Vltava

The river Vltava has special meaning to me. Long before it enters Prague as a mature river, where I watch it daily, it is a small stream in the border mountains. As it gently meanders on the mountain plains it makes an excellent grayling habitat. It is a long drive, but each year I come over there to fish the wild fish in wild country.

The 20^th century has not tread lightly on the area. The river is littered with concrete bunkers, which were built in the 1930's in a vain attempt to make the river a defensive line to stop the imminent German expansion, and after the war they kept operational as a defense against a possible attack by NATO forces. Now abandoned they make for an eery atmosphere...

For most of the latter half of the century the area was off limits, and as a side result the river has been reclamed by nature. The access to the river is bad, and the fishing excellent.

This year I was a little late, as the fishing is usually at its best in the middle of October. But this year was not an usual one, and with warm weather persisting long into Autumn I postponed my visit. I knew that the time of the highest grayling activity on this river comes only after the first frosts, and this year the first frosts were overdue by almost a month. I was not wrong with my diagnosis.

What did surprise me - though it should not really have - was that I discovered that I had two hours less fishing time compared to my regular time in mid October. The weather did feel like mid October, but one hour of fishing was taken from me by the Daylight Savings Time and another by regular passing of the year.

In the end I did manage some quality fish on the dry fly, with my Olive Quill being the best performing. After the hatch dropped off I kept on with nymph, and succeeded in catching my best fish of the day as a total surprise: it took a huge 4,5 mm tungsten beadhead, which I originally intended as a purely sacrifical fly. So much for the old saying that the grayling will accept only tiny offerings...

Dark GRHE

This is an older fly, one that I chose to shoot to test my new macro toy: an old EL Nikkor 50/2.8 enlarger lens. A fascinating piece of Japanese optical engineering, it promises to raise my macro photography to another level. And with the demise of the wet process it came very cheaply - a nice bonus!

I chose the fly for the shot chiefly because it was buggy, and I wanted to see how my new lens would display the hare hairs sticking out. I was pleaseantly surprised, not only with the technical aspects of my picture but with the fly as well.

The tie:
#12 Hanák H260BL wet fly hook
tan elastic tying thread
2.8mm tungsten bead, dull black
red rooster hackle fibers for tail
UNI 1/69" gold mylar tinsel
shaggy fur from hare's back, teased out with a velcro brush

Orange Hotspot Nymph

This simple tie has performed well with grayling, and in slightly bigger sizes with grayling's cousins the trout. In the Czech competition circles, who appreciate a nice story and a fancy name it has been called the Belgian. I have little idea about its origins, but no doubt about its effectiveness.

For some reason it seems to associate well with the Icelandic 10 aurar coin, a little piece of copper that subtly reminds me of scary tales by H. P. Lovecraft.

The tie:
#18 Hanák 130 BL dry fly hook
2mm copper bead
14/0 grey Sheer tying thread
rooster feather tails
body from peacock wing feather
a prominent collar of brignt orange 6/0 Danville's thread

Hydropsyche larva

The Hydropsyche, together with its greenish Caddis cousin Rhyacophila and unrelated but similarily shaped Gammarus is one of the most often cited inspirations for the Czech nymph fly style. This is not entirely unreasoneable.

The pic shown above is of a dead specimen - the living critter is too active to stand still while being photographed with my limited equipment - but its pose is not unnatural. You can see where the C shape of the CZN hooks comes from :)

I have come to conlusion that the right way to imitate in fly fishing is not to slavishly copy each body part of an insect in its static form, but to reflect on its main features and design an impressionistic imitation. This is why I decided not to reproduce such things as gills, head and leggs.

Not to mention that I learned the hard way a most profound truth of nymph fishing: you are going to snag; mabye sooner, maybe later, but you are gonna lose that fly. A dispensable fly is a must. This is what I came up with.

The tie:
#8 Skalka Gammarus hook
a layer of flat lead
tan tying thread
rootbeer colored Sybai shellback
0.16 mm spining line as ribbing
beige rabbit dubbing for abdomen
home made mixture of hare and fox squirrel for thorax / legs
a light touch of black marker to finish

Baetis nymph

Besides nice memories from meeing my Scottish friends I brough some tangible souvenirs from Kamenice - such as this Baetis nymph.

It is obvious this little nymph has fallen on hard times recently, with two of the tails cut in the middle and one of the gills entirely missing.

But despite the obvious defects it it still makes a nice inspiration for my fly dressing hours.

Cheery October

October is supposed to be the prime Grayling time in the Czech lands. Not so this year. The weather is strangely warm - 20°C in mid October is rather unusual for my country - and extremely low water conditions make for a very difficult fishing situation.

By mid October I headed north from Prague to meet with a couple Scottish friends who came all the way from Edinborough to Železný Brod to fish Kamenice and Jizera rivers.

As a Czech patriot I strongly approve of them choosing the two Czech rivers over their Balkan or Scandinavian competition, though as as fisherman I have to admit that they did not pick the best time for a Grayling trip this year; though I doubt this could be divined ahead.

However, despite the challenging environment they succeeded in catching their fare share and teaching me a thing or two on Grayling tactics.

I especially enjoyed finally meeting face to face with Craigh Mcdonald, a heron of a fisherman I have been in contact with over the Internet for several years but who has eluded me all the time.

While the fishing was made somewhat difficult by the environmental conditions it was not impossible, and I did connect with a few decent fish, such as this nice grayling.

Some Baetis olives were hatching, and the fish did respond to my #18 olive quill imitations.

And to mention a pleasant side effect of the unseasoneably warm weather: the Jizera rainbows, who usually start their winter slumber by now, were still active and eager to attack a dry fly with a savage take.

Olive Quill

This is a fly I have written about before and even before that. But even though I made no changes in the dressing over the last few years I found an excuse for a new blog entry: with a "new" photo equipment - a second hand East German bellows from 1970's and 2.8/50 Carl Zeiss Tessar lens from early 1950's - I felt my new photography improved sufficiently to justify revisiting the subject.

The dressing of the fly is the same as I published a couple years back. In fact, as the fly has served me so well I do my best not to alter the dressing: I feel I have reached the point where any improvement would lead to my loss of confidence in the fly. And as the fisherman's confidence is of paramount importance to the success of a fly I do not wish to tinker with serious stuff and I leave it as it is.

The dressing:
#18 Hanák 103BL dry fly hook
14/0 Sheer thread, grey
pardo Coq de León tails
homemade stripped peacock quill body, dyed Olive
2 tips of CDC feathers as a wing
thorax of dubbing of a hare's back