply were the best tricks for me.
Do I believe in casting instruction? oh yeah don’t misunderstand me, I really do because it will save you a lot of time and a lot of problems on the riverbanks, in the water and especially while standing on a skiff. My home country Holland have excellent casting instructors and when people asking me about casting I always advise them to take some lessons first from a real pro.

During river fishing I saw so many people casting over the fish, especially with fishing for Atlantic salmon. I can place my flies under overhanging trees pretty well or present my fly in front of the fish that I see swimming. Most of my close friends told me that I am really good in giving my dry flies extreme long drifts while downstream fishing. This is how I got most successful in the big rivers in Scandinavia where I taught myself fly-fishing. This is how I developed casts that makes throwing my fly particular easy for me. I call these cast combination casts, for example: parachute and snake casts that I even pull back while the line still in actions just to be sure the drift of my fly is as long as possible. It has consequences too, because the slack line you have to set the hook quite powerful. I use a lot casts that give me slack, also to be sure that I can present and let my fly drift where I want it. So that’s why I never give casting demonstrations because how should I explain a cast that I am hardly able to explain.
I find the perfect line fitting to my rod by trying several weights up and down and what I think feels in perfect harmony for me doesn’t have to work for others. I learned my fly fishing at the riverbank and by practicing over and over that’s how I teach it to others. The motivation always are the catches and that’s how it works for me.

6. Entomology, what should we know.

I love it and every place where I fish I seriously dig in the water and between the stones to check what fish could be eating. I keep it simple too and imitate insects by colour, silhouette, size and mobility. I think every fly fisherman should at least know the differences between upwing flies (or mayflies), sedges or caddis flies, stoneflies and midges. I fished almost 20 years before I got interest in the insects so I learn first a lot later what some of my most successful flies actually imitated.

7. Rise forms Can they tell us something?

I always watch around when I am fishing, actually constantly. Moving or hunting fish often point direction or can even show you how aggressively they really are. It let you easier decide where to present your fly. I love fishing on sight and it doesn’t matter what species. A big rudd or ide is also very nice to catch with dry flies. When fish are feeding and you observe well, you can learn quickly if they take an insect from the surface film or just underneath the water film. In my early years I watch this closely and for hours with binoculars and it was extremely helpful for me. My Klinkhåmer became an important secret weapon for all those fish who suck insects from the water film while barely leave a trace. As soon the large white wing disappeared I knew it was what I call a sucker and I set the hook. This is extremely successful with Atlantic salmon as well.
Rise forms are closely related with species too and I am just so lucky that I fished so much for grayling. Bottom feeders like grayling and even barbel who come up for dry flies (only in Spain) do that in special ways and as soon you know their rise, you also know where to present your fly. Some fish need a fly presentation 3 meters in front of their rises when you to close they simply stay down. I learned a lot from dry fly fishing for Yellowfish in South Africa in November 2019, and I already made a lot new plans to improve my catches with fish I already fishing for since years. You keep learning.

8. Fly selection, Size, shape, materials, which flies are essential.

It’s a clever question and you surely can write a whole book about it. My power are my flies and not my casting so that’s why I put everything in my flies and the strategies how I use them. I don’t use many different hooks but I use only a few special hooks and when I do I tie dozens and dozens different flies on that same hook. For example with the Klinkhåmer hook I use it for dry flies, emergers, flymphs, softhackle flies, unweighted nymphs, weighted nymphs and even heavy bottom bouncers as I call them. It’s so easy for me to do that all on the same hook. To imitate my flies the best and most accurate I always use Gary Borgers Color System. I have with me wherever I go so I can imitate the right colour when I tie my flies in evening. We also use it among a large group of close friends to discuss certain colours a lot better. I use a few own dubbing materials that I made myself and I mainly use for flies that need to float very well. My standard dubbing is Fly Rite and I have the whole set so I can copy any dry fly body anywhere in the world. A few spinner tails from a painting brush, a hackle and Poly-Yarn for wing do the rest.

My flies are quite big compare to most fly fishermen but I have small flies too, don’t worry. I only use a quite effective approach when it comes which fly and size to use as first. Imagine you fishing a very remote place and you start with a size 16 Klinkhåmer. You probably will catch fish after fish but its not my strategy. I start big, NO I start HUGE and go smaller as long success stays out. You can’t do the opposite. I also test flies when the catches are plentiful and NOT when success stays out because while keep changing you never will know if the flies you have used before would have seduced that fish as well. Try opposite way, that’s how I get fly boxes filled up.
I only have few flies but in numerous sizes. I trust on my Klinkhåmer Special as dry fly and emerger, my ParaPoly Sedge and the Racklehanen as floating caddis, my Culard as small fly, my Hodal emerger as emerger and my some Paraduns as duns and when stoneflies hatching.

9. Presentation and drifts.

I explained this before in some other questions but my simplest answer is that I mainly do it feelingly.

10. Upstream or downstream?

This answer is very simple for me because I fish all directions. However, when the rules are upstream only I will of course follow the rules.

11. Fighting fish

I hate it when people play fish far too long. I do a lot of rod, reel, line, leader and tippet testing on extremely large fish so I taught myself not to play too long but also not to damage the fish. I only have one answer here and that is that I play fish feelingly and as fast as I can but always in a decent way.