For many flyfishermen, the arctic char is known to be the mountain’s Greta Garbo (Famous Swedish Actor that spent her life in privacy). It’s the shady, mysterious fish that only can be caught a couple of calm summer nights a year.
These fish are so shady and makes the smallest of rises that only the most experienced can manage to fool on tiny dries… Even if this is the most entertaining way to catch them. I’ll leave the Dry or Die lifestyle on windy days to give some streamers and nymphs a try, it’s really effective on these species as well.
Another piece of advice is that there are usually schools of them in a lake so try to find where they are feeding and when you find them you could have some outstanding fishing.
During the summertime when the temperature gets high in the lakes they usually tend to hold in deeper locations or at the inlets from creeks. By using a sink tip or heavy flies it can be the ticket to catching these fish.
At times we’d used strong tippet combined with either dries, nymphs or streamers to catch them. They are aggressive and are not too tippet shy at times. So don’t be afraid to use thicker tippets so you could fight them harder and get them in faster.
Sometimes it’s tricky to get them to eat. So never forget to just enjoy the beautiful environment the arctic char live in with some coffee made over open fire together with your friends and relax.
The admirable arctic char will forever be the extra and best spice into my life.
Jacob Eliasson or @flyfishingstories is fly fishing guide based out of Sweden. Check out his feed for your daily dose of char, pike, brown trout and anything else that can be caught in Sweden.
