Mini Eurotour Part 2. River Belá, Liptovský Hrádok, Slovakia
On Friday 16.05 I left hotel on Dunajec river, and set the course to the city Liptovský Mikuláš in Slovakia.
It was 124 km and 1 hour 45 min to drive on twisty Slovakian roads. I passed cities Slovenska Wies, Spisska Bela, Kezmarok and Poprad. Shortly before Poprad, I stopped at the gas station to buy toll vignette - right to use Slovakian toll express roads. It costs 10 Euro for 10 days (minimal price).
From Poprad to Liptovsky Mikulas there is excellent motorway(freeway) E50 with speed limit 130km/h, so the final leg of the route I passed in 30 minutes.
In Liptovsky Mikulas we met with Igor, my old friend from Ukraine, and Michal, Slovakian guide who arranged for us program of the fishing. First, we need to get the license. To fish in Slovakian waters , you need statewide license (Rybársky lístok) , and license for particular body of water (Rybárske povolenie). I already have state license for one year, it cost 7 euro for year.
Daily license for foreigners or non-members of local fishing association costs 20 euro. Licenses usually sold in fishing shops, particularly in Liptovsky Mikulas there are two places, where to buy it:
Esox, Kamenné pole 12, 031 01 Liptovský Mikuláš (near huge Tesco supermarket parking area)
, and
Starfish, Ul. 1. mája 941/118, 031 01 Liptovský Mikuláš.
Both shops can be found on Google maps.
Here is how both licenses look like:
When we set up with licenses, Michal brought us to the river. He knows local river conditions, where is good water level and flow, and where are more fish at particular time. So, he suggested that we go to river Bela in town Liptovsky Hradok. Bela is a tributary to bigger river Vah. It is small, fast flowing, crystal-clear mountain river .
We started from the junction, where Bela joins Vah.
Igor took the first fish just above the junction. It was a grayling. I also tried in that spot, one fish lost and there was another bite shortly after. I was still a "virgin" on that river.
I'd call this river a pocketwater river. It has some very fast, unfishable water, but there are some quite small spots under the rapids, where fish can hide between rocks. So, we probed all such places one by one.
Upstream from "waterfall" section, there is wide, shallow and rather slowly moving flat water. I passed it as not perspective (and it was my biggest fault) , and found some other pockets near next rapids.
There I got my first grayling.
I tried to cover more pocketwater around rapids, without luck. Then I saw Michal waving me from the distance, inviting to the "flats" section. It have been found, that this shallow flat section of the river, has huge number of graylings! Unbelievable, because water is ankle to knee deep, absolutely transparent, you can see every detail on the bottom and there is no fish in sight... but they are there!
Igor took 5 graylings from one spot, and some was quite big.
Also, Michal adjusted my Czech nymphing technique for graylings. As he said, my fishing technique is OK for trout, but will not work for graylings, and that's why my catch rate is very low.
Graylings considered a "hard" fish to catch on fly, because they take and spit fly in a second. If you don't "feel" your nymphs and you have slack in the line, you'll never notice that you had a strike.
Czech nymphing technique for graylings looks simple, but it's kind of art to feel position of your fly, and what's happening with it. Sometimes it's hard to tell a snag from fish bite, so you usually do the short wrist pull to set the hook (if it was a fish), or to un-snag the fly.
Numerous flies were lost due to snagging on the bottom, but that's a necessary evil of short nymphing.
After "grayling Eldorado" was exhausted because of many fish hooked and released on the same spot, we proceeded upstream. I hooked another one under the highway bridge. Then we passed under railway bridge to the next section.
Above railway bridge, there is fast water with many snags, unfortunately.
Igor got some chest-deep cold bath, after he slipped on the rocks. The river is quite dangerous and uncomfortable to wade in this section. So, we went back to the lower part, which is both easy for access and fishing, and also has the biggest concentration of graylings.
I noticed that not so many trout in lowest part of the river. Most fish are graylings. Igor caught one brown trout, small one. But graylings grow to 30+ cm, and biggest one was probably 35.
We fished until our right hand tired to hold the rod :-). There was many graylings caught and released. Igor got biggest ones, the one we put near the rod to approximately measure the fish size.
For me grayling always was "mystical" fish, because I caught it mostly by chance, when fly fishing for trout. I got a good lesson of Czech nymphing (in Poland we call it "Polish nymphing" but it's basically the same), so probably I'll catch more graylings in Poland, using this knowledge.
After fishing, Michal arranged for us small private hotel, where we had nice dinner and beer.
That was a great day!
It was 124 km and 1 hour 45 min to drive on twisty Slovakian roads. I passed cities Slovenska Wies, Spisska Bela, Kezmarok and Poprad. Shortly before Poprad, I stopped at the gas station to buy toll vignette - right to use Slovakian toll express roads. It costs 10 Euro for 10 days (minimal price).
From Poprad to Liptovsky Mikulas there is excellent motorway(freeway) E50 with speed limit 130km/h, so the final leg of the route I passed in 30 minutes.
In Liptovsky Mikulas we met with Igor, my old friend from Ukraine, and Michal, Slovakian guide who arranged for us program of the fishing. First, we need to get the license. To fish in Slovakian waters , you need statewide license (Rybársky lístok) , and license for particular body of water (Rybárske povolenie). I already have state license for one year, it cost 7 euro for year.
Daily license for foreigners or non-members of local fishing association costs 20 euro. Licenses usually sold in fishing shops, particularly in Liptovsky Mikulas there are two places, where to buy it:
Esox, Kamenné pole 12, 031 01 Liptovský Mikuláš (near huge Tesco supermarket parking area)
, and
Starfish, Ul. 1. mája 941/118, 031 01 Liptovský Mikuláš.
Both shops can be found on Google maps.
Here is how both licenses look like:
When we set up with licenses, Michal brought us to the river. He knows local river conditions, where is good water level and flow, and where are more fish at particular time. So, he suggested that we go to river Bela in town Liptovsky Hradok. Bela is a tributary to bigger river Vah. It is small, fast flowing, crystal-clear mountain river .
We started from the junction, where Bela joins Vah.
Igor took the first fish just above the junction. It was a grayling. I also tried in that spot, one fish lost and there was another bite shortly after. I was still a "virgin" on that river.
I'd call this river a pocketwater river. It has some very fast, unfishable water, but there are some quite small spots under the rapids, where fish can hide between rocks. So, we probed all such places one by one.
Upstream from "waterfall" section, there is wide, shallow and rather slowly moving flat water. I passed it as not perspective (and it was my biggest fault) , and found some other pockets near next rapids.
There I got my first grayling.
I tried to cover more pocketwater around rapids, without luck. Then I saw Michal waving me from the distance, inviting to the "flats" section. It have been found, that this shallow flat section of the river, has huge number of graylings! Unbelievable, because water is ankle to knee deep, absolutely transparent, you can see every detail on the bottom and there is no fish in sight... but they are there!
Igor took 5 graylings from one spot, and some was quite big.
Also, Michal adjusted my Czech nymphing technique for graylings. As he said, my fishing technique is OK for trout, but will not work for graylings, and that's why my catch rate is very low.
Graylings considered a "hard" fish to catch on fly, because they take and spit fly in a second. If you don't "feel" your nymphs and you have slack in the line, you'll never notice that you had a strike.
Czech nymphing technique for graylings looks simple, but it's kind of art to feel position of your fly, and what's happening with it. Sometimes it's hard to tell a snag from fish bite, so you usually do the short wrist pull to set the hook (if it was a fish), or to un-snag the fly.
Numerous flies were lost due to snagging on the bottom, but that's a necessary evil of short nymphing.
After "grayling Eldorado" was exhausted because of many fish hooked and released on the same spot, we proceeded upstream. I hooked another one under the highway bridge. Then we passed under railway bridge to the next section.
Above railway bridge, there is fast water with many snags, unfortunately.
We lost many flies, but I hooked some really nice grayling 30+ cm, on Polish wowen nymph.
I noticed that not so many trout in lowest part of the river. Most fish are graylings. Igor caught one brown trout, small one. But graylings grow to 30+ cm, and biggest one was probably 35.
We fished until our right hand tired to hold the rod :-). There was many graylings caught and released. Igor got biggest ones, the one we put near the rod to approximately measure the fish size.
For me grayling always was "mystical" fish, because I caught it mostly by chance, when fly fishing for trout. I got a good lesson of Czech nymphing (in Poland we call it "Polish nymphing" but it's basically the same), so probably I'll catch more graylings in Poland, using this knowledge.
After fishing, Michal arranged for us small private hotel, where we had nice dinner and beer.
That was a great day!
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