Adventures of fly angler in Poland

The last day of our fishing trip. In the morning we went to river Sana again. I asked to drop me out at the bridge, where I caught 2 big graylings day ago. I liked this place, it's the most spectacular area on the river Sana. We started earlier than usual, at 7, and it was very cold and foggy. I arrived to my favorite pool with fast current in the head of the pool, and big eddie on the side.  I had a high hopes for this place. There should be big fish in it. I fished the fsdt current in the head of the pool, the current seams, the eddie. I spent about a hour on this pool . Time to move to next section.  Upstream from the big pool, there's very good medium depth run, from knee deep to waist-deep. Should be ideal for graylings. I fished it over few times, with no contact. Above this run, there's small island, where river separated to two arms: small and big (main current). My attention caught small arm, where fast flow joins the small pool.  I made a few casts to this curre...

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 the next day I arranged a meet with Tomasz, who agreed to show me a river Muszynka, a small stream which is tributary of Poprad. It joins main river in the town Muszyna. Early in the morning I came to Muszyna downtown. The town is center of tourism. The central square is very neat, and has a lot of flowers. Tomasz arrived, and we headed upstream to the river. Our first stop was a concrete weir and basin under it. There was some trout stocked in these basins.  We fished nymphs. Few small chubs were caught. Tomasz also had trout.  I saw a brown trout chasing my fly when I pulled it for the next cast. But the fish missed it.  Below the weir, there's quite big and wide pool.  But except such places, the stream is quite small and narrow. There's some wide and flat sections of water. I switch to wet fly in it, because nymph snagged the bottom very often. I've seen a lot of small chubs in such flats. Then there was another weir with pool below it.  It doesn't ...

 On Sunday there was fly fishing competition Janosik Cup, also the championship of the Nowy Sącz angling club, and young anglers championship. The competition was in different categories: fly fishing, tenkara, youth.  There was only 6 tenkara fishermen.  The fishing organised in pairs, selected by draw. Each pair was given a measuring device and paper card to record catches.  Only trout above 25 cm (both brown and rainbow) were counted, other fish disqualified.  I was sceptical about this, because I've seen only small trout in this river. Also, there was heavy rain in the night, and the river was dirty, with brown water color and clarity about 30 cm.  I was in the team with young fishermen pair: Kristian and Angelina.  They came from the city Torun to this event. We loaded into my car and headed upstream to Koniówka. We fished for hour and half without a single strike. Later we moved to Chocholów. We fished the river section between two bridges in town...

 On Saturday I decided to investigate another part of the river Czarny Dunajec.  I used Google maps satellite photos, to locate where are cascades of rapids and waterfalls on the river.  I picked Witów, farther upstream from Chocholów.   I parked car on the country road, and broke through dense forest and bushes to the river.  The first place I found, was beautiful green pool with calm surface and moderate current. There must be a fish in there! I used Daiwa Expert LT36 tenkara rod, rigged with two wet flies , as usually: sakasa kebari and north country spider.  Few drifts through the pool didn't produce bites. I changed one of the flies to small brown nymph, and got a fish. That was a nice grayling. They are rare in Poland nowadays, and I'm glad to see the population survived in this stream. Everybody loves their big sail-like dorsal fin. When the green pool was exhausted and didn't produce more fish, I moved upstream.  This is the place for heav...