Hans van Klinken was born in 1956.  He started fly fishing at the age of 15 in Norway.  He fell in love with the beauty of the Northern Regions almost immediately and travelled to Scandinavia to spend his summer holidays until the late nineties.  It was in the large variety of the river systems and lakes of Scandinavia that he honed his fly fishing skills.  Hans began fly-tying in 1976.  By the early eighties, he was creating his own designs, mostly parachutes.  This preference eventually led to several unusual patterns and tying techniques.  It would be another four years before he fully recognized the value of other flies, like nymphs, streamers and emergers.  Unlike most European fly-fishers, Hans’ first salmon and sea trout were caught on dry flies.  Because not many people believed his stories about catching salmon and sea-trout with a dry fly, he was forced to go his own particular way.

After nearly ten years of intensive fly fishing in Scandinavia, Hans began travelling to other European countries such as Ireland, the UK, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Austria and Switzerland.  The success of the large patterns which he had developed for Scandinavian fishing was immediate.  In 1981, his job took him to the north of Germany.  Now even closer to Scandinavia, more time on the water was possible, and fly-fishing became an obsession.  At this time, he also became involved in writing about flies and his travels.
 
Hans is also well known for providing an excellent guiding experience, mainly with clients in Scandinavia.  For the last 10 years he has travelled to Canada to test his patterns on Canadian Atlantic salmon, Pacific salmon, steelhead, lake trout, shad, Inconnu, whitefish, pike, grayling and small mouth bass.
 
Hans’ favourite patterns are parachutes, emergers and realistic nymphs.  He enjoys sharing his knowledge about fly-fishing and fly-tying and is particularly skilled in the taking of Atlantic salmon and grayling on dry flies.  Although having dabbled in the classic salmon fly world, by 1990 he was concentrating on workshops for river fishing and tying classes for realistic and effective fishing patterns.  Since 1986, Hans has participated at many fly tying shows and has presented several lectures, classes and workshops in the UK, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Italy, Russia, Canada, Asia and the USA.

Bio courtesy Hans van Klinken and www.ffinternet.com

Hans has written articles for many international magazines and gives many of his photos and tying articles to club journals.  He also worked for 15 years for the editorial staff of the Dutch fly-fishing magazine and contributes to books written by his friends, such as: The World’s Best Trout Flies by John Roberts, Fly Tyers Masterclass by Oliver Edwards, The Complete Book of the Grayling by Ron Broughton, The Complete Book Of Fly Fishing by Malcolm Greenhalgh, Modern Atlantic Salmon Flies by Paul Marriner, the books of Mogens Espersen, Tying Flies with CDC, The Fisherman’s Miracle Feather by Leon Links and several more.  Today Hans writes his own columns in magazines in Europe and Canada and produces wonderful non-commercial photo CDs that are simply awesome to look at.

He also supports and sponsors wildlife and environmental projects that are close to his heart and he is the chairman of the Grayling Society Holland.
 
Hans van Klinken’s best-known patterns are the large LT series, developed in Norway in the early eighties, the Klinkhamer Special, his Leadheaded grayling bugs, the Caseless Caddis series, the Remerger series, his Flymph series, the Para-poly sedges, the Baetis nymph and dun, the Once and Away series, the Ugly Bugs, the Bondal series and the Culard series.  Less well known are his productive series of salmon patterns, of which many are dries.