Adventures of fly angler in Poland

Every year in the middle of May I go to the river Drwęca near the city Toruń to the festival "I love DH".  It's a meetup of Polish double hand fly rod enthusiasts. This year it was kind of special because it was not organized as a festival, more like meet of friends.  There were not so many people. I traveled alone from Kraków. Started at 1:30 AM and drove all night on empty roads. No police, no other cars. I didn't see other drivers in 40 minutes of driving, which is unusual.  At 4:20 I arrived to the city Łodż, where I picked up my friend, Tomek.  We planned to arrive early and spend some time on the river, before the meeting. First, we arrived to the site called "Plaża/Glinki" (The Beach/Clay). For me this name has a special meaning. 2 years ago I fell into the water from the cutbank while fishing, and dipped up to my chest. This time, river was very low, about 15-16 m3/s. It's possible to cross it to the other size below Glinki, it's ...

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...