After Hours Engadin Guiding July 2022

Having finished the first Engadin guiding weekend this year, André and I enjoyed some afterhours fishing to ourselves. Here’s a visual essay of fly fishing the Engadin.

Engadin Guiding July 2022

This is the third year that André and ExpediTom offer weekend trips in the Engadin hosted by Villa Marguerita. The group in this course consisted of three beginners and four advanced fly anglers. To accommodate all requirements, we split the group according to their experience. Whereas the beginner group started off with casting on the meadow, I went with the other one to some waters, among them the Inn as well as lakes of the Engadin.

Due to many mishaps, this weekend was very demanding on me. Apart from a broken rod, a can of Red Bull accidentally opened in the trunk, and another reel got some unnecessary scratches. Next, I forgot my wallet as well as my two-months old phone on the roof of the car and only realised it, when my smartwatch vibrated to let me know that my phone now has disconnected. By that time, I was on the main road driving about 80km/h. At least we were able to retrieve my wallet and the cards flying around on the street. Consequently, I had to make a run to the only electronics store in the Engadin in St. Moritz during the lunch break of my clients.

Great.

After hours fly fishing the Engadin — Guiding Engadin July 2022

Guiding After Hours and the Bräurup Reunion

After guiding for two days straight, André and I cannot hold back the urge to go fishing. Hence, we almost run to the water, but this time we both were quite relaxed. Perhaps it was because I knew at that point already that I will stay a couple of nights at a camping. Additionally, Jonas arrived and we met up for some fishing. He currently is filming material for the collection of the Schweizerischer Fischereiverband (Head of Swiss fishing clubs). So, he was even more behind the camera than I was. The last the time the three of us were travelling, fishing and taking photographs together was back in 2017 at the Hotel Bräurup in Austria.

From the onset we had a really good time together and in the end André and Jonas decided to spend one more day in the beautiful Engadin.

Here is a visual diary of how that went:

: CDC dries worked a treat.

: Jonay capturing the moment

: Finding feeding grayling

: Moment of relieve

: André with a grayling

: Dry fly connaisseur

: Stunning male grayling

: Waiting for risers

: Blue adipose fin of a grayling

: Stunning dorsal fin of a male grayling

: Stunning milky way core

: That light.

: Cruising brown trout

: That light.

: Still mornings at the lake.

: Abundat insect life at the lake.

: Stunning scenery shot by André

: Grayling

PFUI!

At the crack of dawn, we headed off to a secret place. The atmosphere in the early morning hours is mind-boggling with the low-hanging fog and the abundant insect life. Moreover, the lake features some stunning flats, where now and then massive grayling cruise for their breaky in form of an ant or other bugs. The visuals surrounding this kind of still water fishing resembles whale watching in the way that you see the fish hump and piercing with their fin through the surface.

Flat bay at the lake with cruising grayling during guiding after hours.

While resting at the bay after some unsuccessful hours, a person approached us with binoculars. As it turned out it was a fishery warden checking our licenses as well as our flies for barbs. Given that everything was fine, we had a chat with him. His name was Romano and he told us about the fishery. In particular, he told us about the huge namaycush inhabiting the lakes of the Engadin and how local anglers catch them with “Bammali” (which is trolling a small dead white fish). Just when he described the practise of putting a lead weight into the mouth of the dead minnow, André declared his discontent with this kind of fishing by loudly saying “PFUI!”.

This is a typical exclamation used to tell dogs or small children to let it be. I think a similar expression in the English language is “fie”.

Having a chat with fishery warden Romano

This was such a bizarre situation because we were all fly fishermen. However, at that point it was not clear, whether Romano used the “Bammali” technique himself, which would have been even more awkward. As it turned out, he is also more into fly fishing.

Still, it makes me smile just thinking of this conversation.

Pleasure

The Engadin guiding after hours is a great time to reminisce about bygone trips and plan future ones. Having Sunday off from guiding, I can immerse myself into the beautiful place that the Engadin is. Moreover, I appreciated the company of Jonas and André which made the trip even more memorable – and funny. PFUI!