Adventures of fly angler in Poland

Неделю мы с семьей отдыхали в Испании, в провинции Аликанте и Мурсия. Перелет из Кракова рейсом Ryanair занял 3 часа 20 минут. У нас были зарезервированные места и одно место багажа на всех. Плюс от зарезервированных мест в том что тебя пускают на посадку в первую очередь. Полет прошел гладко, дочка всю дорогу играла в лего и не пищала. Родителям на заметку - чтобы ребенок не доставал вас в дороге, нужно взять ему какую-то игру. В соседнем ряду девочка постоянно плакала, пока мы не дали ей пластилин. Прилетели из сумрачного Кракова, а там - солнце и +15. Уже из самолета мы увидели аккуратные домики, чистые улицы и множество пальм. Какая красота! Машину взял напрокат в аэропорту Аликанте, бронировал заранее по интернету. Агенство называется Goldcar,  дочерняя и более дешевая партнерка Europcar. Выбирал я изначально Опель Астра, в наличии его не оказалось. По той же цене предложили Сеат Леон, с пробегом 50 тысяч. Были и другие предложения - Пежо, Ситроен подороже, но ладн...

After long winter pause, I found some time for the day on the river. So I decided to go to Raba. I started at 10AM near road 964 bridge in Dobczyce. There was no anglers on the river. Cloudy day, air temperature + 4,5 C. River was low and clear, level 240 cm. Water temperature +2 C. There was a little chance that trout will bite in such cold water, I but I wanted to give it a try anyway. I tied new kind of streamer, "spey zonker", specifically for that trip. First I loaded my Winston 4wt micro spey rod with OPST skagit 275 head and 12' sink5/sink6 tip. I tried black zonker, white zonker, black and brown wooly buggers. No takes. River is small in this place, with skagit head and sinking tip it can be covered from bank to bank. I also stripped across some nice bigger pool below the bridge, also without any reaction from fish. Second option was czech nymphing. I assembled my Hends GPX and started with red tag and hare's ear nymph. I covered all tro...

 Really weird story happened to me.  In my previous trip to Czarny Dunajec, I hooked enormous number of fish, like 40-50 fish in 4 hours. Fish were mostly small, but the count is unusually high for mountain stream. This time it was not so good. It was very cold and windy. I caught 3-4 small graylings.  Not even close to my previous trip, when I hooked 40+ fish, and one grayling was about 33-35 cm. Next I drove to another river, Biały Dunajec. It's only 20 km or so.  I went to the water section in the village, named after the river. This part characterised by many rapids and pools. I reached big rapids, and stepped into the fast current. My boots slipped on the slick rock polished by water. It's all happened in seconds.... I'm in the water up to my chest, and I hold in my hand only piece of the rod handle. Fortunately, I didn't break my leg or hand, only rod.  Since it was connected with the reel by line, I caught the missing piece and returned to the stream bank...

One friend on Facebook recommended me to go to Czarny Dunajec in the middle section. This part of the river is not very popular, actually I didn't meet any other anglers that day. The river was a bit dirty after rain, with colored water. I fished only with short nymphing method, due to water conditions.  The fish was almost in every pocket. I walked downstream from the bridge where I parked my car. I had 40 or 50 hits on my nymph in 3 hours. The fish was mostly small, but of diverse types:  brown trout, grayling, chub.  The best action was in the morning. During middle of the day, fish became more lazy. When I was about to leave, I hooked biggest grayling of the day. This fish made my day. Very beautiful. I didn't take many photos of my catch, but there was big number of fish caught and released. One of the most productive fishing sessions ever. The photos are a bit gloomy, but in reality it looks better.

 On the Saturday evening I headed to Raba river in Gdow. The ares is popular beaching place. The river above splits to 3 separate channels, with gravel islands between them.  Where two flows join together, there's deep hole with backwater eddie.  I was suspected that there should be a trout waiting just under the inlet of the main current flow. I made a cast into the spot, and the fish took immediately. First cast, first fish, what a luck!  Due to weekend, there were quite a lot of recreational kayakers. But they didn't interrupt my fishing. I fished this eddie from different sides, from upstream and from downstream. It looks like fishy spot.  I caught few graylings in it. Which is good for Raba. Graylings are not so common there, compared to brown trout in numbers. The place was very productive. I caught many graylings. Later in the evening, I hooked a bigger fish. It was a rainbow trout. The fish made few speedy runs up and down , and jumped few times. Very st...

 Porpad river in Slovak town Svit is a small stream, with riverbed altered so it looks like artificial channel. The river originates in Tatra mountains, and this part is close to the headwaters , so it is very cold. The urban part of the stream has chain of artificial waterfalls, and plunge pools.  There's many fish in these pools, particularly big rainbows. Also some brown trout too.  When I started fishing with nymphs, fish was not cooperating. They willingly took bread thrown into the water, but ignored my flies.  I tried to animate my "parkinson" nymph , moving it with short strips, like streamer. This movement triggered fish attack, and I got my first rainbow.  The tactic of stripping worm imitation proven to be successful. I caught few fish like that, but there were bigger ones. I moved upstream to the next waterfall. After few attempts, and few fish unreliably hooked, I landed my first big rainbow. This fish was very strong and beautiful. I moved to the n...