Mini Eurotour Part 3. River Belá, Chateau GrandCastle - Dovalovo

On the next day, 16.06, we planned to visit river Vah above Bela junction. But, our guide Michal checked the last fishing reports and concluded that there are low numbers of fish in upper Vah, and suggested to change plan. So we went to Bela again, but to explore different part of it, above Chateau GrandCastle historical castle and restaurant in Liptovski Hradok.


This river section is different in character. It is very fast, with lots of rapids, and not so many fishable water. So it's supposed to be more walking and searching for spots. But, walking also part of the fishing.

We started just near the castle, above the highway bridge. There are lot of rapids, and between them, nice stretch of shallow and more calm flow. Typical grayling water. Igor caught the first fish, again. Nice size grayling! I and Michal had no strikes.

We decided to go further upstream, and walked almost 1,5 km via old forest road, to the village Dovalovo. River is even more wild and hard to wade there.  It looks more trout water, rather than home for grayling.  Trout usually hides in this plunge pools, logjams and small holes near the boulders and rocks in the fast moving water.
For me , it looks very similar to Polish river Białka Tatrzanska - also very clear, fast, and often hard for fishing due to water clarity and challenging wading.

I crossed the river to the island, to probe some pocketwater. Michal caught one trout. I had nothing, and returned to the guys. We decided to leave Igor, and to return to the car parking spot near the Chateau by the road. Igor decided to go by the river and fishing all the way.

We returned to the parking. I continued in the first spot near the bridge, and hooked good-sized 30 cm grayling, in the same place where Igor got first fish of the day. Unfortunately, I lost it.
Meanwhile, Igor returned and told us he hooked 4 trout in the upper section.

There was a rain since the morning, and it was getting uncomfortable. We decided to return to the lower section of the river, "grayling Eldorado", where we fished yesterday.  There is much bigger concentration of fish, and river is more comfortable for wading.

Soon, I hooked grayling on wowen nymph (the last one). After that, it was lost on snag.

I had no strikes.  I changed the location, but when I returned, I saw Igor playing big fish. It was a monster grayling, he cannot move it and finally lost.  It can be more than 40 cm.

Igor hooked more graylings, and mostly big ones. I had few small fish and only one of decent size. The secret was to use very small fly. For some reason, graylings preferred very small nymphs today.

But , the weather was challenging. +11 C, rain and heavy wind. It was very hard to cast light nymphs in such wind.  Also, it is important to use very thin lines with such nymphs on 18-20 size hook .Igor used 0.08 mm.  And it was very successful combination.

I found a line 0.10 mm Grand Max fluorocarbon in my pocket. Before to leave, I tried 3 fly combination.

I attached two size 18 micronymphs to the rig, and one big nymph with 4mm tungsten to the bottom as anchor fly,  to help to drive the whole thing through the wind.

There was some deep channel, or slot, in the middle part of the river. There is a fish for sure, it must be. So I threw my 3-fly rig to that slot, and on 3rd cast I got fish on!   Grayling, good size!  That was last fish of the day, as I decided.  Happy with the ending of the day, I finished and went to the car.

That was a hard day, very cold and rainy, like in October. But we caught some nice fish. There is no bad weather for fishing, only for fishermen.