Back to Poland, to my lovely barbels

On the third day of my Slovak trip, I decided to fish river Poprad on the Polish side. The road goes through Slovakia about 145 km, to the town Leluchów on the border.  The highway goes much of it's way along the Poprad river, so I had a chance to investigate how the river looks on Slovak side. 

My first stop was in town Svit, near Poprad headwaters. River is very small there, and looks like artifical channel. This section near hotel Koliba Svit was stocked with rainbow trout. It used to be a great fishing few years ago, even used for one one event of European fly fishing chanpionship. But I didn't see any fish there. Probably, stocking wasn't done in this year.  

I drove through the country, and stopped near town Plavec. This is close to Polish border, I checked the Poprad from the bridge. River looks great, with many holes suitable for barbels and trout. But i didn't have license for this part.  

I crossed Slovak-Polish border at Leluchów.  I turned from the highway to country road, to check the river nearby. Unfortunately, there's very little of parking space, and access to the river blocked by private property. But I got there, and discovered very beautiful water.

It looks great, and it should have many barbels in it.  But my fishing gear left in the car.  I just put marker on my "wish to fish" map.

I drove to the next location, Muszyna.  It used to be a good barbel spot. But I caught only one fish there, small chub.

Another location I checked was the bicycle trail bridge between Poland in Slovakia.  Main current under the bridge and above looked very "fishy". I decided to give it a try.

The run is shallow, with depth 0,5 - 1,2 m. I walked upstream and spotted fish in the water. Many fish! That was probably nase (pigfish). Or barbels. I don't know, the water was a bit dirty, with 70 cm clarity. 

I fished the run, and got two small barbels. There was also bigger one, but came off the hook shortly. I only spotted flash of the fish side in the water.

All fish takes were on this red tag nymph.  It was the last of a kind in my box. I lost a lot of nymhs due to snags in this trip.

Another few kilometers down the river. The hole near Wierchomła. The spot was already occupied by two men, but there's plenty of space.  They are from Warsaw, but going to Poprad every year. They just started and didn't catch anything. Neither I did in this location.

I droved down to the town Piwniczna-Zdrój. There's also plenty of typical barbel water. I looked to the river from the bridge, and found very "fishy" holes upstream and downstream.

It was almost 18:00, I spent time on very decent barbel hole without results. Only snagged and lost few nymphs again. When I decided to go home, I tried to fish fast riffle, and current seam between riffle and slow pool. To my surprise, I got a fish! Fight was short, but powerful.  Unfortunately, fish came off the hook.  But that was unusual for me, barbels do not only stay in pools, they can be caught in riffles too. Maybe i'm fishing in wrong places?

To prove my theory, I fished over the riffle couple of times more. There was no strikes. But, I got another barbel in the pool section, down the riffle. 

I decided I have enough of fishing for today. It's getting dark, and I'm still far from home, about 2 hours of driving. 

I left Poprad with mixed feelings. The fish is there, but not very cooperative to me.  Should be better in late September and October.