Adventures of fly angler in Poland

Last couple of days I spent on my home river. On Friday 22.06, I went fishing in the evening.  Water level was very low, 221 cm, flow 3,5 - 3,7 m3/s. It's not very good for fishing, when flow is low, cobblestone bottom got covered with unpleasant slimy algae. That stuff constantly clings to flies, and it requires to clean hooks on every second cast. Disgusting!   River was a bit crowded. There was 2 other fishermen in the pool. But they were more talking than fishing, so I got an advantage and occupied the best spot in the head of the pool, where's faster current.  Faster current means less algae, and less necessity to clean the flies.  I set up scud imitation as anchor fly, and pink head micronymph on the dropper. Big rainbow took fly fiercely, short fight, and fish gone.  I didn't mention, which nymph it took.  More attempts, and second fish took the fly. Also decent rainbow. Fish ran upstream, then downstream. I released reel to let it go....

In Sunday, I met my friend and we planned to visit one small river, which runs through forests and mountains. Water level was low, nearly 48-50 cm, temperature 13,5 - 14 C We started in the calm pool, which supposed to be a good place for dry fly. And it was! Once we got to the river, I spotted splash. I attached small caddisfly imitation, and got a fish from first cast. That was a grayling! Small one, but good start. There was more graylings in this pool. My friend had constant hookups on every cast. But my fly was ignored. Later I switched to smaller fly, and also got more take. The size of the fly does matter. We walked a bit upsream, and changed to nymphs. River was very shallow and clear, so I attached very light nymphs.  3 mm head as anchor fly, and 2,5 mm on the dropper. This part of the river is shallow, fast, and the bottom covered with green grass, looks like a carpet. There's enormous number of graylings in this grass and between rocks.  You ca...

Day 6. I planned to wake up very early, but due to laziness and lack for motivation, I turned off the alarm and continued to sleep until 8. I almost lost a hope to get a salmon. But after conversation with friend from the camping, I convinced myself to go fishing.  It's strange phenomenon, I wanted this trip so much, and did a lot of preparation. But now I'm on the river, there's salmon in it, but I don't have a motivation.  In the morning, I continued on that pool, where I spotted fish yesterday. There's rocky island in the middle of the river. The fly I chose was small orange fly on brass tube, sort of snaelda.  I threw my line very close to this rock on the other side, and let it swing across the pool. Suddenly, in the middle of the run, line stopped, and I felt like i'm snagged. It shouldn't be snag there, it's too deep. Whaat? It is there, the fish! My heart rate bursted to 190 bpm from adrenaline, I almost felt like a had a heart attack....

I was dreaming about fishing in Norway almost a year, since I read about Mandal river in the blog of fellow German fly fisherman. I meticulously gathered all information about this river and the area: weather reports, fishing reports from previous years, river flow measurements, maps and locations of the pools and fishing beats. Everything needed I found in the Internet and from fellow fishermen, who already was of this river. Most of information was in Norwegian, Danish or German languages which I don't understand, but I used Google translator.  The most comprehensive source is afiskeri.eu , site maintained by Danish fisherman Michael Aasgard Olsen. Michael wrote almost encyclopedia about Mandal river, with maps, photos, video clips and descriptions of the beats. It's mostly in Danish, but when you read it from mobile phone, it's automatically translated to your language. To save time and get more productive, I hired a guide Ryan Marchese ( anglerpilot.no ). He tailor...