Adventures of fly angler in Poland

Day 6. I planned to wake up very early, but due to laziness and lack for motivation, I turned off the alarm and continued to sleep until 8. I almost lost a hope to get a salmon. But after conversation with friend from the camping, I convinced myself to go fishing.  It's strange phenomenon, I wanted this trip so much, and did a lot of preparation. But now I'm on the river, there's salmon in it, but I don't have a motivation.  In the morning, I continued on that pool, where I spotted fish yesterday. There's rocky island in the middle of the river. The fly I chose was small orange fly on brass tube, sort of snaelda.  I threw my line very close to this rock on the other side, and let it swing across the pool. Suddenly, in the middle of the run, line stopped, and I felt like i'm snagged. It shouldn't be snag there, it's too deep. Whaat? It is there, the fish! My heart rate bursted to 190 bpm from adrenaline, I almost felt like a had a heart attack....

I was dreaming about fishing in Norway almost a year, since I read about Mandal river in the blog of fellow German fly fisherman. I meticulously gathered all information about this river and the area: weather reports, fishing reports from previous years, river flow measurements, maps and locations of the pools and fishing beats. Everything needed I found in the Internet and from fellow fishermen, who already was of this river. Most of information was in Norwegian, Danish or German languages which I don't understand, but I used Google translator.  The most comprehensive source is afiskeri.eu , site maintained by Danish fisherman Michael Aasgard Olsen. Michael wrote almost encyclopedia about Mandal river, with maps, photos, video clips and descriptions of the beats. It's mostly in Danish, but when you read it from mobile phone, it's automatically translated to your language. To save time and get more productive, I hired a guide Ryan Marchese ( anglerpilot.no ). He tailor...

13 May I attended meeting of "I Love DH" movement enthusiasts. It was on the parking in Nowa Wieś.  There was grill, tables, drinks, and tackle demonstration provided by Maciej Gałgański, owner of the brand Ego. Maciej brought some new rods for the field test. Robert Karlewski, organizer of the meeting, casting Ego Innovative Glass 8'6" 6 class rod with Tactical Skagit head. Here's my attempt, captured on the video: snap-c, snap-t and perry poke. After semi-official part, we went fishing. Robert agreed to be a guide, and shown me some his favorite spots. We drove to the spot, so-called "Straszna góra" (scary mountain).  It's a stretch with fast water, cobblestones, and submerged trees on the other side. It looks very "fishy", but we had no contacts. I found that Skagit line (either with DH or SH rod) is the best for this river. There are many obstacles, bushes, trees, high banks, and wading is very limited, so it'...

12 May I took 430 km trip to the city Toruń on the Northern Poland, to meet with Polish enthusiasts of double hand rods and spey casting. Double handed rods are still exotic in Poland. Not so many fly fishermen practice it. Drwęca is a big tributary to Wisła, and spawning river for baltic sea trout and occasionally, atlantic salmon. Double handed rods traditionally was a standard for fishing anadromous salmonids on all parts of the world, so it's natural choice that Drwęca became a citadel of movement "I Love DH" in Poland. 13 May there was planned demonstration and test-drive of new tackle from Ego Fly Fishing company: new rods, fly lines and other stuff. Particularly, a highlight was new glass rod Ego Innovative Glass 8'6" 6wt, and new shooting head Ego Tactical Skagit 260 grain. I came to the river early, and found a place near A1 autostrade bridge. There's parking in the forest, accessible through "secret" maintenance road (not drawn o...

29th was my birthday and I expected a gift from Mother Nature, you may guess which one . But Nature understood me not in the way I expected. Every day is a gift of life, isn't it? I got one day license for Association of 1926 part (Skarrid to Clasonborg). River is smaller there, so I primarily used my 11' trout switch rod. Actually, I found only one place, when my big DH rod 14' is usable . The rest is too small. This whole stretch is very beautiful. Some parts look like somewhere in England - similar to surroundings in Oliver Edwards' fly fishing films.  River also looked quite shallow in many places, so my big tube flies were left in the car. I primarily tried small featherwing flies on double hooks, similar to "Silver doctor" variant pictured. First place I fished in, looked more like a regular trout stream. I had some bites from what I think was small brown trout. There was no fish strikes in first spots, so I moved to next one...

There is no Part 3 because I wasn't fishing much 27.05 and there was no photos. I was in Korsholm shop, browsed great assortment of fly rods: Loop, Zpey, Hardy. Sage, and many more. Also I checked Loop Classic reel and mounted on my Winston Microspey - perfect match... thinking what tackle to sell to free some funds. So, part 4. Early in the morning, I started from the end of Borris association water - the place called Sving for Norden. Despite early hours, I met two fishermen on the Skjern association side (opposite from mine). I fished 3 nice spots, and when I walked to "Solle sving", I found that my phone is missing. Last time I used it for navigation, to walk from car parking to the river. Fuck! Shit! I had no good words for this situation. I had many valuable information in this phone. In bad mood, I walked back to the car. Phone wasn't in the car. It's obviously fell out on my pocket. I hoped that maybe some angler found it, and will bring to DCV. I...

On the 2nd day, I decided to get up very early, to avoid crowds. I stood up at 4:00, and was at the river at 5:00 something. I stayed in Troldhede/Kibaek, so it was a 7 kilometers from my accomodation to the nearest place in the river - Ahlergaard farm and wooden bridge.  Not very often you can see an airplane, when going fishing. There was nobody at the river at this time. I walked downstream on the left bank. There was no wind, and my left side single spey cast is much better than right side, so it was less stressful for me. Good spey casting practice is very important - I feel I have not enough of it, so i'm stuggling when casting from "wrong" positions or wrong side of the river. With Skjern in particular, casting can be challenging, because you cannot wade in most places, there is a reeds or grass near the bank, which fly line can catch during D-loop formation, so you need to place anchor farther from the bank. Specifically for this trip I...