While in Santa Barbara, I first heard of Solvang or, in destination marketing speak: “California’s Little Denmark.” Solvang was founded in the early twentieth century by Danes with the vision of establishing a “Danish village, where the arts, crafts and customs of their homeland could be created anew.” Also, they wanted to build a Danish folk school. At least this is what the napkins in The Red Viking Restaurant say.

There I had Danish frikadeller, potato salad and red cabbage. Eating frikadeller, meat balls, was, in fact, my main motivation to drive up the 45 minutes from Santa Barbara. It was time well spent, as you can also get great pastries in Solvang.  (There is a reason these things are called Danish!)

Solvang is a nice little tourist destination and some corners of the village truly look like a Danish town, whereas others more resemble a theme park with a Little Mermaid statue, gift shops and an odd amount of windmills. The food though is excellent.

Could have fooled me. Very Danish looking street in Solvang, California.

You can buy a lot of pastries in Solvang. There are Danish bakeries everywhere.

Many of the villages surrounding Solvang look like American western towns, so it is pretty funny seeing these European style houses.

Bust of Hans Christian Andersen in Solvang, California.

Read all about “The Danish Capital of America!”

That’s it, folks, Solvang, a Danish Village!

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The only person I meet on a regular basis when wading the shallow bays of Lake Ontario near Toronto is Gildo, who, admittedly, is out there way more often than I am and who knows a thousand times more about carp behavior than I do.

Gildo is also responsible for getting me my very first carp on the fly. Only an hour or so after he presented me with two of his skillfully tied crayfish flies (behemoths of three or four inches in length) I hooked into a nice 15-pounder. Three more fish followed on that afternoon. I have since used very similar flies and also tried to tie them. For the past three seasons in my neck of the woods, giant crayfish flies have beaten out by far any other dry fly, nymph, woolly bugger, or streamer.

Since it’s still too cold in Southern Ontario to actually fish  for carp, I spent some time combing through the web for fly tying instructions that most closely resemble the crayfish fly. This is what I found, try some of them in your home waters!

Davie McPhail ties a great crayfish. However, based on my experience in Ontario, I would modify it slightly, and make it browner, add in rubber legs throughout the body and tie it on a bigger hook.

McPhail also ties a great looking Buechler Crayfish, although I have found that these more traditionally looking flies don’t catch a lot of fish here in the Great Lakes… Does anyone agree? Post a comment below, would love to hear from you.

The following video drew some controversial comments, however, I feel this crayfish could be quite popular in the shallow waters, particularly around rocks.

Looking for more about carp on the fly? Read this recent post!

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As usual, most stories were travel features. Particularly popular were two topics: the 100th anniversary of the Calgary Stampede and the Edge Walk at the CN Tower in Toronto. Stories about these two happenings have each been published in five major German and Swiss newspapers. (Among them, by the way, were two great new clients of mine: Mannheimer Morgen and Die Rheinpfalz.)

The most challenging trip of 2012 took me to Reindeer Lake in Saskatchewan. The feature about this adventure should be published shortly in Blinker, one of Germany’s largest fishing magazines.

While at home, I started writing about something completely different: board games and board gaming culture. It turns out, Toronto is a center of this growing trend. A feature for Spielbox magazine triggered it all and now I am branching out, writing about board games for new clients such as St. Galler Tagblatt (the King of Tokyo review, for instance) and SPIEGEL ONLINE, arguably Germany’s most important news site. Next week, Computer Bild Spiele, Europe’s biggest computer gaming magazine, will publish my article about modern board games that may appeal to computer gamers.

That’s it for 2012, let’s see what 2013 brings!

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Every now and then I’ve written about this relatively new, yet fast growing branch of the sport. The posts aren’t so much about my own fishing experiences, but about linking to others’ great content that helps us understand how carp tick. (For the European readers, here is a post in German.)

Now however something new is online: CarpPro magazine launched one of the best resources yet for fans of “carp on the fly.” The December issue of the emag is entirely dedicated to fly fishing. Some of the most prominent spokespeople of the sport, such as Barry Reynolds (author of “Carp on the Fly“), Kirk Deeter (his book is being published in 2013) and bloggers (John Montana, Mr. P.), share their carp fishing insights. It’s 128 (free) pages filled with fishing tactics, tying instructions and neat photography.

It’s great to see that carp fishing is becoming so popular in North America. Also, it’s amazing that the “carp on the fly revolution” is spearheaded  over here, where carp has been regarded a “trash fish” for way too long!

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In cooperation with the Go Fish In Ontario marketing initiative, Bill Spicer and other show hosts travel the province fishing for bass, trout, Atlantic salmon, pike and more. All that’s missing, for my liking, is some Southern Ontario carp fishing. However, with the growing popularity of that sport, I am sure they’ll add a show soon. For now, that leaves more carp for me!

Winter is coming, and it’s the best time of the year to browse the YouTube channel and watch some nicely produced fly action. I am inspired to finally do the Algoma Train tour in 2013, something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. The more northern destinations look promising as well. Check them out.

UPDATE: December 08, 2012: Just watched some of the videos on my TV, looks really great on the “big screen” as well.

In an earlier post I wrote a bit about The New Fly Fisher’s Newfoundland channel.

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If you buy a transit day pass, the 30 minutes boat ride is free because HADAG Hafenfähren, the small ferries cruising the harbor, are part of the city’s public transit system. Annually, 22 boats (running on six routes) transport almost eight million passengers around the port. It’s the perfect way to discover the city. The ferries stop at 25 docks, some of them being main tourist sights, including Landungsbrücken, Altonaer Fischmarkt (the famous fish market!), and the soon to be opened Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg’s much anticipated new concert hall.

During my last visit in October 2012, I took a few photos between Landungsbrücken and Finkenwerder. They’ll also show how quickly the weather often changes in Hamburg!

I like the bus-like signage. So this one is going to Finkenwerder…

Altonaer Fischmarkt, the old fish market.

The Blohm & Voss shipyards.

The Museum Harbor showcases some antique ships.

Finkenwerder, in the south of Hamburg.

All over the world you may have seen Hamburg Süd containers. This is where they are from!

A panoramic view…

Yes, this is what it looks like!

Dock 11 – this is where ships get fixed!

You see all kinds of boats. There are hundreds in the harbor at any given point in time!

Ferries like this one take you through the harbor.

If you’d like to take the Hamburg harbor cruise, get off the subway at Landungsbrücken. It’s here!

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However, one of the most interesting and, in my opinion, most successful additions to the area in 2012 has been Junction Flea, an open air flea market held each second Sunday during the summer months. The last flea market before winter break will happen on October 14, 2012.

Junction Flea features a mix of select independent vendors selling antiques, handmade craft and design, food, vintage clothing, records and more. If you are “into retro,” the market is where you gotta be. I found some great art work and vintage leather bags. Hipster or not, there is cool and reasonably priced stuff out there for you.

Check out a few images I took September 9, 2012, and don’t miss the October event!

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Naturally, I was intrigued by “Salmon Run” when I stumbled upon that project on Kickstarter, the crowd funding website that has become so popular with aspiring game designers. If nothing else, “Salmon Run” combines two of my favorite hobbies: fly fishing and board gaming.

“Salmon Run” is a board game, designed by Jesse Catron (here is his campaign video), where salmon race upstream towards their spawning grounds fighting strong rapids, waterfalls, grizzlies and eagles. How is that for a theme of a game?

The rules of “Salmon Run” look solid and the modular boards change up the river each time you play. There is a deck building element (you can see some cards below), and the “Dice Hate Me” podcasters are really fond of the game as well, so “Salmon Run” has something going for it.

Check out the Kickstarter campaign if you may be interested in backing that project.

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The Great Lakes have some excellent beaches, and many of them earned their blue flag designation in recent years. So when the helpful folks at Ontario Parks offered to put together an itinerary for me to check out a few Lake Erie and Lake Huron beaches, I was ready for a little road trip. None of these destinations are more than a 2.5 hour drive away.

Most of the beaches are part of a Provincial Park, and park staff do a great job maintaining these precious natural resources. It’s definitely a surprise to travel around Ontario and find yourself in settings that remind you more of the Caribbean than Canada! (And we are talking nature here, not Uptown Toronto.)

If, for your publication, you are interested in a travel feature about Ontario beaches in German or English or would like to see more photos, contact me through my website or Twitter. There is a good chance, however, that I’ll be pitching a story idea to you shortly.

While at Sauble Beach, I tried stand up paddleboarding for the very first time. Read all about it in Lisa Greig’s post on the Explore the Bruce (Peninsula) blog.

A Southern Ontario beach at its best!

Sauble Beach has been a favorite with Ontarians for a long time.

Anyone been to Sylt in Germany? Looks somewhat similar.

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His marine biologist monologue rather nicely describes last week’s trip to Arctic Lodges at Reindeer Lake in Northern Saskatchewan:

The sea was angry those days, my friends, like an old man trying to send back soup at a deli! 

Reindeer Lake measures more than ten times Germany’s Bodensee (a.k.a. Lake Constance) and is dotted by an estimate of 5,000 islands – this literally means more bays than anyone could fish in their lifetime and way more Northern pike than I could have wished for!

The lake, however, is not the most cozy place when the weather is as challenging as it was last week. You definitely have to work a bit harder for your pike. My guide Rod, who has been living at the lake for over 60 years, took good care of me and we got into fish each day. A lot of fish.

We probably landed about 80 pike and a dozen or so lake trout. I didn’t manage to get a 40 incher (that would be 100 centimeters) but was damn close with eight fish from 37 to 39 inch. I can’t imagine how great the fishing would have been with more favorable weather conditions.

Look for my Reindeer Lake feature story with many more photos in an upcoming issue of Germany’s Blinker magazine!

Local guide Rod with a 38” pike caught in Reindeer Lake, Saskatchewan. Great fishing despite the super low temperatures in mid-June.

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