Adventures of fly angler in Poland

 Today I was in the city park with kids. There is a small stream in the park. The stream is called Prądnik, a Wisła tributary. It goes through the northern part of the city. There's theoretically a brown trout in it. Also chubs are presented in the lower section. I was a bit sceptical about this stream. There was historically brown trout population, but majority of it in the Ojców national park, out of reach for anglers.   While my girls were playing in the playground, I assembled a tenkara rod and attached a nymph to it. I'm using euro nymphing method with tenkara rod in such streams.  The tree branches pose a great danger for the rod, so I should be very cautious.  There were lots of snags on the bottom, due to many logs and dead tree branches in this stream.  Particularly the place near small tributory inlet looked very perspective.  After few attemprs and snags, I got a little brown trout in it. First trout on Daiwa Expert LT36 tenkara rod. So this...

 When fishing on stocked stillwater, I found that small nymphs are the way to go. When rainbow trout freshly stocked, they hit almost anything bright and flashy, including spinning lures and streamers. But when the fish accommodated to the body of water, they became extremely finicky.  Olive nymph on 18 hook is deadly on those lake-dwelling trout.  Despite warm weather , fishing was slow. I caught only one rainbow trout, and lost one. Also I caught small fish called common rudd (Scardinius erythrophthalmus) . It reacts to dry fly pretty good.  They are mostly small fish, but easy target for beginning fly fishermen, especially on stillwater. The rod I mostly use for stillwater fishing is Vision Sisu 6wt, 9'. It's a fast and lightweight rod, good for propelling casts through the wind. It's also capable to throw streamers with 4mm beadheads on sinking line. 

 Yesterday I got new Tenkara rod from Amazon - DragonTail Hellbender. This rod is positioned as "big fish" tenkara rod, capable to handle 45-55 cm trout.  The tippet recommended is 3x. I decided to try it on Brzegi first.  I attached silicon worm nymph size 12 and started to twitch it near the bank.  Suprisingly, I got a fish. It was quite big rainbow trout, 50 cm or so. I remembered from Youtube clips, how to fight fish on tenkara rod. I used side pressure to maintain angle between rod and line. Unfortunately I let the fish move into position when angle became nearly 180 degrees, and fish broke off the tippet with the fly.  It was my first experience of fighting quite big fish on tenkara. I used 5x tippet, too thin for that kind of fish. It deserves 4x or even 3x. I switched to conventional 6wt rd, Vision Sisu. The rig contains big dry fly (hook no. 10), and tiny nymph suspended under it (hook 18 or 20). When the fish bites, dry fly disappears. Sometimes it's a...

 After 1 year break, i'm returning to fishing. I moved to new location, which is very close to Brzegi nr.2 . Brzegi is artificial small lake, a former quarry. It's popular recreational fishery, stocked with rainbow trout . Also other fish present in it: pike, perch, tench and probably something else. But rainbow trout is top of interest for fly fishermen. The lake was recently stocked with trout, but due to very intensive pressure on first week, the fish is very wary and spoiled. They often swim near the banks, but ignore most of the offers, like big nymphs, streamers, on spinning lures.  I found that there's small insects hatching. But they fish do not feed on the surface. They cruising on shallow depth, 10-30 cm from the surface.  I've seen couple of fishermen playing a fish from time to time.  I asked what flies do they use. They responded "dry fly", without specifics.  But I spent two visits without any results, trying to seduce these fish with dry fly....

On the third day of my Slovak trip, I decided to fish river Poprad on the Polish side. The road goes through Slovakia about 145 km, to the town Leluchów on the border.  The highway goes much of it's way along the Poprad river, so I had a chance to investigate how the river looks on Slovak side.  My first stop was in town Svit, near Poprad headwaters. River is very small there, and looks like artifical channel. This section near hotel Koliba Svit was stocked with rainbow trout. It used to be a great fishing few years ago, even used for one one event of European fly fishing chanpionship. But I didn't see any fish there. Probably, stocking wasn't done in this year.   I drove through the country, and stopped near town Plavec. This is close to Polish border, I checked the Poprad from the bridge. River looks great, with many holes suitable for barbels and trout. But i didn't have license for this part.   I crossed Slovak-Polish border at Leluchów.  I turned ...

 Today Vah river section between Ivachnova and Besenova looked better.  The water was still colored, but clarity about 1 m. River level at Besenova 37 cm, temperature 16 C.  I started fishing from the pool near white bridge in Ivachnova. It is one of the biggest pools in the C&R river section, and it is a home for many big fish. In the beginning fishing was slow. No activity in 40 minutes. Then I got a strike. Fish was strong, and probably big. I think it was a rainbow trout. After short fight, the tension released. I pulled out the rig, and found that the bottom nymph was torn out. What a disaster! First fish, and it's gone.   There were no other takes in this pool. I moved to the other side of the river. There is main current, separated from slow and shallow river part.  Current seams are one of the most trout holding water. The place was just perfect for euro nymphing. I got a strike, and it was rainbow again. Not very big, probably 40-45 cm. But it ...

 This summer I planned a trip to Belgium, to fish for barbels in Ardennes region. But, most rivers in Ardennes closed for fishing until September, due to low water conditions and high temperatures. So, I spent my vacation mostly without fishing, engaging in other sports: running, hiking, orienteering. On my last week, I decided to visit Slovakia for 3 days. I started from river Vah near Ruzomberok. When I arrived in Ivachnova early in the morning, I noticed that water was dirty and colored after recent rain. Clarity about 50 cm near Besenova hotel. Level 35 cm. This river part didn't look attractive. I decided to fish lower C&R section in Ruzomberok, because the river is more shallow in this part, and water clears itself a bit after few kilometers downstream. I started to fish deep and fast riffle section below the weir.  Soon, I got some decent fish. It was a great fighter. Due to heavy current , it was hard to pull fish against it, so I ran downstream and netted it 20 m ...