Adventures of fly angler in Poland

 First time in this year I came to Dunajec river.  The river was low and clear, 191 cm and 31,1 m3/s in Krościenko nad Dunajcem. I arrived to the river at 5:00 in the morning.  The first location I tried was the end of Dunajec special C&R section in Ochotnica.  It was good in previous year during higher water level. We caught few big trout just under the bank.  But , during low water this place changed. I think fish located to the middle of the river. I had couple of small trout on streamer. Nothing special. Moved to Krościenko nad Dunajcem, to the stretch between new foot bridge and first wall. New footbridge created great opportunity to fish both sides of the river. Actually, you can cross the river in wading boots too, but it can be dangerous, because of swift current and very slippery rocks in this area. I fished the hole below the bridge with my trout spey rod multiple times. I rigged it with brown zonker on the end, and wet fly (Irish wingless style) o...

 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...

Dunajec river Catch-and-Release section getting more and more popular, so it's hard to get a license on the weekend. This time, only licenses for the lower C&R section were available. They are slightly cheaper (75 PLN), vs 90 PLN for the whole C&R (upper and lower).  I arrived to the river at 6 AM and parked my car in the forest near the bank. There's a section of water with rapids, boulders and deep pockets between them. It may potentially hold many fish, but it can be fished effectively with only one method - euro nymphing (or Czech/Polish nymphing).  So I started with nymphs, although my favorite method of fly fishing is streamer. These pockets are just too short, steamer calls out for wider runs or pools. Soon, as I started, I got a fish.  But the pleasure wasn't too long, it came off the hook.  No problem, the river is big, and I can catch another one. Then I moved down below, to another rapids. In most of this river part, water is too fast,...

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 ...

This trip to Dunajec was so-so in terms of fish catches. I came to the river early. Everything was perfect - a bit more water (22 m3/s), cloudy weather, and i was alone on the river despite of the holidays. But fish wasn't in bite mood. There was few takes on streamers, but not so aggressive and not reliable.  I managed to bring only one fish to the net. I put more effort into investigating new water. This particular place I found, offers some deep pockets between boulders. And there's fish for sure, I even saw one decent brown trout jumping. But it didn't bite my flies. This strimer was very successful in my previous trip, but now I had only two bites on it. Probably I would have better results on the nymph. But I'm not so fascinated with euro nymphing as I do love spey casting.  Spey casting is fun, even if you not catching fish. This was my least successful trip to Dunajec in this year.  Probably fish took holiday too.  But I know they ...

I took day off on my work in the middle of the week, to make a trip to Dunajec river. My assumption was that I'll be almost alone on the river. How wrong I was! The level of Dunajec is extremely low , 147 cm and 18,9 m3/s. This is usually level of end of August, for spring normal flow is 32-50 m3/s.  We didn't have rain for a month, and there was no snow melting. Not good for fish and river health. When I came to the place, there was already 7 fishermen in one run. I caught my first fish there, then decided to change place. I drove to more remote location, where I parked my car in the forest, and walked about 1 km to the hole. Hooray, I'm alone!  That place is really... nice! I started from rapids, where deep hole begins. Trout hiding in the rapids too, but it's hard to get them out of there. Soon, I got really nice, thick brown trout This long and deep run you can fish over and over again. I have very special line for this place - Guidel...