Adventures of fly angler in Poland

 I was planning 3-day trip to Slovakia for fishing tenkara on small streams. But, for financial reasons the plans changed.  The potential expenses exceeded my budget for fishing trip.  I decided to go to Polish rivers in Podhale region, because fishing in it is "for free" to me.   Well, not really for free, but I have yearly license for Nowy Sącz angling association waters, paid for the whole 2024.  First I came to Dunajec river. It's a big river with wide open space. I didn't catch anything in couple of early hours. Also the wind became stronger, and I was struggling with the casts. Tenkara and wind don't go well together.   Why continue to suffer, if I can go to another stream? They are on the same license, and in the vicinity of 30-40 km.   I jumped in the car and headed to Biały Dunajec. In 50 min I reached my destination.  The river was at low level, 100 cm and 4,1 m3/s flow. The first spot I've chosen is a deep long pool under...

Biały Dunajec is kind of "cursed" river for me.  I was 3 times on it, all in 2016. Two times I caught nothing, or only one small fish. On the 3rd visit to this river I tripped on slippery rock, and broke my rod in halves.  This time I had information from friend that there's plenty of rainbow trout in this river this year. I had a high hopes for it. Now, I fished it exclusively with tenkara rod, because this stream is ideal for it.  I woke up at 2:30, prepared coffee and sandwitches, and headed to Nowy Targ. No traffic during early hours. I reached destination earlier than planned, in 1 hour 20 min.  It was too early the sunrise is at 5:00. I spent time on gas station, drinking coffee and eating.  At 5:15 I arrived to the river. My first stop was a river section in Biały Dunajec town. It has chain of rapids and small waterfalls, with deep pools and pockets below the rapids. Apart of such places where the smooth flow is broken by rock formations, the river is ver...

 Really weird story happened to me.  In my previous trip to Czarny Dunajec, I hooked enormous number of fish, like 40-50 fish in 4 hours. Fish were mostly small, but the count is unusually high for mountain stream. This time it was not so good. It was very cold and windy. I caught 3-4 small graylings.  Not even close to my previous trip, when I hooked 40+ fish, and one grayling was about 33-35 cm. Next I drove to another river, Biały Dunajec. It's only 20 km or so.  I went to the water section in the village, named after the river. This part characterised by many rapids and pools. I reached big rapids, and stepped into the fast current. My boots slipped on the slick rock polished by water. It's all happened in seconds.... I'm in the water up to my chest, and I hold in my hand only piece of the rod handle. Fortunately, I didn't break my leg or hand, only rod.  Since it was connected with the reel by line, I caught the missing piece and returned to the stream bank...

 This trip was rather unproductive. I started from Białka Tatrzanska. I came to the river early in the morning. Something changed on the river, after big water the lovely pools I used to fish just disappeared. New pools formed on new places. Białka is freestone stream, and it changes it's shape quite often. But it needs time to fish to accomodate to changed environment. I didn't catch anything on Białka, and decided to move closely located river in the Podhale region, Biały Dunajec. i arrived to the popular spot. Snagged couple of times, and decided to move upstream. When I returned, I found that another man is fishing the spot which I left 5 minutes ago. And he fighting a big fish. It was a 45 cm brown trout.  I was jealous, I can catch this trout myself if I spent more time on this spot. Frustrated, I drove to another river. In fishing, I don't like rivalry. It's a big frustration when someone else is catching, but you are not. So, I arrived to Dunajec in Krościenko, ...

 I booked a guiding tour with Wojtek Kudłacz, known as "Fly Fishing in Poland".  We planned to fish two mountain rivers in Podhale region of Poland: Białka Tatrzanska and Biały Dunajec.  First, we arrived to Białka. It's famous for it's crystal clear water, wild character and natural flow. Unlike most rivers in Poland, there's no hydroelectric dams on Białka.  I started to fish in very beautiful pool with turquise colored water. There were few takes, but only one fish landed successfully.  Wojtek taught me, how to hide myself and fish from low to the ground positions. Fish is very spooky in Białka due to very clear water and high visibility, especially on sunny days. We moved downstream to the very interesting pool. Here , I fished from kneeling position, to stay low to the ground. I had only couple of small trout there. River in this place has an outlet, which goes to hydroelectric power station. Remember, I said there's no dams on Białka?  Actually, there...