I’m residing in Alsace (France). My name is claude Behr, and I have a passion for fly-fishing . This art gives as many emotions as feelings. It develops humility and respect. Wild waters and their rustic settings allow his practitioner to feel in harmony with nature.
Fly fisherman since 1982, I invested in fisheries management in 1987. In 1998, I created my first website to promote fly fishing in Alsace. In 2010 I finalized a version witch became a great succes by flyfishermen all aroud the Word. Since November 2015, it is complemented, as part of my company Claude Behr Favorites (C.B.F.), by an online shop.
After 20 years of existence without discontinuity, you find in 2019, this new version of my website dedicated to different aspects of fly fishing in Alsace. The “regulars” will not be too distracted by the content, because they will find most of the old sections, in a more modern site (wordpress), more secure (https), more user-friendly (guestbook and comments) and adapted to both PCs. to tablets or mobile phones (responsive). It does not matter whether you are former visitors or newcomers, here you will discover many aspects of our common passion, fly fishing in Alsace.
ln freshwater fishes can be caught with the fly, and this everywhere, but here, you will discover some special aspects of fly-fishing in Alsace.
You will more particularly find useful informations about:
the Bruche in Heiligenberg (1° catégorie-Private) on 16 juni 2023, with low water
On June 16, 2023, I went for an evening hatch on the Bruche upstream from Heiligenberg. the water was clear and very low on this hot, windy day. The river is suffering and we can only hope for the stormy rains expected in the next few days..
Arriving around 7:30 p.m., a few rare rise of small fish on the horizon. I started with an SHP-1, my fly of the month for June 2023. It was quickly successful with about fifteen fish: chub, bleak spirlin (which did not hesitate to swallow a spent on hook 12), graylings ( including 2 specimens of around 30 cm) and some little trout, the most beautiful trout hardly seeming to be interested in insects, yet numerous above the currents: imagos of heptageneids, submagos of ignitas, brown caddisflies and various gnats. I also caught some fish with the TOT, CBF and SEP-2.
A nice evening hatch, even if I hadn’t hit any big fish.
the chubs were hungryI caught aso some little troutsa grayling with 30 cm , who took my SHP-1 on the surfacethe spirlin bleaks take all flies they find..Selection of the season
Offen predictable, sometimes surprising, the Bruche is my river, that I generally court, which sometimes fills me with joy, sometimes afflicts me, but, always enchants me.
Taking its source at an altittude of 680 meters, on the top of the Climont, in the granitics Vosges, the Bruche runs during 78 km to its confluence with the river Ill, just before Strasbourg. Up to Dinsheim, it is classified in 1st category (salmonidae dominant). Rich in watery insects (baetis, rithrogena, ephemerella ignita, caddis..) it presents a succession of flats and currents, typical of the piedmont plains.
It is well populated with brown trouts, to wich are added white fish (chubs, daces, spirlin, bleaks, gudgeons..). From Heiligenberg, the graylings are well established and it contains some rainbow trouts. The troutsare not enormous there; a fish of 30 cm is a beautiful specimen (my personal record with the fly is 45 cm there), but they are wild, and defend themselves with vivacity and malignancy. The graylings commonly reach 30 cm and some specimens of more than 40 cm were already caught. Sinceyear 1999, the salmon comes also back again in the Bruche.
There are a lot of associations on the Bruche and it’s not always easy to get a fishing licence. But since 1997, the fishing association “haute vallée de la Bruche” has created a fly fihing course in Schirmeck. On this place, where the fishing is no-kill way, from the 1st may to the 31st august you get sometimes the chance to catch brown trouts of more than a kilogram. In 2003, a new fly fishing course has opened in Muhlbach on Bruche ! daily licenses are also avaible in Urmatt, Dinsheim and Molsheim.
-by fishing store BRUCHE- NATURE: 3, route de Strasbourg , 67130 SCHIRMECK … tel: 0033 3 88 97 89 45 for the fly-fishing course from Schirmeck.
-by fishing store NATURAMA, Zone de loisirs “Le Trêfle” 67120 DORLISHEIM. tél: 03 88 04 81 81. for the sector of Ergersheim-Dachstein-Wolxheim.
brown trout
News for march 2024
News: the river got a lot of water during all the winter. the river will be strong at the opening of the 1° category, the 09 march 2024.
There are of course other interesting rivers for flyfishing in Alsace. Moder, Eichel, Lauter, Sauer, Giessen, or Andlau in the Bas-Rhin, Fecht, Doller, Ill, Lauch, Liepvrette or Thur in the Haut-Rhin, but the Bruche is one of the most beautiful, and it is dear to my heart.
The brown trout (Salmo Truta Fario) is the native fish par excellence in the Vosges Massif and Piedmont, where most of the rivers in Alsace flow.
Still well present in the upstream part of the alsatian rivers, the future of the trout is nevertheless quite uncertain, in Alsace as in all the European regions of average altitude. Populations are in fact threatened with extinction because of a multitude of dangers: accidental or (and) chronic pollution, predation of cormorants and other more or less natural predators, climate warming leading to a decrease in Oxygen dissolved in water, an essential parameter in the survival of the species, decreased caches (river and stream recalibration), food competition related to the decline in natural food, particularly Insects (insecticides, pesticides)
Already since the years 2000 it is obvious that only upstream streams, to simplify portions above 400 meters above sea level, still contain a more or less natural population of brown trouts in alsatian streams. Even on theSchirmeck no-kill course, located at 350 m above sea level, the chub come to mingle with the population of trout, however consistent. On the occasion of an electric fishery carried out in 2003 on the no-kill course of Muhlbachon Bruche, the fishing federation had already shown that the biomass was more important in white fish (chub, daces and barbers) than in brown trout.
Breeding of the species continues, between December and February, upstream of most of the basin head streams. Although sometimes anarchic rearing has disconsolate the wild strain, efforts have been made for several years by the departmental federation and the Basin Management Committee to safeguard the natural strains. Thus the Federation of Bas-Rhin has set up since the years 2005 a plan of reintroduction of brown trout from the so-called Baerembach strain, the name of a creek of the northern Vosges whose genomes appeared to be the least polluted by the trout rearing from Numerous European farms with various but rarely alsatian strains.
If, at the end of the twentieth century, the fishintroducing was practised, it must be recognized, in an anarchic manner, the establishment of the basin committees and the professionalisation of the fishing federations currently allows to honour most often in Alsace a patrimonial management, whose effects, in natural quality of trout, is already felt in many alsatian rivers, such as the Doller, the Thur, theBruche,the Mossig, the Fecht, or even the lauter.
In Alsace you will sometimes find very large trout in the old Rhine or the Rhine floodway canal, which regularly hosts large trouts, including reformed spawners of the federal fish farm in Obenheim. Elsewhere, the size average of the brown trout is not very important, the alsatian rivers being sandstone or granitic rather than limestone, but their fighting and vivacity will delight you.
Brown trout is an omnivorous and highly opportunistic fish for its food. It is on the other hand a suspicious nature and does not allow itself to be easily approached. Sunny days are generally less good for fishing than covered and rainy days, as the brownie is is lucifuge.
If there are many fishing techniques for trout, it is flyfishing that is certainly the most exciting. It is also the most regularly sought-after species of fly fishermen. It allows the practice of all our techniques, because it occasionally comes to rise on the surface to take a dry fly, will be tempted by a nymph drifting over the current, fetch angrily a streamer nervously stripped or even pick a wet fly passing to her Range, in the frenzy of a spring hatch.
In view of the threats evoked previously that affect the populations of brown trout, I invite each responsible flyfisherman to take the minimum of these fish and to increase in personal capacity the minimum size of catch, often officially to 23 or 25cm, still far too low to allow the most beautiful spawners to perpetuate the species.
Rainbow trout
Rainbow trout (Onchorynchus Mykiss) is not a native fish in Alsace. However, its location has been very real for about fifty years.
It is obviously very present in pond, lake or reservoir, like the stork reservoir in Seltz, where the larger specimens allow fly fishermen to capture a trophy fish.
Rainbow trout are also found in most of the upper lakes of the alsatian Vosges, such as the trout lake (or Forlet) where they often coexist with the brown trout.
But it is also present in our rivers. Rainbow trout, known as “portion trout”, have long been dispatched for the opening of trout fishing in 1 ° category, and it is still so in some fishing associations. Some survivors of the high fishing pressure of the first days of the opening are occasionally able to adapt to their new environment for long months or even years, and then offer us a pleasant sport fishing.
Breeding fingerlings of higher quality strains have also occasionally been set in several alsatian rivers and very beautiful fish have thus managed to acclimatize on certain specific posts of these rivers. I still remember the capture in 2012, of a very beautiful rainbow trout, visibly becoming wild, who had taken my little nymph on the no-kill course of Muhlbach on Bruche.
Less demanding on the level of dissolved oxygen in water than its European cousin, rainbow trout of American origin is also an omnivorous and opportunistic fish. Because it is more regularly active to feed than borwn trout, which spends many hours in its cache, rainbow trout is particularly interesting for the fly fisherman.
Just as with the brown trout, and contrary to what many fishermen advocate, I think it’s good to release the rainbow trout under 30 cm that you could catch in the river. Because if the big rainbow can be predatory small brown trout, this is not the case of the smallest and these fish offer a nice sport fishing.
In recent years, the Bruche has benefited from the establishment of several no-kill courses (or catch and release); as well as other specific courses. These are favourable to fly fishing, with a regulation in connection with the heritage management of the river.
The flyfishing course of Muhlbach sur Bruche, managed in no-kill course. It is located downstream from the village of Muhlbach sur Bruche, at the end of the Wisches course, behind the “Chateau du Mullerhof”. (See map on my page of the plan of accesses to the Bruche). This course, located in 1 ° category, is 800 meters long, it is managed by the association Bruche Passion. Licences available on the Internet and at the store Fario in Dorlisheim.
The active reserve of Molsheim, in no-kill but not reserved for flyfishing. This active reserve is located in Molsheim, between the bridges of the railway station and the bridge of Europe (high school). (See map on my page of the plan of accesses to the Bruche). This course, located in 2 ° category, is 800 meters long, it is managed by the association (AAPPMA) of Molsheim. Licences available on the Internet and at the store Fario in Dorlisheim.
Moreover, a reciprocity in no-kill has been set up since 2016 by the fishing associations of the upper valley of the Bruche, Bruche Passion, Niederhaslach, Magel, Urmatt, Gresswiller, Mutzig, on the course of the Bruche (not valid on tributaries)
A beautiful browntrout of the no-kill course of Muhlbach on Bruche
