Names of local communities - use if using links to tourist offices

Dalarna is a province and a "county" in central Sweden (but there has never been a "Count of Dalarna"). For all of you who are not familiar with Sweden I can tell you shortly about it. Sweden is one nation but is comprised of 23 counties (in other nations provinces or states would be the equivalent of our counties). In each county a Governor (appointed by the Swedish Government) leads the County Administration, an administrative body with the task of putting the Swedish Government´s and Parliament´s orders into action. The County of Dalarna is 28,194 km.sq. or, in comparision with USA, it is larger than all of the New England states except for Maine. In European comparision Dalarna is the size of Albania, i.e sligthly smaller than Belgium or one-third of Austria. There are not so many inhabitants in Dalarna, only approx 290,000 persons and most of them living in the southern parts of the county. In the north we have a local community, Älvdalen, that is 6,914 km.sq. (bigger than Delaware), with less than 8,300 persons and most of them in the southern part....

In Sweden we have no national fishing licences (yet) but you have to get a permit from the local fishery right owner´s organisation (in Swedish = fiskevårdsområdesförening) before you can fish in Sweden in general and in Dalarna in particular. Fishing is not too expensive in Dalarna, one day permits are often 30 to 50 Swedish Crowns for normal fishing with pike, perch and the odd grayling or trout. Areas with good to very good fishing for trout, grayling and/or arctic charr can be 50 to almost 200 Sw.Cr per day.

In Dalarna you can find almost all kinds of fishing except sea fishing (Dalarna has no sea border) and fishing for salmon in rivers - the hydroelectric dams stopped that some fifty years ago.... The main river in the county, river Dalälven, is one of the largest rivers in Scandinavia and has been a super salmon fishing river up till the turn of the century when a dam and a hydroelectric power plant at the lowermost rapids plugged the river shut for salmon and for searun brown trout. Many more dams followed..... Instead we resort to fishing for almost all the other kinds of fish there are to be caught in Sweden. You can find "arctic fishing" for arctic charr and brown trout in the rivers and lakes in the northern mountains at the Norwegian border (local community Älvdalen) but you can also find excellent "lowland" fishing for big northern pike, perch and large zander (= walleye) in the nutrient rich rivers and lakes of the southern parts of Dalarna (local communities Smedjebacken, Hedemora and Avesta). In the rest of Dalarna we have all types of fishing for brown trout and grayling in the faster stretches of the rivers and brown trout, pike, perch and whitefish in slower reaches and in the lakes. In all fifteen communities you can, if you want to, find fishing for rainbow trout in so called put-and-take waters. For you interested in size of fish it could be interesting to know that, as examples, arctic charr up to 5 kilogrammes, brown trout up to 12,5 kilogrammes and pike up to 25 kilogrammes have been caught in the waters of Dalarna. Of course fish seldom run this big - but our waters have the potential for this kind of fish.

Fly fishing in Dalarna is normally best done with fairly light equipment. As for myself I use, most of the time, an AFTM 5 or 6 rod for charr, brown trout and grayling in rivers and lakes. For a calm night with spent mayflies laying everywhere in the water surface or tiny caddis pupae at the surface a rod with an AFTM 3 or 4 line is often preferred. For pike and zander, and for windy days in the mountains, a rod equipped with a size 7 or 8 line is more comfortable... When it comes to fly patterns I stay with my style of ecological fly fishing and use patterns that are imitations, or good illusions, of the real food organisms that the fish eat.

In the winter all the lakes and most of the rivers are covered with thick ice so there is no fly fishing then.... But if you don´t want to stay inside tying flies or don´t want to go out skiing there is ice fishing to be enjoyed. Ice fishing is done with short (20 to 40 centimeters) jigging rods and you use special jigging spoons or lead with flies as outriggers or, if you dare, you try the russian mormyshka style. Mormyshkas are "micro jigs" made from hooks size 16 or smaller, a jig head of lead (or preferrably wolfram / tungsten) and baited with a chironomidae larva (so called "blood worm" or "joker"). These micro jigs are fished with monofilament nylon lines 0.12 millimeters in diameter (approx. 2 lbs) or thinner! Just like in fly fishing there is no room for heavy handed clumsiness.... and you often get very big perch or trout to get this mini bait! Fishing a jigging rod with 0.12 mm line and no reel and having a hefty perch on the other end is super! It is actually the only type of fishing other than fly fishing that really interests me nowadays!

If you want to get in contact with a tourist office - they can help you with booking fishing permits and housing for your stay in Dalarna try this link
http://www.w.lst.se/turism/turbyra.htm
It´s in Swedish, I know, but I think you can decipher it! Under the names of the local communities (see map above) you can find postal address, telephone number, fax number and for some of them an email address.

If you want to get in contact with me concerning fly fishing in Dalarna you can send me an email message - see Feedback tab!
Please note that I do not read my private email more often than once a week and that I am not at my work desk every day... but - if not overly burdened with work, I will try to get you some up-to-date information on fly fishing in Dalarna, or at least direct you towards a good information source.

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