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I'm still a barbel virgin in 2024

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 Due to prolonged heat season, we have very low water in all rivers in Poland. The flow in Poprad near the mouth is about 6m3/s. Normally the river flow in September is about 11-16 m3/s.  I came to the river near 7:00. The first stop was in Głebokie. There's fast run under the bridge, where I saw fish 2 years ago. I checked this hole, and barbels are there! There's 3 or 4 fish in very shallow, knee-deep water. I came down and tried to catch it. Unfortunately, probably fish are gone because were spooked by casts. I think I hooked one, but fish briefly flashed and immediately came off the hook. I drove about half kilometer upstream. Parked my car on the dirt road and descended to the river. The area is very shallow, only about 30 cm of water. I concentrated on deeper part of the run, near the opposite bank. I worked through the run, it looks attractive, but not very long.  Then I skipped some very shallow water, and fished the next deep run. Ok, it's not very deep, slightly l
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Spontaneous trip to Muszyna pt. 2

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 On the next day I arranged a meet with Tomasz, who agreed to show me a river Muszynka, a small stream which is tributary of Poprad. It joins main river in the town Muszyna. Early in the morning I came to Muszyna downtown. The town is center of tourism. The central square is very neat, and has a lot of flowers. Tomasz arrived, and we headed upstream to the river. Our first stop was a concrete weir and basin under it. There was some trout stocked in these basins.  We fished nymphs. Few small chubs were caught. Tomasz also had trout.  I saw a brown trout chasing my fly when I pulled it for the next cast. But the fish missed it.  Below the weir, there's quite big and wide pool.  But except such places, the stream is quite small and narrow. There's some wide and flat sections of water. I switch to wet fly in it, because nymph snagged the bottom very often. I've seen a lot of small chubs in such flats. Then there was another weir with pool below it.  It doesn't produced fish
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Spontaneous trip to Muszyna pt. 1

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 Lazy Saturday. I was laying in my bed until 9.30 or so.  There was idea to go to Raba and investigate it's lower section in search of barbels.  But I had low motivation.  Suddenly, after conversation wth my facebook friend Tomasz, I was invited to fish with him in the town Muszyna.  It's about 2 hours of driving for me.  I'm not a fan of early wake ups and night driving. I decided to go today to Poprad area, fish for barbels one day, stay overnight, and go with Tomasz on Sunday.  The idea turned to real deal, when I looked to booking.com and booked a room for the night stay.   I packed my fishing equipment, get in the car and headed to Stary Sącz direction, to the river Poprad.   On the way , there was a big traffic jam in Wieliczka due to accident with motorcyclist.  There were emergency vehicles at the site, and police blocked the road, and re-routed the traffic. As I read later in local news, the motorcyclist died in accident. Sad news.  I stopped in Stary Sącz in McDon
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Tenkara, dry fly, and pork ribs

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 I was planning 3-day trip to Slovakia for fishing tenkara on small streams. But, for financial reasons the plans changed.  The potential expenses exceeded my budget for fishing trip.  I decided to go to Polish rivers in Podhale region, because fishing in it is "for free" to me.   Well, not really for free, but I have yearly license for Nowy Sącz angling association waters, paid for the whole 2024.  First I came to Dunajec river. It's a big river with wide open space. I didn't catch anything in couple of early hours. Also the wind became stronger, and I was struggling with the casts. Tenkara and wind don't go well together.   Why continue to suffer, if I can go to another stream? They are on the same license, and in the vicinity of 30-40 km.   I jumped in the car and headed to Biały Dunajec. In 50 min I reached my destination.  The river was at low level, 100 cm and 4,1 m3/s flow. The first spot I've chosen is a deep long pool under the road bridge, and cascad
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Fat nase fish from Raba

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 The heat decreased, and we got fine weather for fishing: +22 during the day, +14 in the night.   I decided to go to Raba early in the morning.  This river is in 30 min of driving from my home. The water is very low and moderately clear. 222 cm and 3,7 m3/s. At sunrise time I was on the water. Short walk to my favorite hole from 2022. There I got some nice rainbows and biggest brown trout on Raba.  The river was calm. No other fishermen spotted. I rigged the euro nymhping rod with two nymphs: small brown noname with 2,5mm bead and hook #16, and pink "parkinson" (silicone worm) on #10.   First two walks through the run from the tail to the head of the pool produced nothing.  There's snag in one place, I lost couple of flies in it. On the third approach I got a fish, and it was a big fish!  When I saw it, I decided it's not a trout. Silvery body and orange fins. Is it big chub? No, it's a nase, or pigfish. Pretty big and fat one.   The fish didn't want to come c
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