Adventures of fly angler in Poland

On the next day we fished river Sana again, but different section, one or 2 kilometres downstream from previous place.  I was a bit sceptical. The river section looked boring. Perfectly straight, surrounded by fields and village houses, without spectacular landmarks or outstanding features.   I started with classic fly rod, and long nymphing method. It was barely usable, because of the current speed. I needed 3-4 overhead casts to lay the line and leader on the water, and only 2-3 seconds of drift. Too much wasted energy for very little fishing. Then I switched equipment to tenkara rod and short nymphing rig. In the fast current, it allows only short casts, but more time for fly spent in the water. Which in theory translated to more hooked fish. I concentrated my effort on shallow and fast water. The run was knee-deep or less, with current seams and hidden depressions. Unlike brown trout, grayling is fish of open water. It doesn't need cover or structure nearby, like boul...

 This time our guides decided to show us different river, Sana. Ribnik is tributary to Sana, both rivers join near the village Velje. After the confluence, Sana carries twice much water than Ribnik. It's pretty wide mountain river in some places. There are some very deep holes, which potentially can hold the queen of Balkans mountain streams - the huchen.  But it wasn't our goal, we were targeting mainly graylings with rather light gear. Fly rods in classes 2-3-4 and 7X or 0,10 mm tippet. In such very clear and low water, like it is now, thinnest tippets and smallest flies on hooks 18-24 were preferred.  The river section featured few deep depressions and pools, so it was natural choice for contact nymphing, or euro nymphing.   I didn't have a proper fly rod for that, so I used my tenkara rod, Daiwa Expert LT36 for such method.  Colored level mono line slightly less than rod length, tippet ring on the end, and tippet. The whole rig is about 1,5x of the rod ...

 On Tuesday our guides decided to take us to the Ribnik headwaters. We loaded into the van, and drove few kilometers upstream, to the area near the trout hatchery.  The very beginning of the river section set me into uplifting mood. There's booth called "Tenkara Ribnik". Funny, isn't?  I though I'm the only tenkara fisherman there, but looks like i'm not alone.  There's restaurant "Komuna" near the river . Above the restaurant, the river split into 2 arms with island between. In the junction, there's rapids and deep plunge pool. The best would be fishing it with contact nymphing (aka euro nymphing) method. But I didn't have proper gear for that.  Pawel suggested me that I'd go left arm from the island, moving upstream all the way. So I did. I rigged my rod for the long nymphing method for fishing micronymph upstream. I walked all this channel up to the point, where two flows merge into one river again. Ribnik is very wide and shallow ...

First time I visited Balkans, this part of Europe is known as fly fishing paradise. Slovenia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and North Makedonia to less extent are well-known for it's beautiful mountains, pristine rivers, rich trout and grayling population.  This trip was organised by two avid Polish fly fishermen Pawel and Alek, they rented a van and gathered a team of 8 people (including themselves), to share the cost of the trip.  Early in Sunday we loaded all our fishing equipment to the van, and headed to south.  The road was long and quite boring. It took almost 12 hours. We crossed 7 countries: Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, and finally Bosnia and Herzegovina.   Bosnia is not in European Union and not in Schengen area, so there's passport check on the border. We were lucky that there was no queue at the time, and we crossed border very quickly.   Need to say, that since Bosnia is not in EU, the cheap roaming doesn't work ther...