Adventures of fly angler in Poland

 Due to prolonged heat season, we have very low water in all rivers in Poland. The flow in Poprad near the mouth is about 6m3/s. Normally the river flow in September is about 11-16 m3/s.  I came to the river near 7:00. The first stop was in Głebokie. There's fast run under the bridge, where I saw fish 2 years ago. I checked this hole, and barbels are there! There's 3 or 4 fish in very shallow, knee-deep water. I came down and tried to catch it. Unfortunately, probably fish are gone because were spooked by casts. I think I hooked one, but fish briefly flashed and immediately came off the hook. I drove about half kilometer upstream. Parked my car on the dirt road and descended to the river. The area is very shallow, only about 30 cm of water. I concentrated on deeper part of the run, near the opposite bank. I worked through the run, it looks attractive, but not very long.  Then I skipped some very shallow water, and fished the next deep run. Ok, it's not very deep, slightly l

 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 produced fish

 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 accident. Sad news.  I stopped in Stary Sącz in McDon

On the third day of my Slovak trip, I decided to fish river Poprad on the Polish side. The road goes through Slovakia about 145 km, to the town Leluchów on the border.  The highway goes much of it's way along the Poprad river, so I had a chance to investigate how the river looks on Slovak side.  My first stop was in town Svit, near Poprad headwaters. River is very small there, and looks like artifical channel. This section near hotel Koliba Svit was stocked with rainbow trout. It used to be a great fishing few years ago, even used for one one event of European fly fishing chanpionship. But I didn't see any fish there. Probably, stocking wasn't done in this year.   I drove through the country, and stopped near town Plavec. This is close to Polish border, I checked the Poprad from the bridge. River looks great, with many holes suitable for barbels and trout. But i didn't have license for this part.   I crossed Slovak-Polish border at Leluchów.  I turned from the highway t

In this summer, Poland has critically low water levels everywhere, thanks to dam construction, and elimination of wetlands and marshes.  Ecologists ring the alarm, because high water temperatures in summer, and silt deposits released from dams, are harmful for ecosystem and particularly for many fish species. Some small streams almost disappeared. Poprad was 112 cm and 7,89 m3/s. Usually such level is in later October. I planned that trip due to barbel fever. I planned trip to Belgium to discover rivers in Ardennes, and fish for barbels. Unfortunately, my friend from Belgium rang me and told, that fishing is forbidden till September, due to extreme temperatures and low water levels. So, I cancelled my hotel reservation and the whole trip.   But, according to local reports, there was good barbel fishing on Poprad recently. I arrived early in the morning on the river. It was foggy and cloudy. I found long and deep pool, which looks like it may have a lot of barbels.  I spent 1,5 or 2 hou

 2 weeks ago I planned 3-day fishing trip to river San in Southeast Poland. But on the way, I decided to visit Poprad river and catch some barbels.  On the way I stopped at Stary Sącz in McDonalds. About 8:30 I arrived at the fishing spot. I parked my car near the railway tracks. The river looked calm and cold. The river level was 118 cm and flow 9,29 m3/s at Stary Sącz, or 97 cm and 6,27 m3/s at Muszyna. Which means, river is very low and easy to cross to the other side in many places. The place where I started fishing was knee-deep in most of the width of the river. Only along the far bank, there was a long deep hole. I crossed this hole in shallowest lower part (it's up to my waist level), and started to fish slowly upstream with nymph.  Very soon, I got a fish strike. After short fight, fish came off the hook. But that's a good sign! It means I found a place with barbels! Another take, and I scored my first barbel. Very beautiful bronze sleek fish. Isn't it a perfect fi