When people talk about winter carp on the fly fishing, they can’t possibly be thinking of Ontario. I don’t see anyone out on the water these days at minus 20 degrees Celsius targeting carp. The New Fly Fisher e-mag (check it out, it’s free!) just ran a story about pre-spawn carp fishing around the Bay of Quinté. It’s an okay read though it seems they run this story every couple of years. However, their tips are solid, and fishing in the GTA in mid-May looks very similar. More interesting and inspirational, however, is Le Mouching‘s Valentine’s Day post...

After so many years of living in Ontario I finally managed to make it to the Bruce Trail for a few days. I was lucky enough to “test” Explorer’s Tread‘s newest three-day hike, the so-called “Smoke of the Lion’s Gun Backpacking Trip” near the town of Lion’s Head. The trip includes Lion’s Head Lookout as well as Gun Point Lookout, hence the name. Three days out on the escarpment and I believe my guide Zane got it right: “This is the best part of the Bruce Trail!” Zane, who recently hiked the popular West Coast Trail on Vancouver Island,...

Contrary to what some of the cooler fly fishing websites tell us, one doesn’t need “made-by-hipster” rods, head cams and full sleeve tattoos to go “Carp On The Fly” fishing. Basically, use whatever 7 or 8-weight outfit you find in your basement. Add waders and polarized glasses, read either Kirk Deeter’s or Barry Reynolds’ book and you are good to go. Yesterday, however, I discovered that one crucial piece of equipment had been missing from my outfit for years: a Smith Creek rod clip. With your rod securely and firmly attached to your chest pack or vest,...

Globally, Spiel des Jahres (SdJ, the German game of the year) and Kennerspiel des Jahres (“connoisseurs’ game of the year”) are the most important awards in the boardgame industry. The rule of thumb is: You win the SdJ and your sales tenfold! Naturally, I sat down and played all six nominated games and then wrote about this year’s SdJ and Kennerspiel winners and nominees. What’s that?? Concept is the most innovative of the six nominees. On the stern.de website I review the games in detail, and across several newspapers, I share my findings about Camel Up, Splendor,...

The “media post-tours” are one of the highlights of the annual Travel Media Association of Canada (TMAC) conference. And since this year TMAC met in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, biking the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) was a natural choice for a quick two-day press trip. The GAP is a nearly-level biking trail that runs about 242 kilometers from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, Maryland. We had the chance to ride a bit over half of the trail, from #Pgh to Ohiopyle. Following the Youghiogheny and Casselman Rivers in the Laurel Highlands and using historic railroad lines, tunnels, viaducts and...

Last week temperatures in Toronto dropped to minus 40 degrees Celsius and Lake Ontario froze over. At about the same time I found some really nice “Carp on the Fly” videos online that made me miss summer. I’ll probably have to wait until mid May to again fish for carp in my favorite Great Lakes bays, so the best thing I can do right now is scan the internet for content like this. Comment here or shoot me an email if you find more good stuff! Podcasts: Kirk Deeter shares his top ten tips for carp, and Dan Frasier adds some advice. Earlier in 2013, CarpPro magazine started the FlyCast...

In Germany, board game publishers generate roughly 60 percent of their annual sales in December. Naturally, the days leading up to Christmas are the ideal time to publish game reviews online and in print. On stern.de, the web presence of stern magazine, with 5.7 million unique monthly visitors, I present this year’s five best games for families and casual groups. Here are the games that make the illustrious cut: Bruges (my favorite game of 2013), Eight-Minute Empire, Qwixx, Sanssouci, and Love Letter. Two newspapers, Schleswig-Holstein am Sonntag and Schweriner Volkszeitung, with a combined...

Long gone are those days when American designed boardgames were nothing more than “Ameritrash;” cheaply produced games with clunky mechanics. Nowadays everyone with an interest in boardgames would agree that some of the best and most innovative games are being designed in the U.S., often funded through Kickstarter. Some of these great games don’t get a lot of coverage in Europe. But that may change now, as I recently became the “North America guy” for Reich der Spiele. Online since 2001, Reich der Spiele is one of Germany’s largest and most well established gaming...

It has been two and a half years since my last visit to The Ottawa River Musky Factory, John Anderson’s guiding operation, located just east of Ottawa – so it was about time to get back to the river of big fish! Having fished the Ottawa River only in November before, to me it was particularly exciting to join John and his friends for the season’s opening weekend in mid-June. You will be able to read all about this two and a half day fishing trip in an upcoming feature in Germany’s ESOX fishing magazine. For now, check out a few images below and stay tuned for the magazine...

Denmark is only 90 minutes away from Hamburg, so for me visiting that country has never been much of a big deal. If you are travelling the Californian coast, however, driving into a Danish village certainly gets really exciting. 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...

You’d think that the shores of top carp waters such as Lake Ontario would be jam packed with fly anglers, given all the media coverage fly fishing for carp has been receiving in the past years. Yet I hardly ever run into anyone else casting their flies at carp. 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...

2012 has been an interesting year for my writing business, and I am happy to report that my stories ran in more newspapers, magazines and online outlets than ever. 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...

For the past three years I have been fly fishing for carp, and I still think it’s a super exciting way to catch fish. This is particularly true when you live close to the Great Lakes where a lot of carp grow into the 30+ pound monster category. 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...

Earlier this year The New Fly Fisher, one of Canada’s best fly fishing TV programs, launched a new YouTube channel designated to fishing hot spots in Ontario. 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...

To me one of the highlights of each trip home to Hamburg is the harbor cruise from bustling St. Pauli-Landungsbrücken, the tourist hub of Europe’s second largest port (after Rotterdam), to sleepy Finkenwerder, located at the south side of Elbe River. 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...

In 2012 the Junction, a fairly hip Toronto west neighborhood, has seen the opening of a number of trendy stores and cool bars. Of course, a craft brewery will open fairly soon as well. 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....

Read a bestselling novel about salmon fishing in the Yemen. Saw the movie with Ewan McGregor. Went on fishing trips to BC and the east coast. And, just yesterday, came across a board game about a salmon river! 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),...

Wasaga Beach, Southampton Beach, Sauble Beach, MacGregor Point Beach, Inverhuron Beach, Port Burwell Beach, Long Point Beach… 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...

It takes two and a half sun-less days, zero degrees in mid June, and six soaked layers of outdoor “performance” clothing to paraphrase George Costanza for the very first time on this blog. 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...

One of the first things you learn about in travel writing classes is that your hometown may very well be someone else’s vacation destination. You then realize that you don’t have to travel much to write travel features. That’s a valuable insight offering you an opportunity to build a portfolio without breaking the bank. I still like writing about Toronto, particularly when reporting on something truly exciting like the Edge Walk at the CN Tower. At a height of 356 meters you can walk around the roof of the main pod of the tower. It is the world’s highest full-circle, hands-free...