Hard work, 5 trout in 5 hours

Recent rain in Dunajec river basin spoiled water clarity. I came early in the morning, to start fishing at 4:00.
Water level was medium-low. 158 cm and flow 34,4 m3/s at Gołkowice. But I could barely see the bottom in 1 meter deep runs.

I started with quite big (10 cm) streamers, having in mind to catch Huchen (hucho hucho) - king of Polish rivers. Streamers didn't give me any bites. It's really strange, because I'm sure there's a lot of fish in this river. Where they are? Probably, not feeding today?

I switched to my Euro nymphing setup.  Soon, I got couple of brown trout. Less than average, 30 cm with something.   But, it was better than zero. Both fish were taken on "Parkinson" - silicone worm nymph.

I continued to explore run with nymphs.  Once I got strike from bigger fish. I think 40-45 cm. It fought hard, jumped, and unfortunately came off the hook.  It was a nice fish.
The biggest fish of the day is usually the one, which you didn't catch.

After short break, I returned to my trout spey rod.  I attached white zonker, which has better visibility in dirty water.

In the end of the run, a surprise happened. Fish, big fish!  Nice fat brown trout. I netted it from 4th attempt. Fish swallowed streamer deep in the mouth, so I used forceps to remove the hook. Luckily, gills were not touched by hook, and there was only small bleeding, so I think this fish will recuperate and survive.

I tried to make a live video on Facebook, how fish swims away from me, but there was poor internet connection in the area. Unfortunately, Facebook didn't save it, so the video was lost :-(

There were two takes on streamer after that, but both fish prematurely released themselves. I'd call it long line self-release.

I alternated between euro nymphing and trout spey. There was another two small brown trout on nymph.  Also, some small white fish, probably dace.

The weather was dark and cloudy,  then rain started and continued for 40 min. I was hiding from the rain under the bridge.
But then, sun appeared for short period of time.

At this moment, I was exploring pocketwater upstream from the bridge.
Particularly , this pocket water is good for euro nymphing.  Here I got fish, too.

After that, there were no bites for 2 hours. Nothing. I tried may flies in my box, with no effect.
When I was fishing with streamer, some big fish raised slowly and showed back, 5 meters in front of me.
It looked like very big trout, with dark-purple body and black dots. What it can be? Rainbow? Too dark color.  I know the answer - this is huchen!  The King (or Queen) himself.
That was a nice encounter. It least, I've seen fish of my dream "in person", and know where he/she lives.

I fished until 13.00. Then I got bored with fruitless casting exercise, and decided to drive to the home.

It was my worst (in terms of results) trip to Dunajec in this year.  But it was nice experience .
Every fishing trip is unique on it's own.

Bye Dunajec, see you in better weather.