Ultimate Tenkara trip. Day 1: Chocholów

13-14 July we have first tenkara festival in Poland. It was long-awaited event for enthusiasts of this very niche kind of sport.  

I took short vacation, to fish 4 days continiuosly from Friday to Monday.  I woke up at 3:00 and drove my car to Dunajec river. There was heavy rain recently , and Dunajec was dirty.  

I drove to another river, Białka Tatrzańska, it's about 45 km from the first river. 

The river looked OK, but I decided not to fish it, but headed to Czarny Dunajec.  Maybe next time?

Białka Tatrzańska in Trybsz at 222 cm and 6,8 m3/s flow. 

Another 40 km or so, and I arrived to Chocholów, a town in the headwaters of the river Czarny Dunajec.  This is very upper part of the river, close to the national park. The water usually clean there, even after rain. River level was 136 cm and the flow 3,1 m3/s at Koniówka. This flow is medium-low. 

This river part is characterised by cascades of rapids, small plunge pools, and shallow flats sections in between. 

Before this trip I acquired dedicated tenkara backpack from Zimmerbuilt. This was first serious use of the pack.  Two my tenkara rods fit into special pockets on it. Inside there were sandwiches and coffee, bottle of water, spare fly boxes and rain jacket. 

I caught first fish in the cascade pool on nymph.  

Going upstream, I found that it is mostly shallow water, and I preferred to use wet fly. 

I rigged Tenryu Furaibo TF39 rod with Fujino tapered line, and 2 wet flies: sakasa kebari and north country spider #16.  This rig is almost similar to classic dry fly or wet fly rig, but more lightweight, because the rod is like the feather (despite being 4 m long), and the line is very thin. 

9 from 10 fish were taken on north country spider. This wet fly is very effective in such skinny water. 

I walked one kilometre up river. The wading is hard, because of tricky bottom.   At this place, I caught a few trout like this.

I reached upper cascades, where the access road along the river ends. The place is very beautiful, and holds many fish.  

i was tired after long walking, and ate my streamside lunch. I'm not completely recovered from knee surgery, and my legs were aching after long wading. This was my first "real" tenkara fishing in this year, and I was so excited. Also, the stream was ideal for this method. 

Here's the flies I used in this section. Few variants of North country spider