Adventures of fly angler in Poland

 This is my first proper fishing trip in 2022. It's a bit late, because March and April usually are good fishing months. But, we had snow in the beginning of April.  From few options, I chose Skawa river, because it's just 40 min of driving from my home. Dunajec is usually better in Spring, but I was too lazy to get up early and drive 1,5 hours each way.  When I arrived, Skawa was low and clear. 112 cm and 7,12 m3/s in the morning The water was so low, that everything was visible in the water. Except fish.  I started with euro nymphing setup in the deep run , which has few large boulders in it. Usually it is a good place for dry fly, when fish is rising around these boulders. But despite of mayfly hats, fish were not rising, or doing so very rarely.  After few runs, I got a fish on nymph. My first brown trout in this year. So, the trout season officially opened. It's a very beautiful fish. And it's already in well-fed shape, not like trout kelts in February, whi...

Skawa is one of the closest to my home rivers. Unfortunately, it's always dirty in October due to large quantity of sediments discharged from the dam. The water level was 109 cm and 6,31 m3/s, very low.  The thing I do love in October is the color of the surroundings. The forest is burning with orange flame.  I started with nymphing rod, Ego Competitor 11' 2/3 wt.  The weather was shiny.  There were no bites for a long time.  Then I caught and released only one brown trout.  I covered my favourite run "under the rock" with nymphs and dry fly. No reaction in two hours. It was really frustrating. Then I returned to the bridge, which is the most popular place. There was 3 men around, casting dry fly. I've seen that small mayflies started to hatch, and fish were picking it. Most of the hatch occurred in the shallow knee-deep water. Here's the most frustrating part. I didn't catch anything on dry fly :-(   Nothing. There were couple of attacks on my fl...

 Last reports from Raba shown that fish actively taking dry fly. I didn't have a luck with dry fly in this year. April, the best dry fly month, was spoiled my bad weather and snow. My attempts on Dunajec in May were unsuccessful. So Im kind of "dry fly virgin" in this year.  I arrived to the parking, and met couple of fellow fishermen. River is low, 227 cm and 5,74 m3/s. We started to fish slowly moving, flat section of the river. It's often good place for dry fly. After hour or so, I had no takes or nips on my fly. I also didn't see fish rising, despite of caddis flying over the water.  I bored and started to talking over the phone, make videos of my casting, etc, Then I decided to switch gear, and assembled anther fly rod for streamers - Vision Sisu. I rigged it with freshly acquired fly line Vision Hybrid , which is integrated skagit/scandi type line. After 2 or 3rd cast, fish aggressively attacked my streamer.  It was very spirited brown trout, it made a few j...

On the way back from Wejherowo to Kraków, I stopped near another nice Pomeranian river.  It was very low and clear, so I was able to spot shools of graylings through polarized glasses. Unfortunately, it is very popular kayaking route. Which means, there's huge traffic of kayaks. Every 1-2 minute someone floats down the river and ask: "Got fish?". Many of them were drunk, or shout very loudly, so the atmosphere was a bit nervous. There's a lot of graylings in this river, but mostly they are small.  Also, fishing is very challenging because of low hanging tree branches.  I lost a lot of flies on these trees. I used euro nymphing method with short glass rod Echo Glass 8'6" 4wt. Normally this is my dry fly rod. But I needed shorter rod on this stream, due to tight space and many obstructions. Here's I captured moment of grayling take on the video: Then I found one nice place, where I spotted bigger graylings. Unfortunately, it was extremely hard to cast into....

 I spent 3 days in Kashubian Tricity - an aglomeration of 3 closely spaced towns: Wejherowo, Reda and Rumia.  Reda is a small river which flows through Wejherowo and joins Baltic sea nearby.  The river was running very low and clear. The depth is less than knee-deep in many places, with occasional deep holes up to 1-2 m.   Dominating species in this area are grayling and brown trout.  Once I started, I caught a grayling. Most of catches were very small brown trout, a lot of them. Also I caught perch.  I tried to avoid too much wading, in such small river it spooks fish. Deeper spots near undercut banks are perspective for holding larger trout. Unfortunately, I caught only small fish. It was a hot day by Polish means (+27 C), but most of the river is covered by dense treeline, so it was very pleasant experience. I caught 30 or maybe 40 fish in 3 hours. They all were small. Nothing to brag about from fishing prospective. But I love special atmosphere of ...

We have unusually warm weather in Poland in the end of October. Daytime temperature is about +18 C +20 C.  It's a great conditions for insect hatches. I arrived to the river , with hope of good hatch. Water level was 106 cm, flow 5,6 m3/s. Unfortunately, water was dirty, and there was a lot of algae carried by the current. I spotted some decent fish from the bridge, in 40-50 cm range. Probably they were rainbows. I tried to seduce them with tiny emerger, with no success. Then I decided to take break of fishing, and have some running exercise.   Sport and fitness is another my passion.  I ran 5 km along the river, then returned to the spot. Then I changed dress and continued fishing. Surprisingly, there was only two fishermen apart me, on the whole river stretch. Quite rare thing, there's usually crowded spot.  I started with nymph in the rapids. Soon I got two fish strike, but both are lost.  They were average brown trout.  But I wanted...

River Vah section in Ruzomberok doesn't look very appealing. It runs through industrial part of the city, surrounded by paper producing plant from one side, and railway from another.  Don't except wild and scenic landscapes there. But what draws attention of many anglers to this river, is the quality of fishing. This section of the river well managed by local angling club. Main attraction is stocked big rainbow trouts. Also it has population of wild native fish: brown trout, grayling, perch, barbel and nase. Quality of the rainbows in this river is very high. They grow big, fat, strong and can give you a fight of the lifetime on a light tackle. Usually it is not recommended to go for it with less than 0.16 mm leader . Also, these big trouts are very keen on dry fly. I came to the license shop at 7.00, bought a 1-day license for 20 euro and yearly fishing card for 7 euros. At 8:00 I was on the river. The morning was foggy and cold. I was first on the river, there was...