Adventures of fly angler in Poland

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...

River San in Poland is quite famous destination, and it's popular site for fly fishing competitions. During 8-12.08.2018 there was 17th Cortland World Youth Fly fishing championship. You can check competition sectiors here: http://www.wyffc2018.com/sectors/sector-ii On 11.08 Ukrainians held it's own event - training and competition for Ukrainian fly fishing team, in preparation to World championship in Italy. I was invited as special guest to take part in it. The sectors was in special part ("OS") of river San in Zwierzyń, from power station, to so-called Eldorado site near village Nowa Wieś. Early in the morning we had training on Eldorado. I crossed the river to the far bank (left side of the river). There were small browns taking on dry fly. I caught 3 fish and there were more empty takes. Then we returned to the site "Vision Fishing hut" (Vision wiata) , built and maintained by Vision Polska. We had a breakfast and draw, to select pools and zone...

I planned this visit to San in December, to fish for Danubian salmon (Hucho hucho). This big predator is more feeding more actively in coldest time of year, so December is the right time to catch it. We teamed up with Piotr Michna, the guide, but he wasn't guiding on this trip, just fishing. Unfortunately, the trip started with road incident.  Somewhere near Rzeszów, I had a small collision with truck. We waited for police, and lost two hours to fill all papers.  It was my fault, as police concluded, and I got in addition 500 PLN ticket for traffic violation. That sucks! So, beginning of the trip was spoiled. And when we arrived to the river, it was already crowded . Someone caught Hucho.  The fish which could be mine. I was s frustrated. In the meantime, we started fishing with nymphs. I caught one small brown trout, and one big lost.  I almost brought it to hand, but fish slipped out of landing net and released from the hook. In the meantime, the...

San is the most famous fly fishing river in Poland. It's about 260 km from me, or 5 hours of driving. So it make sense only for 2-days trip or more. I went there without prior knowledge. When I arrived to the rver, I found it's very-very shallow. The average depth was 30-50 cm. Also, it was middle of very hot summer, with temperatures up to +36 C. I got a license and went to the river. It was hard to find approach from road. I parked my car in the pocked, and descended from steep cliff. There was small river enterin San. it's called Hoczewka. The river was wide and flat. Somewhat similar to Dunajec, but much more shallower, and boring. I wasn't impressed. I fished the long riffle, down to Hoczewka mouth. I caught 3 or 4 small trouts there, one rainbow and few browns. Nothing special. Mostly I used small wooly bugger on floating line, with long mono leader. Just swinging it downstream, no stripping. Also, I tried wet fly. There's a small island, ...