Tenkara on Biały Dunajec

Biały Dunajec is kind of "cursed" river for me.  I was 3 times on it, all in 2016. Two times I caught nothing, or only one small fish. On the 3rd visit to this river I tripped on slippery rock, and broke my rod in halves. 

This time I had information from friend that there's plenty of rainbow trout in this river this year. I had a high hopes for it. Now, I fished it exclusively with tenkara rod, because this stream is ideal for it. 

I woke up at 2:30, prepared coffee and sandwitches, and headed to Nowy Targ. No traffic during early hours. I reached destination earlier than planned, in 1 hour 20 min.  It was too early the sunrise is at 5:00. I spent time on gas station, drinking coffee and eating.  At 5:15 I arrived to the river.

My first stop was a river section in Biały Dunajec town. It has chain of rapids and small waterfalls, with deep pools and pockets below the rapids. Apart of such places where the smooth flow is broken by rock formations, the river is very shallow in between. The level was 97 cm and flow fluctuated from 4,4 m3/s to 2,4 m3/s during the day.  I don't know why it has such cyclic fluctuations of flow, maybe there's small hydroelectric power plant above. Temperature was +15 C, ideal for trout well-being. 

First two sets of rapids produced no fish.  I headed farther upstream and found this. Gorgeous rapids , or small waterfall, with big pool under it. 

I started to fish it with beadhead nymph. Due to heavy and complicated current, it was not enough to get the rig down, and I added second nymph on the dropper. Here's I got a first fish - gorgeous wild brown trout.  

This fish took 4mm "pojebus" nymph. It's very popular Polish pattern.  Soon I got second trout, smaller.  It took wowen nymph ("raczek") size 3,5mm on the dropper. 

Also, i've seen fish rolling and taking insects on the surface.  Particularly left side of the pool is calm, and can be good for dry fly at some conditions.

Looking ahead, I can say this place was the most productive.  I caught 3 fish on it. 

I wanted to move upstream, but there were two fishermen already fishing. I don't like competitive fishing, I prefer to be alone on the stream. So I turned to different direction .

The other place also looked good. Chain of rapids and deep runs .  But I had no takes in it.

There's many flowers like this near the stream. The plant is called Himalayan balsam, latin name is Impatiens glandulifera. Sounds like spell from Harry Potter book and movie :-).   This is one of the invasive plants in Europe, brought as decorative, but escaped into the wild. 

After short break, I decided to move further upstream. The next location is near railway bridge. It has two artificial waterfalls, or weirs, made of concrete.  Such structures are common on Polish rivers. I don't think it is good for the ecosystem, but there's usually highly oxygenated water under such weir . Fish often concentrated in plunge pools under the weir.  I had high hopes for stocked rainbow trout, they usually love such places.  

I tried various nymphs and wet flies, also tried pulsating kebari, doing animations of the fly with the rod tip. No reaction.  Either there's no fish, or it is not in mood. 

My next stop was rapids near the foot bridge. All these places I found on satellite photos on Google maps, I never been there before.  

This place also produced nothing.  Unfortunately , there's pipe with stinky sewage water coming from it to the river.  Needless to say this is illegal and harmful for the environment.  I reported it to the water inspection, and attached photo in email . 

After that, I drove to the restaurant near the river in town Szaflary, and ordered a lunch.  After lunch I continued to fish near the restaurant. There's couple of perspective runs, but I had no bites.

I drove 15 km to the next river Czarny Dunajec, to the artificial rapids, which held many rainbow trout in the past. The water was 143 cm and 4,7 m3/s.

It was hot during the day, and the water temperature at Czarny was +19 +20 C. Not good for trout, but the water is more cold under waterfalls. I think that fish should concentrate in such places during the heatwave. 

After few runs across the plunge pool, I got a fish. Very strong fish, and it bent my rod to the handle. It's rainbow, and not small one. Probably 45 cm or so. The fish came off the hook while I tried to land it in the net.  What a pity! I spend about an hour on Czarny without success.  

Later I drove back to Biały Dunajec, in hope that during evening time fish will be more active . 

I tried wet fly, nymhp, and pulsating kebari, without success.  The fish was only active in early hours, but not during the rest of the day.  Maybe the hot weather and river level fluctuations disrupted feeding patterns , I don't know.  Still, I found few new to me nice places, which I'd like to visit again.