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...

 Lazy Saturday. I was laying in my bed until 9.30 or so.  There was idea to go to Raba and investigate it's lower section in search of barbels.  But I had low motivation.  Suddenly, after conversation wth my facebook friend Tomasz, I was invited to fish with him in the town Muszyna.  It's about 2 hours of driving for me.  I'm not a fan of early wake ups and night driving. I decided to go today to Poprad area, fish for barbels one day, stay overnight, and go with Tomasz on Sunday.  The idea turned to real deal, when I looked to booking.com and booked a room for the night stay.   I packed my fishing equipment, get in the car and headed to Stary Sącz direction, to the river Poprad.   On the way , there was a big traffic jam in Wieliczka due to accident with motorcyclist.  There were emergency vehicles at the site, and police blocked the road, and re-routed the traffic. As I read later in local news, the motorcyclist died in accide...

I was in fly fishing competition on river Warta (Poland). It's annual event near city Częstochowa, sponsored by local fly shops and businesses. Warta is one of the longest Polish rivers but in the upper section it's typical overgrown small stream. It's tough for fly fishing, very few places with good access to water and space for overhead cast. Organizers made it even more difficult, and banned wading, so you can fish only from the bank. Exceptions are for crossing river to the other side or dealing with snags. Weather was cloudy with chance of rain. River was at low level, 71 cm and flow 2,2 m3/s. I arrived to my beat early and waited for the start time. Registration of catches electronic - you need to send photo of the fish to the organizers by phone. Photo shows the fish against the measurement tape. Only fish caught in the timeframe 9.15-13.15 is counted, if the length is more than 30 cm. I got nothing except small perch (doesn't qualify). The winner got 48 cm brown...

 Today was a perfect winter day for spey casting training. Air temperature + 3 C, no wind. River was 145 cm and 9,90 m3/s, just perfect conditions. I came to the Raba at 11:00. The river banks were still frosted. I assembled my double handed rod CND Black Spey 13'6" 7/8/9wt, rigged it with Vision Ace 525 grain shooting head. Practiced switch cast, single spey and snake roll for some time.  On the opposite bank, I notices pieces of plastic or cloth garbage, which spoiled the view of the river. I spotted that crap in my previous visit, too, but now decided to remove it. There was deep channel between me and the opposite bank, in the deepest part it was above my waist level. There should be a fish in this hole.  But im not for fishing today.  I reached the tree on the bank and removed garbage. On the way, I collected more big pieces of trash and loaded into my car, with intention to discard it on the way home.  Now, the river without trash looks much better! Raba i...

 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...

Third day of my Huchen trip was substantially warmer. The air temperature raised to +4 C, and part of the snow melted. I had a hope that it will trigger fish feeding instincts.  In the morning I met couple of fishermen on the river, first time I saw somebody else fishing. We had a short talk, they were chasing graylings and not competing with me :-)    I fished pool under the rocks with sinking line from 9am to 13:00 with no success. After short break, I moved to the "hucho hole".  This pool is very interesting one. It starts with ridge of rocks at the end of the riffle. Below the dirge, main current goes on the left bank. Right side is very slow water.  I think that fish likely to be hold near the edge of the slow and fast current. I fished it from top of the run, covering both fast and slow water. In this pool , few year ago one of the biggest huchen on the fly was caught, 120 cm or so.  Then I crossed the river below the rocks. It has very dangerous bott...

Today it was slightly warmer. Air temperature from -1 to 0. It's better prognosis for fishing.  But during the night, ice buildup grown more.  Hopefully, it didn't spoil fishing, because I can wade beyond the ice field near the edge of the hole. After couple of hours, I got a strike! On the steamer.   Just at the right end of this hole.  It gave me a hope, that there's fish and it can be caught. Later, i moved to so-called "Prison" site. It's named because the run is across from the state prison in Wielka Wieś village. This part of the river has main current near the right side. It is shallow, fast run with pocket water, boulders, and many hidden holes. It's better to fish with floating line and long leader, casting from the middle of the river to the right bank.  I fished it all the way downstream to Bachława ford across the river.  There were no other takes today.  

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...

After night spent at "U Mirka i Dorotki", I headed to the Huchen pool with renewed vigor. It was cold and wet, +4 C and rain.  I arrived to the pool before sunrise, and started fishing. This time, I rigged my rod with Rio Outbound Short Sink3. If fish is not willing to rise after the fly, let's try to deliver fly closer to the bottom.  I saw fish splashed in the middle of the pool. I thoroughly fished it from top to the bottom and back. At one point, I snagged my streamer on the bottom in the middle of the pool.  I decided to tear it off and lose. Pulled my fly line with two hands, using a lot of force. Surprisingly, the leader didnt break off, but there's something dragged with my streamer. Looks like big piece of grass. I pulled my fly line with two hands. There was 30cm piece of grass attached to the hook. Suddenly, big fish chased the whole thing (streamer with patch of grass), tried to bite it, but missed and returned to the hole. It was a Hucho hucho. The River ...

 River San was once a top Polish fly fishing destination. River is rich on grayling particularly, also it has decent population of brown trout and huchen. The main goal of my trip was huchen , or Danubian salmon (Hucho hucho). The huchen is large freshwater salmonid, related to taimen. The native habitat range of this fish is Danube river basin in Europe. But, it successfully planted in few rivers which do not belong to Danube drainage, including Polish rivers San and Dunajec.  What is known about river San' huchen. Unlike rivers in Austria or Slovenia, where these fish live in deepest pools, which require heaviest lures and flies to reach them, San is a shallow river. It's depth is average 30 cm - 1 m, with rare holes more than 1,5 m deep.  Which means, in San, huchen can be effectively fished with intermediate , or even floating line. Especially now, when river level is 165 cm and 9,43 m3/s at Lesko. Early in the morning, I started to fish famous Huchen hole #1.  T...