Adventures of fly angler in Poland

 I opened year 2022 with spey casting session on Raba.  I took 2 rods with me: full size double hand rod CND Black Spey 13'6 7/8/9, and trout spey rod Winston Boron ii TH-MS 11' 4wt. The place I chose for casting is section of Raba river in Nieznanowice.  This part is good for spey casting for two reasons. First, river is not very narrow, and has enough space for full size spey rod. Second, there's fine gravel on the bottom, easy to wade, which allows to stand in the middle of the river, and practice left-hand and right-hand spey casts. River level was 247 cm and flow 10,5 m3/s. I started with CND. First, I rigged it with Airflo Scandi Compact 34' 540 grain (blue), and 15' tapered leader. I tried single spey, double spey and snake roll, from both sides of the river.  It seems like I lost my ability to spey cast. I struggled to make a narrow loop, and too often, my leader collapsed a the end of the cast, instead of unroll straight. Second shooting head I tried Vision...

My second trip dedicated to chasing Hucho hucho (Danubian salmon) was a little bit spoiled by weather. The real winter came to the Bieszczady region. Air temperature expected to be -4 during the day, and -7 in the night.  From fishing prospective freezing temperature means, that fly line and rod guides will freeze immediately after contact with water.   But, I came for fishing, so I need to handle it somehow.  The river looked nice at lowest level,  166 cm and 10 m3/s. But in the areas with slowest current, the ice built up at the edges of the water. I started at well-known huchen place, pool under the rock.  It's one of the deepest and slowest portions of the river.  Unfortunately, it was not very easy. Rod guides were freezing despite of treatment by Loon Stanley paste.  Particularly it was bad with my streamer rod. I switched to double hand rod and nymph, because it allows to fish at fixed length of the fly line, so guides have less contact wit...

I Love DH is an annual meet of Polish double hand fly fishermen, organised by Robert Karlewsky. This time it was in the same place, village Nowa Wieś, on the river Drwęca in the vicinity of Toruń. River was at medium level, 95cm and 23,5 m3/s. Recently Robert reported, that there's fresh sea trout in the river. I was really excited about sea trout, so I planned to arrive early, and fish from 5:00 to the 9:00, before the meeting. But, driving in the night was tough test for me. I fallen asleep 3 times behind the wheel, and stopped couple of times at gas stations, to have some short sleep. So, in reality I arrived to the river only at 7:00. First, I started in fast water section near Nowa Wieś. There are some deep holes and fast current. I've seen some fish jumping, but probably it was an asp (Aspius aspius). Then I returned to the event place.  We met with Robert and other fishermen and fisherwomen. Some brought there their spouses and kids. We had a lunch, g...

Most rivers in Southern Poland were blown up after prolonged rain. But Dunajec started to drop 3 days ago. It was promising. When I arrived to Gołkowice, water level was a bit high. Level 170 cm and 50m3/s . I never fished it above 43 m3/s. But, my favourite stretch looked quite OK. Once I arrived, I started to fish with my Skagit setup and streamer.  First, I attached black wooly bugger with orange head. It was top producer in previous trip. Soon, I got first fish, which was pretty nice brown trout. Thanks to fellow angler Michał, he made this photo. First trout was quite decent size. There were also many small fish, I didn't make pictures of them, and released immediately. The weather was excellent, a mix of sun and clouds. Fish were biting from time to time, but not very often. Fishing improved, when I replaced my streamer with white zonker.  That was a catcher! I caught 10 fish or so on that white zonker. This was probably the biggest trout....

I planned a 3-day trip to the north of Poland. On the way stopped near Toruń, on the river Drwęca. This is quite famous sea trout river in Poland. Level was 62 cm at Elgiszewo, flow 16 m3/s. Fishing is not easy, because wading is limited due to immediate depth. River is waist deep already 1-2 meters from the bank. Unfortunately water was dirty, turbid and brown color after recent rain. I wasn't able to see my boots, when standing in knee-deep water. There was no signs of fish in this location. I moved to another stretch, in Nowa Wieś. River makes a turn there, and there's a cliff on the left side. A lot of wood in the water. That's probably how river got his name Drwęca - "woody", or "made of wood". After woody section, there is nice fast water riffle, and deep hole in the end. This place is more appropriate for trout. So I stayed longer there. I didn't expect any catch, because there's very minor chance that sea tro...

Skawa is very nice river for fly fishing, because of variety of pools and runs. Here's very deep and fast runs suitable for heavy nymph or streamer on sinking line, wide flats good for dry fly, riffles to run a wet fly or micronymph, roaring rapids, and calm pools. Some riffles and runs have wide enough space for double hand rod. The water level was 139 cm, flow 16,7 m3/s, temperature 4 C.  decided to try my Winston Microspey 4wt first time in this season.  I didn't fish that rod the whole last year, because I was more keen on micro skagit. But now it's a good time and place to use it. First, I went to the deepest pool in the river. I attached Guideline 3D shooting head Intermediate/Sink5/Sink6. This is the most dense head I have. Sinks as a brick.  I attached unweighted white zonker on short (60 cm) monofilament leader. This pool has very uneven bottom, covered with boulders of different sizes. So-called "rock garden". I had few snags, and lost...