Adventures of fly angler in Poland

I have a feeling that fishing possibilities in rivers will be over soon. Winter is coming, with freezing temperatures and snow. But today was slightly warmer than in previous days.  Despite of light rain, small grey mayflies were hatching. In the middle of the day, graylings and trout started feeding on mayflies. Unfortunately, I forgot the box with dry flies at home.  I met another fisherman on the river, and asked him to give me some flies. He opened his box, and I picked 3 CDC mayfly imitations on tiny hooks. Despite for good possibilities, I didn't have luck with dry fly. There were many hits and misses, neither one fish was properly hooked.  Maybe because hooks had too small gap. Then I switched to Czech nymphing. Today was not my lucky day. I snagged few flies, but fish didn't bite. After changing couple of locations, and alternating between dry and nymph rod, I got nice rainbow trout. I was thinking to leave soon. For me one decent fish is enough satisf...

River Vah section in Ruzomberok doesn't look very appealing. It runs through industrial part of the city, surrounded by paper producing plant from one side, and railway from another.  Don't except wild and scenic landscapes there. But what draws attention of many anglers to this river, is the quality of fishing. This section of the river well managed by local angling club. Main attraction is stocked big rainbow trouts. Also it has population of wild native fish: brown trout, grayling, perch, barbel and nase. Quality of the rainbows in this river is very high. They grow big, fat, strong and can give you a fight of the lifetime on a light tackle. Usually it is not recommended to go for it with less than 0.16 mm leader . Also, these big trouts are very keen on dry fly. I came to the license shop at 7.00, bought a 1-day license for 20 euro and yearly fishing card for 7 euros. At 8:00 I was on the river. The morning was foggy and cold. I was first on the river, there was...

It was a hard decision to me , where to go on Saturday. Vah in Slovakia or Skawa in Wadowice. Vah - decent numbers of big fish, but often crowded, and it's about 2,2 hours to drive. Skawa is close to my home, only 45 km, so I can spend more time fishing, than driving. First, I arrived to Wadowice and started fishing near the highway bridge. Water was dirty. Level 110 cm, flow 6,5 m3/s. I started with "long" nymph, but didn't have any bites. Then I moved to other location, to Jaroszowice bridge.  The place was kind of busy. I moved to the downstream side of bridge. There is nice pocketwater. I covered it thoroughly from both sides. Fish didn't bite. Maybe there's no fish in this river? But these men above the bridge were pulling fish from time to time. I walked upstream to the flats, with hope to find rising fish. There's a sign , set up by local angling association. It defines borders of Catch and release fishery. There's...

I was already on Skawa couple of times, and I like it very much, because trout in Skawa are very keen on dry fly. This time, I decided to explore unknown parts of Skawa, where it meets Skawica. There's no access roads going to the river. I found nearest parking spot in the field. The river was close, but separated by line of forest from me.  I assembled my rod, and headed to the water. After some bushwalking, I met the Skawica river.  It is large tributary to Skawa.  Fishing in Skawica closed from 1st September to 31 of January, because it's a spawning stream for brown trout. Water in Skawica is very clear. But in the main river, Skawa, it's always a bit turbid, and has green tint. On the junction, there's fast pocketwater. I covered all pockets with small nymphs. No reaction. I proceeded downstream, casting nymphs almost perpendicular to the current, and let it swim downstream. There was a deeper hole between these rocks.  Sure there must be a t...

On Sunday we had one more spey casting training session in the morning. After lunch, the course officially ended. We thanked Piotr, Igor and Gosia for organization of the training and accommodation. All was very well organized.  On the way home, I decided to hit the river again in search of graylings.  Marcin, another student from the courses, accompanied me . We drove to the very picturesque area, where river winds, surrounded by wall of forest. There's few riffles with fast water, and some deeper holes. I started to fish with nymphs in the slow run, under the overhanging tree branches. I immediately got 3 strikes by graylings, but all fish were lost. I moved downstream to the fast riffle.  I got couple of fish, but all was small. Behind the riffle, in the deep water, I got "proper" grayling. That was very beautiful fish. I walked upstream. The colors of autumn forest are fascinating. This place was so beautiful, that I wanted to stay there l...