As readers of this blog may have noticed by now, here at Urbantrout we definitely dig the knowledge that we’re part of something bigger… especially when that ‘something bigger’ is the international brotherhood of urban fly-fishing.
Martin Pütter was one of the earliest volunteers on the Wandle river restoration project, and for several years he made a real reputation for catching trout on the notorious ‘Savacentre stretch’ of the river in south London’s Colliers Wood.
Now pursuing his journalistic calling in Switzerland, we’re glad to see he’s still haunted by urban waters – as evidenced by his latest article, Auf Aeschen in Urbaner Umgebung (On Grayling in Urban Surroundings) in the widely-respected Petri-Heil magazine.
With local fly-fisher Jonas Steiner, webmaster of the Fliegenfischer Club Basel, Martin discusses many familiar challenges of city fishing: dogs in the water, snarky comments from passers-by, and swimmers and family BBQs.
But if you can get past these populous surroundings, the little River Wiese’s deeper pools can clearly produce impressive grayling, and good numbers of them too…
Thanks to Martin and his editor, we’re thrilled to be able to offer Urbantrout readers the chance to download the full 4-page article as a pdf (copyright 2016 Petri-Heil), usually only available to subscribers to the magazine’s full print edition. Just click here:
Auf Aeschen in Urbaner Umgebung – Martin Putter – copyright Petri-Heil
Naturally, we’d also encourage you to explore the rest of the Petri-Heil website at your leisure.
According to Martin, an expert in these areas, Swiss fishing regulations are kinda complicated: for instance, the canton of Zurich allows fly-fishing from the banks of Lake Zurich free of charge, with no exam required. In Lucerne or Geneva, on the other hand, it’s a different matter: just to get a day ticket, you’ll need to sit an exam first.
Which makes us even more grateful that Martin and Jonas have waded through all those regulations to snag this superb Swiss fishing feature for us…
(Photo: Martin Pütter / Petri-Heil)
That’s so cool that you made headlines. Congrats. Urban fishing is such an interesting niche in our hobby.