Winston is back!

Recently, my lovely Winston Microspey rod was repaired in Twin Bridges, MT. The whole roundtrip from Poland to USA and back took 2 weeks, which is surprisingly good.

Today I decided to visit river Skawa, the section below dam at Świnna Poręba.  The river recently dropped from 176cm and 44 m3/s to 135cm and 15,2m3/s.   At 44 m3/s it is probably unfishable, but now the level was quite comfortable, and water was very clear. 

500-700 m below the bridge, there's awesome deep run suitable for the spey rod technique. I started with SA Ultralite Skagit intermed head and 8' tips, which is perfect for such water level.

I fished this run couple of times, with black wooly bugger and white zonker. No reaction. Water is very cold, like in winter. I think it's temperature 4 C or so. 

No luck in this stretch.  I took all my belongings, and moved to another location, few kilometers downstream.  

There's one very deep hole, probably deepest on the whole river. I used Guideline ULS 3D I/S5/S6  full sinking line, to reach the depth.  After few runs, I got a strike!  A fish!  The cold weather didn't promise good results, but contact with fish - that's something we live for. 

The last line I tried was Guideline ULS 3D Float/I/S2. This is light sinking line (actually floating with intermed tip), which is designed to fish in. upper water column, especially with wet flies and lightweight streamers.  I didn't expect anything to catch, but this line is very pleasant to cast, and I love it.  Just not a right time for it. 

This spring is surprisingly cold, so fishing is April feels like in February in past years. We had recently a lot of snow in the mountains, and in Tatras everything looks like winter. So, I expect typical "April" level of fishing in May.

Here how it looks in High Tatras in April: