Day of losses on Raba

Nice weather called me for fishing on Raba again. Air temperature was +8 C in the middle of the way, water temp. +4 C, level 246 cm, flow 9,8 m3/sec.

Very good conditions for winter fishing, plenty of sun and very clear water.
Shortly once I started with nymphing, I got a fish on. It was a strong fish, probably rainbow trout.
I played it with caution, but it came off after 1 minute of fight. What a disaster!

I probed all deep spots, changing flies, there were no other bites.

I moved upstream to fast, waist-deep run with few large stones, breaking the current.
Far side of the river has softer water. I worked through current seam, without any success.
Then I changed tactics. I cast 45 degrees downstream, and let it swing on the tight line, as people do with wet flies and streamers. Cast - two steps down - cast. Whoooa!!!! I got a fish!
Nice , silvery trout, strong fish. It was hard to pull the fish against the current, so I decided to run downstream, outrun the fish and grab it from the other side.
When I did that, fish came off the hook :-(

Fish won the score 2:0.

I fished all way down through the run, and got a fish. Now it was a smaller fish, a grayling.



and score changed to 2:1. But I wanted to win.

I returned to the first place, and fished through the hole. No luck, no bites.


I bored a little bit with Czech nymphing, and decided to practice double hand cast. I had spey rod in my car for exercising.  I rigged it with Guideline 3D+ F/I/S2 scandi head (sink 2 tip), and attached anonymous wet fly. I had no intention to catch anything, but training with fly is more interesting :-) It adds some odd chance of hooking something.

I started spey casting, doing single spey and snake roll, as I would do for salmon.  In the end of the swing, fly snagged something.... that was a fish. But it came off shortly.
After few more casts, something stopped my fly. Snag?  Oh no, that's a fish. It was a strong fish, probably big rainbow.  I fed running line to the fish and started to crank the reel. Unfortunately, fish came off again.

4:1  I lost that game.

I never believed that I can hook a fish on Raba(!) on double hand rod(!) and classic wet fly.
But it happened.  That's beauty of the water - you never know, what surprise can happen.


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