Bosnia - grayling eldorado. Day 1

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 there. So we all switched off mobile phones, to avoid high charge for international roaming. 

We arrived to the destination late, around 21:00, and almost immediately went to sleep. 

Our base camp named LTG Flyfishing Center. It consists of few wooden bungalows, and cottages. We accommodated in 2 bungalows, 4 men in each. 

On Monday morning, we started fishing near the camp. Ribnik is very short chalk stream, it's only 5,5 km length .  The river originates from 3 powerful springs, where water goes straight from the mountain.  Because of short course, it never gets dirty due to seasonal runoff, which makes it great for fishing year-around. 

The river is mostly shallow, average knee-deep, with occasional deeper holes. Due to water clarity, you can spot fish in many places. All this makes it perfect for fly fishing. You can wade across the river almost everywhere, and cross it from side to side in many locations. 

We started 200 m upstream from LTG center. The river is mostly shallow, but in the middle there's depression.  Unfortunately, in my first approach, I tripped on rock and fell into the water. Thanks to tightly secured belt, the water didn't leak into my pants and socks. But my shirt and everything above the waist was wet. My fishing barely started, but ended very shortly.  I urged back to the guest house to change the clothes. 

When I returned, most of the group headed farther upstream, out of sight. There was only 2 men. The mayflies were hatching. But fish activity near the surface was slow.  I didn't catch anything.  

It was time for lunch break. I climbed through steep bank to the road, which goes along the river.  About 1 km upstream from LTG center, there's restaurant Aqua with free WiFi and good selection of local food. My colleagues were already there. 

After lunch, we went to another place on the river. Alek took me and 2 another guys to the run 1 km above the Aqua. It's promised to be a good dry fly place, with slow water and calm glassy surface.

I used my new rod Traper Quadro Nymph, but in "dry fly" configuration, assembled in it's shortest length 9'. 

The fish wasn't active on dry fly. Alek suggested me to use long nymphing method with micronymph.  Long nymphing uses very long tapered leader (1,5x - 2x of the rod length), and 1 or 2 very small and lightweight nymphs. It's mostly upstream fishing. Cast upstream as far as you can, and retrieve the line, let the nymph sink and drift with the flow naturally. The challenge in this method is to see the strike, because it's not tightline method, you have a slack.

Alek demonstrated me how to use this method. After few casts, I got my first grayling. Not a big fish, neither small. 

My first Balkan grayling, I was happy! 

There were no other fish, except few small ones, which I don't count.  It was a hard day, but just the beginning of fishing adventure.  With high hopes, we returned to the camp.