Adventures of fly angler in Poland

My daughter asked a few times when I will take her fishing.  I usually go to mountain rivers, which require waders' boots, and some serious skills.  But there's the other type of fishing - family-oriented commercial fisheries. One of them is popular Dolina Będkowska near Kraków.  It has few ponds, stocked with various fish, a restaurant, a playground, and a store. After skating lesson with my daughter, we headed to the Dolina Będkowska.  My fault was that I took only one fishing gear set.   I thought that only I will be fishing, and my family will be watching it. How wrong I was! My wife asked me to give her a rod. There was a lot of rainbow trout in small pond. You can see in polarized glasses, how they trying to attack a lure. My wife eventually got very excited about it, and refused to give me rod back! Once they left me for 10 minutes to play with cats near restaurant. There are many cats living in this place, and my daughter loves kittie...

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...

It was a long hiatus in fishing due to COVID-19 crap. Recreational activities were banned in Poland. The position of authorities is that there are very few excuses for going outside: going to work, shopping groceries, or walking the dog. Fishing wasn't one of the necessary activities for everyday life. But I bored so much staying at home for 3 weeks. The weather was very nice for fishing. So I decided to go to Dunajec river, a 100 km trip from Kraków. I got up at 5 AM and drove 1,5 hours on empty roads.  At 7 AM I dressed-up, assembled my fly fishing gear and arrived at the river bank. My first favorite spot is a long pool below the rapids and boulders. I know for sure it holds many trout. Dunajec was low and clear. Level at Gołkowice 158 cm, flow 28,3 m3/s. Temperature at Krościenko 6,5 C, but my termometer measured 10 C. Everything above 6 C is good.  I started, as usual, with my trout spey gear. Trusty Winston TH-MS 11' 4wt "Microspey", rigged with SA Ultra...

Today was very warm and sunny. Air temperature +16 C.  Due to lack of snow this winter, most rivers running low, which is unusual for March/April.  Skawa river was very low and clear, 105 cm and flow 5,5 m3/s.   Year ago it was 160 and 28 m3/s at the same time. Water temperature was nearly +7,5 C. Good prognosis for trout fishing.  First, I climbed to the bridge and checked, where the fish can be.  You can see fish perfectly at such a water level. I spotted a couple of decent size trout grabbing mayflies.  Dry fly is an obvious choice! I assembled my Epic 580 glass rod, long 12' leader, and tied in CDC mayfly imitation. Fish were rising here and there.  My fly slowly drifted through the pool. Fish on!  After a short fight, I brought my first brown trout in the season to the net. I first time used my new Huawei P30 Pro phone as a camera in fishing trip. It's quite decent camera on it's own with 3 lenses and 5x physical zoom, ...