Fat nase fish from Raba

 The heat decreased, and we got fine weather for fishing: +22 during the day, +14 in the night.  

I decided to go to Raba early in the morning.  This river is in 30 min of driving from my home. The water is very low and moderately clear. 222 cm and 3,7 m3/s.

At sunrise time I was on the water. Short walk to my favorite hole from 2022. There I got some nice rainbows and biggest brown trout on Raba. 

The river was calm. No other fishermen spotted. I rigged the euro nymhping rod with two nymphs: small brown noname with 2,5mm bead and hook #16, and pink "parkinson" (silicone worm) on #10.  

First two walks through the run from the tail to the head of the pool produced nothing.  There's snag in one place, I lost couple of flies in it.

On the third approach I got a fish, and it was a big fish!  When I saw it, I decided it's not a trout. Silvery body and orange fins. Is it big chub? No, it's a nase, or pigfish. Pretty big and fat one.  

The fish didn't want to come closer, and tried to escape downstream. I steered it to the calm water near the bank and netted. Wow! It is bigger than my landing net.  45 or 46 cm.  

Nase are gregarious fish, moving and feeding in shoals. Where's one there's few of them.  I tried more, but there were no bites. Trout also didn't bite. 

I walked 500 m downstream, and tried fast water section. There's long deep groove under the opposite bank in the shadows of trees and bushes. Should be good lie for trout.  I fished this lie from the bottom to the top. But, nothing was there.

I jumped in the car, and drove to another location, few kilometers downstream. Parked near the bridge, and walked to the place called "cliff".  There was some big fish in there, I hooked one on my last trip to Raba. This monster ran away like a train, and tore my fly with the piece of tippet.  Not sure what it was, can be a barbel.

I fished deep run few times in search of barbels.  There was one fish, not big, but came off the hook. 

Later when I decided to move on to different place, I tried fast water section, above the hole.  Wow , that's a fish.  Nice brown trout. Not big, but good fight, I thought it was much bigger than it was.

At the time, the sun was high. I walked upstream to some nice location above the bridge.  There's many chubs under the bridge. I spotted them from above. But they are very spooky and require careful approach. I will try on the way back.

I walked straight in the shallow river bed about a kilometre upstream.   

First, there's very shaded hole near the bank.

There's interesting bend with many small islands, holes, and eddies.  It looks very fishy.  I fished it thoroughly with various nymphs.  Nothing.  

Then I decided to switch to my secret gear - tenkara. My Dragontail rod was in the backpack all the time. I unpacked it, and rigged with two kebari flies - weighted with bead, and unweighted.  

I fished it like traditional wet fly swing - perpendicular, down and across, because I was moving downstream in the direction where I came from.  

This method also produced no fish.  I reached the bridge with many chubs.  I cut off beaded fly, and left only classic kebari on the tippet.  Small chubs attacked fly as soon as it is landed to the water and started to drift.

Due to shallow water I fished from kneeling position. With such low position, I didn't see the fish. But if I straighten up or walk, they will move farther from me.  So I was keeping low profile and casting blindly. Few chubs were caught, all small. There are bigger chubs in this hole, but they hiding under the tree branches. Very hard to cast into their hideout without snagging.  I lost couple of flies on the trees. 

There were two kids on the bridge above me, 10-12 years old. They observed me and fish in the water, and offered to help me . They guided me where the fish are, and where to cast. They even spotted few big chub attacks on my fly, but it didn't ended by hooking. 

Then boys went home, and I left alone on the stream. Without help, my casts were unsuccessful.  I was tired, I didn't eat anything since 4:00.  Also, there was leak in my waders making me feel uncomfortable. I returned to my car, and headed to the nearest McDonalds for my reward :-)