“The real trout fishing of Europe,” Ernest Hemingway explained in 1923, “is in Spain, Germany and Switzerland. Spain has probably the best fishing of all in Galicia. But the Germans and the Swiss are right behind.”1 With regard to Germany, Hemingway referred to the Black Forest region where he fly-fished in the early 1920s. In the summer of 2023, I decided to follow in Hemingway’s footsteps, traveling to the same region and fly-fishing some of the same spots.
Before Hemingway developed a fascination for big game saltwater fishing, he avidly fly fished for trout. And before he achieved success as a writer of fiction, he worked as journalist for the Toronto Star. While on the payroll of this newspaper he travelled to the Black Forest in pursuit of the famous Bachforellen (brown trout) to which many browns in the U.S. owe their ancestry.2 As he remarked at the time: “We fished all through the Black Forest. With rucksacks and fly-rods, we hiked across country…. We never knew where we were. But…at any time we could cut down from the high country into a valley and know we would hit a stream.”
Map showing southwest Germany, including the Black Forest region.
Plaque dedicated to Ernest Hemingway’s fly fishing exploits in Triberg, Black Forest.
The Black Forest is located in southwest Germany’s Baden-Württemberg region. It is best imagined as a 1,200 square mile-triangle that has as corners the cities of Karlsruhe in the north, Freiburg in the southwest, and Konstanz in the southeast. The area was and remains known for its natural beauty of rolling, fir tree-covered hills dissected by numerous cool, trout-bearing streams. Fishing, including fly fishing, for trout in these streams has a long history. The Black Forest town of Triberg, for instance, had laws regulating fishing at least since 1517. Among other things, the laws explained that “Every burgher of the town may go fishing once every two weeks in the water and creeks owned by the town of Triberg.”4
By the time Hemingway fly fished in and around Triberg in the 1920s, these rules and permissions had not markedly changed, much to the author’s chagrin. “In Germany,” he wrote, “the great difficulty is to get permission to fish. All the fishing water is rented by the year to individuals. If you want to fish you have first to get permission of the man who has rented the fishing. Then you go back to the township and get a permission, and then you finally get the permission of the owner of the land. If you have only two weeks to fish, it will probably take about all of it to get these different permissions. A much easier way is simply to carry a rod with you and fish when you see a good stream. If anyone complains, begin handing out marks.”5
Today the situation is somewhat different. Foreign nationals who want to fish in Germany must first obtain a German Fischereischein (fishing license). Luckily they can obtain a four-week license in Baden-Württemberg by going to (any) town’s Rathaus (city hall).6 It is a good idea to bring a printout of the regulations (as well as a weblink) with you because, in my case, the staff did not immediately know what I was talking about when I tried to apply for my license. But once they saw the official text, they got to work with great alacrity. All I had to do was to show my current U.S. fishing license and passport, provide a passport photo, and pay twenty euros. In possession of my German fishing license, I was able to take the next step: ask for permission to fish specific streams. To fish on the streams of my choice, I had to go to each town’s Tourism Office and purchase day permits that cost between eight and twenty euros. The permits always included detailed maps and all the rules that had to be followed. One universal rule that differs from the U.S. is that there is no unrestricted catch-and-release; a fish that is large enough to be harvested (this varies slightly from permit to permit but is usually 30 cm/11 inches) must be harvested.
It is unclear what equipment Hemingway used to harvest trout in the Black Forest, because he did not give any details in his writing and most of his fly fishing gear was lost when the steamer trunk in which he kept his gear disappeared from a train bound for Sun Valley, Idaho, in 1940. Thankfully, Hemingway’s son Jack recalls that in 1929 his father possessed “a wide selection of Hardy tackle…,”7 and his grandson, Patrick Hemingway Adams, remembers that his grandfather used a Hardy St. George reel for his trout rig, an assertion which is confirmed by a photo that shows Hemingway with what appears to be just such a reel.8 If Hemingway already possessed this Hardy gear when he fished in the Black Forest remains unclear, however.
As for myself, I arrived in Germany with my wading boots, a fly box, and a 9-foot 5-weight rod. I did not carry a fly reel with me because I planned to purchase one from the Black Forest-based Ralf Vosseler KG, a small family-owned business located in the village of Talheim which is a 30-minute drive from Triberg. The company produces reels according to the region’s long-standing tradition of precision manufacturing which began with watch and clock making, including the world-renowned cuckoo clock, in the nineteenth century. I drove directly to the company and had a one-hour chat with the owner Ralf Vosseler about his interest in fly fishing and the genesis of his company making high-quality reels at reasonable prices. Although I would have loved to purchase Ralf’s flagship reel, the S-curved Passion Carbon, for budgetary reasons I decided to get the still impressive DC2 which in size 5-6 set me back 219 euros.
Ralf Vosseler (l.) with the author in Talheim.
With the basic setup in place, all that remained to do was to figure out what flies to use. In the book Misadventures of a Fly Fisherman, Hemingway’s son Jack states that his father “liked best to fish a ‘two- or three-fly wet-fly rig through riffles’—using a McGinty, a Coach-y-Bondhu, and a Woodcock Green and Yellow for the tail fly. Ninety percent of his fly fishing was done across and downstream with this team of flies, which sometimes included a Yellow Sally or a Royal Coachman.”9 Unfortunately, it is unclear if Hemingway ever used these flies when he fished the Black Forest streams. To get additional help, I consulted a book Benedictine monks from nearby Bavaria had produced in the fifteenth century. This book—Tegernsee Angel-und Fischbüchlein—offers advice on season-specific vederangeln (artificial flies) and explains, for instance, that in the summer, the flies should include the colors smokey-red, white, and yellow.10 Following these recommendations, I added Royal Wulff and Yellow Sally fly patterns in varying sizes to my fly box.
I began my fly fishing adventure with the Elz creek in Oberprechtal. Hemingway had not much good to say about this area. In one of his articles for the Toronto Star, he claimed that some of the local innkeepers refused to rent him a room because he was a foreigner. When he did get a room in the Gasthaus zum Rössle (Inn of the Pony), he found its food of fried veal, potatoes, lettuce salad, and apple pie “good” but the atmosphere an unappealing combination of “neat and dirty.” Moreover, the fishing experience was fraught with dangers because, as Hemingway wrote, “The farmers in Ober-Prechtal, where we had obtained full fishing permits…came down and chased us away from the stream with pitchforks because we were Auslanders.”11 Times have obviously changed for I found the people of Oberprechtal extremely welcoming and hospitable especially toward fly fishers from abroad. At the local Tourist Information Center, I spent less than five minutes before I obtained the day permit in exchange for twelve euros.
The Elz in Oberprechtal.
The permit allowed me to fish a mile-long stretch of the Elz that had a width that ranged between two to five yards. For the first half mile, the creek was covered overhead with tree branches and other vegetation which made me yearn for a smaller rod than my 9’ 5-wt. And even though I saw several larger trout, I had no real success reaching them without being detected. This only changed when I got to a more open section of the creek that included several deeper holes. I managed to cast a Yellow Sally into the first of these holes from a distance of about twenty-five feet. Almost immediately I hooked a nice-looking, seven-inch brown that ended up in my net after a short but vigorous fight. I used the same approach for the second hole which yielded a nine-inch rainbow. I completed the day by catching a second brown in a third hole in same manner. Even though I experienced a tough day of fly fishing on the Elz, the three trout allowed me to go home with a sense of accomplishment perhaps not unlike the one Hemingway experienced when he fished there back in 1923.
The second brown from the Elz.
My second fly fishing adventure took me to Triberg which the writer Séguin described in 1885 as “a busy little town, being one of the chief seats of the clock manufacture, an industry which forms one of the most important exports of the Black Forest—Black Forest clocks having, under one name or another, obtained a world-wide renown.”12 Hemingway must have had a good time in Triberg of the 1920s for he wrote about it in the Toronto Star and penned one of his most famous short stories there, The Snows of Kilimanjaro. In the latter fictionalized account, he explained: “In the Black Forest, after the war, we rented a trout stream and there were two ways to walk to it. One was down the valley from Triberg and around the valley road in the shade of the trees that bordered the white road, and then up a side road that went up through the hills past many small farms, with the big Schwarzwald houses, until that road crossed a stream. That was where our fishing began.”13 It is not unreasonable to assume that this description referred to the Nußbach (nut creek) for which Hemingway obtained a fishing permit from the local Bürgermeister (mayor) in 1922, and which can be reached from Triberg’s center by walking first downhill for half a mile followed by an uphill walk of about the same distance.14
Given that it was in the middle of summer, I found the Nußbach averaging two yards in width and fishable for about half a mile. Although the water level was low, the creek contained many deeper holes which, much to my surprise, held a good number of browns and rainbows, including specimens of fifteen inches. My problem was that the creek meandered right through town with homes on one side and significant vegetation on the other; both made it difficult to make good presentations into these holes with my 9’ 5-wt rod. One exception was a hole located directly next to an open playground that belonged to a local church. With a clear field of vision, I was able to spot several browns before they detected my presence. I threw a Royal Wulff into this hole several times before a six-brown finally took it. The brown offered a good fight before I was able to net it. Because it was under the 11-inch minimum required by my permit, I released it back into the cool stream and departed from Nußbach with a mild sense of accomplishment after four hours of laborious fishing.
Nußbach.
The brown caught in Nußbach.
When Hemingway wrote about his fly fishing adventures in Triberg in the Toronto Star, he mentioned a second fishing location which he described in these terms: “One day we started from Triberg and toiled up a long, steadily ascending hill road until we were on top of the high country and could look out at the Black Forest rolling away from us in every direction. Away off across country we could see a range of hills, and we figured that at their base must flow a river. We cut across the high, bare country, dipping down into valleys and walking through woods…. Finally we hit the upper end of the valley at the foot of the hills we had seen. In it flowed a lovely trout stream and there was not a farmhouse in sight. I jointed up the rod, and while Mrs. Hemingway sat under a tree on the hillside and kept watch both ways up the valley, caught four real trout. They averaged about three quarters of a pound apiece.”15
The Breg River.
The coat of arms of the town of Vöhrenbach.
It is quite possible that this trout stream was in fact the Breg River, which is located about ten miles away from Triberg and is one of the sources of the mighty Danube River. I accessed the Breg in the town of Vöhrenbach whose coat of arms features a brown trout and whose Tourist Information Center offers fishing permits for twenty euros. The permit authorized me to fish a beautiful four-mile stretch which was usually at least five yards wide and luckily free of vegetation on both sides. Even better, the river held many beautiful browns, rainbows, brookies, as well as Döbel (chubs), many of which were fifteen inches and more. I fished this river for three days and managed to net some eighteen fish of varying sizes during this time. They responded well to the Royal Wulff, usually coming up from their deep hiding places in riffles to grab it. What impressed me the most besides their gorgeous color, was that all of them were energetic fighters; they jumped out of the water and made strong, erratic runs before I could net them.
Author with brown.
Brown with author.
Thus, my journey in Hemingway’s footsteps ended on a high note on the Breg River. If I had to do it over again, I would have spent several days on this river to cover the entire 4-mile stretch. I would also choose a different time of year to go fishing in the Black Forest. In late spring or early fall, the water levels tend to be much better than in the summer and the vegetation is less dense. I would also replace the 9’ 5-wt rod for an 8’ 4-wt or even smaller which would make navigating the smaller streams easier. I should add that the region offers plenty of very nice and relatively inexpensive inns to stay overnight, and the local food—such as Wiener Schnitzel, Spätzle, and Schwarzwälderkirschtorte—is always delicious and affordable. As for Hemingway, he apparently never returned to the region to fish for trout. This is perhaps not surprising as he moved on to big game saltwater fishing in the Caribbean. As for me, I cannot wait to go back to the Black Forest and explore some of its many other trout-bearing streams. It is time to forge my own path!
Wiener Schnitzel with fries and brown sauce!
1 Plaque dedicated to Ernest Hemingway’s fly fishing exploits in Triberg, Black Forest. 2Robert M. Poole, “Native Trout are returning to America’s Rivers,” Smithsonian Magazine (August 2007). 3Hemingway, “Trout Fishing in Europe.” 4 Wilhelm Maier and Karl Lienhard, Geschichte der Stadt Triberg im Schwarzwald (Triberg: Heimat- und Gewerbeverein, 1964), 64, 95. 5 Hemingway, “Trout Fishing in Europe.” 6 https://www.service-bw.de/zufi/leistungen/242; accessed 27 Jul 2022. 7 Nick Lyons, ed., Hemingway on Fishing (New York: Scribner, 2000). 8 John Clarke, “Fly-Fishing the Ernest Hemingway Way,” Wall Street Journal (Nov. 26, 2020). 9 Lyons, ed., Hemingway on Fishing. 10 Anonymous, “Tegernsee Angel-und Fischbüchlein (c. 15th-16th centuries),” in Zeitschrift für das Alterthum, ed. Moritz Haupt (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1869), 162-3. 11 Ernest Hemingway, “German Inn-Keepers,” The Toronto Star Daily (5 September 1922). 12 Lisbet G. Séguin, The Black Forest: Its Peoples and Legends (1885). 13 Ernest Hemingway, The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1936). 14 Ernest Hemingway, “Once Over Permit Obstacle, Fishing in Baden is Perfect,” Toronto Star (2 September 1922). 15 Hemingway, “Trout Fishing in Europe.”
