Adventures of fly angler in Poland

 Today I have day off on my work. My main goal was a doctor visit in hospital in another town. After hospital, I headed to Raba river. It was very clear water, such water is only in spring. In summer, Raba runs dirty because of silt coming from the dam.   I hit couple of my favorite sports with euro nymphing, and got no bites.  Then I decided to drive home, but to stop on Brzegi quarry.   There was only one man fishing on Brzegi at a time.  The fishing was slow. I started with my Dragontail Hellbender tenkara rod, and streamer.   In the beginning  , there was nothing, But around 16:00, after one hour plus something of fishing, I got a strike.  Short but spectacular fight. It's always adrenaline fight, when using tenkara rod, because it's not forgiving mistakes. But I did it right, and nice 45cm rainbow trout landed in my net. I switched between my rods, alternating between tenkara and Vision Sisu 6wt fly rod, rigged with hopper-drop...

 2 weeks ago I planned 3-day fishing trip to river San in Southeast Poland. But on the way, I decided to visit Poprad river and catch some barbels.  On the way I stopped at Stary Sącz in McDonalds. About 8:30 I arrived at the fishing spot. I parked my car near the railway tracks. The river looked calm and cold. The river level was 118 cm and flow 9,29 m3/s at Stary Sącz, or 97 cm and 6,27 m3/s at Muszyna. Which means, river is very low and easy to cross to the other side in many places. The place where I started fishing was knee-deep in most of the width of the river. Only along the far bank, there was a long deep hole. I crossed this hole in shallowest lower part (it's up to my waist level), and started to fish slowly upstream with nymph.  Very soon, I got a fish strike. After short fight, fish came off the hook. But that's a good sign! It means I found a place with barbels! Another take, and I scored my first barbel. Very beautiful bronze sleek fish. Isn't it a perfect ...

Today we have a holiday in Poland - Independence Day. I planned a trip to Dunajec river, in attempt to catch Danubian salmon on streamers. When I arrived to known spot early in the morning, I found there's already someone fishing the run. River was very low. Dunajec Gołkowice 137 cm and 14,1 m3/s. I fished this run with streamers when it was 50 m3/s and it was awesome. Many big trout on streamers. But now, it looked too skinny and not attractive.  I drove to the Mostki, to the deepest hole in this part of Dunajec. I spent couple of cours, casting heavy streamer on intermediate line with 9wt rod. No luck.  Since it's a holiday, I wanted to celebrate it with some real fish, not just grass and sticks caught in the water.  Luckily, I had my car packed with various fly rods for different conditions and methods. I headed to the Poprad river , which is close to Gołkowice.  Poprad also was low. Measurement  20 cm, 9,85 m3/s at Stary Sącz, and 98 cm, 6,58 m3/s at Muszyna...

 Barbel is a hard to reach fish for me, almost mystical. I caught a few small ones , by accident when fishing for trout. But when I tried to catch barbel on purpose, I had zero results.  According to recent reports from Poprad river, there's were decent numbers of barbels caught in September. Autumn is probably the best time for that fish. Rivers get low and clear, and they are easier to reach for fly fishermen.Barbels are bottom feeders. They eat various organisms living on the river bottom - insect larva (especially caddis and mayfly larva), mollusks, worms, occasionally fish fry. Giving the nature of barbel, the most reliable way to catch it on artifical fly is Czech nymphing method with heavy nymph rolling on the bottom. Due to technical limitations, depths more than 1x rod length are out of reach for fly fisherman. So, the best time for barbels is early autumn, when rivers are at lowest level, and barbels feeding in runs of moderate depth 1-1,5 m. I arrived to the river a...