Spontaneous trip to Muszyna pt. 1

 Lazy Saturday. I was laying in my bed until 9.30 or so.  There was idea to go to Raba and investigate it's lower section in search of barbels.  But I had low motivation. 

Suddenly, after conversation wth my facebook friend Tomasz, I was invited to fish with him in the town Muszyna.  It's about 2 hours of driving for me.  I'm not a fan of early wake ups and night driving.

I decided to go today to Poprad area, fish for barbels one day, stay overnight, and go with Tomasz on Sunday. 

The idea turned to real deal, when I looked to booking.com and booked a room for the night stay.  

I packed my fishing equipment, get in the car and headed to Stary Sącz direction, to the river Poprad.  

On the way , there was a big traffic jam in Wieliczka due to accident with motorcyclist.  There were emergency vehicles at the site, and police blocked the road, and re-routed the traffic. As I read later in local news, the motorcyclist died in accident. Sad news. 

I stopped in Stary Sącz in McDonalds to have a lunch, and continued on the road 971, which goes along Poprad river.

Poprad was at low level, 9,6 m3/s at Stary Sącz. Water was generally dirty, less turbid in Barcice but much worse near Żegiestów and Muszyna. 

My first stop was near village Głebokie.  There's short run under the bridge, which has some barbels in it. I know this because I spotted fish from the bridge 2 years ago.   I assembled my rod for Euro nymphing, and descended to the water.  The run is characterised by strong current, choppy surface, and "boulder garden" bottom. Such type of bottom is very prone of snags. I snagged my nymph couple of times. On third drift, I snagged the rocks again, but when I tried to pull it to unsnag, the "rock" started to move upstream. Fish, big fish! This is a big barbel. The fish was very strong, and fighting both against me and the current. I positioned myself in a way, so the fish was trying to pull away from me, and faced against the current. This usually works, but the fish didn't want to move close to the bank .  After few attempts to forcefully move the fish, it fell off the hook. F..ck, that's a pity! Such a great beginning of the day, and I f..cked up!  

After few fruitless attempts in this run, I headed further upstream.  I stopped near town Piwniczna Zdrój. There's also nice run, where I caught barbels in the past. But now, there were no bites. 

My next stop was Wierchomla, a run near PKP railway station.  This is very deep run in the head of the pool. I was staying waist-deep, as far as I can go to the river. Fishing near the bank have no sense because there's mud and very dirty water. So I needed to wade further to the river, deeper and closer to the main current.  The water in this river section was dirtier and almost opaque.

I caught few small fish in this run. They are called gudgeons, and they look as mini-barbels. They also have whiskers. But this is not what I came for.

Unsatisfied , I returned to my car and continued my journey up the river.

I fished in Żegiestów , near the "spa village", famous for it's mineral water sources. My booked night stay also was in Żegiestów.  There's nice run near the footbridge, which connects Poland and Slovakia. Later I fished the area near Andrzejówka , there's also footbridge there.  

I had no luck today.  No hits on my nymphs, no barbel, no nase, no chub. Only few small gudgeons.

Here I decided to stop fishing and go to my night stay place. 

I looked for the address of the hotel in google maps, but it gave me wrong address.  It's called "Agroturystika u Zosi", but google suggested my other "Zosia". I called to the owner, and she directed me to the house. Zosia was nice blonde woman, she met me at the gates and opened the parking area. There were also two dogs, who started barking. But Zosia said they are safe and friendly with guests  and should be not afraid of. 

I was hungry and looked for the restaurant on the map. The nearest restaurant is called Żegiestów 35, and it is one kilometre away.  I walked all the way along the road.  It was surprise for me that such small village has paved sidewalk, brightly illuminated by lights.

The restaurant was still open, it works until 22.00.  But it was empty, and not all menu was available at the time. I wanted pork ribs, they are gone. So I ordered "schab" (Polish style pork chop) instead.  

When I returned to the hotel, it was very dark and most of guests were sleeping or watching TV.  I took shower and went sleep.