And the season starts in the earnest...

The dry heat of summer is past, and not too missed. Czech rivers are slowly - very slowly - recovering from this year's drought. On many rivers the trout population will take years to recover. But despite all that - the grayling season is finally upon us.

To celebrate the start of my favorite fishing time of the year I travelled to Úpa, a reliable grayling performer. The river was still a bit warm, and low, for my liking. The grayling were present though, and even if they were not in the perfect condition yet they were active and approached my flies with interest.

The fish were moody & picky, as is about to be expected from grayling, and during the day switched their attention several times from nymphs to dries and back. As the river was very low the fish were - by necessity - in clear and shallow water. Heavily weighted nymphs were therefore not required, and I had good sport with my bloodworm fly.

In the times when the fish preffered a dry the best performer was a little CDC fly with red tinsel body. As an interesting side note it is a modern variation on the first recorded fly pattern; ever. That is some 2000 years of angling history...