Return to Kamenice

The wet and cold days of the early season seem to be past now, what a relief! This weekend I ventured out north to investigate a new fishery that promised an opportunity for wild fish in wild places.

The river Kamenice has a special meaning to me, as I have fond memories (as shown in attached video :-) of it from my whitewater kayaking days.

This time of the year the waters were low and clear, with the rocky bottom clearly visible, and overall looking much tamer. But it was the same river none the less.

The white butterbur flowers were in bloom on the margins, and some grayish mayflies and small Bibios were on wing. Local Brownies were picking them off the surface and could be tempted on a dry fly. The fish were on the smallish side, but obviously locally bred and beautifully colored. Plus they attacked the fly with zest and fought with an attitude.

The color of the fish matched the color of the stream bed perfectly and upon releasing seemed to disappear immediately, despite the seemingly bright yellows and reds.

Later in the day I moved to slower parts of the river, where the brownies were joined by Grayling.

At around 5 o'clock the hatch intensified, and I suddenly found myself standing knee deep in a river, surrounded on all sides by rising fish, oblivious of my presence. Quite an experience! The heavier hatch brought up also the bigger fish, some of them over the 30 cm / 12 inch lenght, making them "decent fish" for the water.

All of my catches were on my Owl and CDC mayfly. It is my first choice for imitating medium gray mayflies, and since it performed so well I found no reason to experiment.

The tie:
#16 Hanák 130BL hook (or any other lightweight dry fly hook, e.g. Tiemco 103BL)
8/0 UNI thread Tan
tail of barred Coq de León fibres
body of a herl from an Eagle Owl feather, reinforced by counter wrapping with the finest copper wire I could find
wing of CDC feathers, spun in loop and wound as hackle, trimmed to size and shape

Střela in time of Ice Men

Messrs. Pankrác, Servác & Bonifác are traditionally referred to as the three Ice Men, as the period around their name days (May 12^th, 13^th and 14^th, respectively) usually coincides with a time of unusually cold days in the Central Europe. This year was no exception, only with the addition that the weather was not only cold but rather wet as well.

In this time I was having a visitor, Fran Friesen from Vancouver, BC, to whom I promised a close encounter with the European Grayling. For this purpose I selected river Střela, where the chance for an off season grayling seemed the most reliable.

My original hopes for a caddis hatch were quickly brought to reality at the sight of the river, which was high and muddy after a recent rain. No hatch was going on and the situation clearly called for a nymphing approach.

Fran introduced me to the Tenkara fishing, which seems to be the next hip thing on the other side of Atlantic. I was rather surprised how easily the rod converted to Czech nymphing tactic - perhaps not what the samurai fishermen intended initially, but very effective.

Later in the day the water cleared a bit and the temperature increased somewhat (to whopping 8°C), which brought up a hatch of smallish mayflies. This allowed us to drop the cumbersome CZ nymphs and start catching grayling as they were meant to be fished - fine and far off on delicate dry flies.

By the end of the day the two of us caught and released some twenty fish, most of them on the dry fly. Given the challenging environment I considered this result a success. The best producing fly turned out to be my Hare's Mask Emerger mayfly imitation.

The tie:
#19 TMC103 BL hook
tan UNI 8/0 thread
three strands of orange Krystal flash
body of Hare's dubbing
#16 UNI Mylar tinsel, color gold
2 smallish CDC feathers
thorax area lightly dubbed with scruffy hairs from Hare's back

Return of the Whitefish

I returned to the Bohdaneč fishery & distillery three weeks after catching my first whitefish ever, curious whether my encounter with this unusual fish will be repeated. The spring has proceeded mightily since my last visit, with both apple trees and rapeseed fields in full bloom.

The waters were a slightly muddy from the latest rains (we had an unusually damp and cold springtime this year) but buzzer fishing seemed to be the correct approach. Interesting thing was that the resident rainbows were more interested in light olive buzzers on dropper fished more actively, while the whitefish liked the black buzzer on point fished static, close to bottom.


The sight of the fish had me again wondering what sort of bream had I caught, but strange as it seems the whitefish is indeed a member of the Salmonid family.

The tie:
#10 Kamasan B110 Grub Hook
8/0 UNI thread Black
UNI Stretch Light Olive
Orange Flexi Floss
Two layers of clear varnish

Opossum & CDC Caddis

As the waters in rivers slowly subside to level that allows dry fly fishing the first caddis flies are starting to appear. They are eagerly met by hungry trout, which are slowly lured by the rising stream temperature from deep pools to more shallow runs and getting more active.

The tie:
#10 Hanák 130BL Hook
8/0 UNI thread Tan
UNI Stretch Light Olive for tag
fine gold ribbing
Homemade dubbing mix - natural brown Opossum + violet UV flash
3 CDC feathers for wing
1 largish CDC feather spun in loop for hackle

The fly can be tied with more contrasting tag - orange, chartreuse, pink - but in this case I decided for a more subdued look. This is however not the only option and especially orange tag should be seriously considered (it works!)

The CDC hackle is intentionally tied from feather with very long fibers - the splayed mess of CDC "legs" creates lots of movement once on water and constitutes a major trigger point.

Springtime on Střela

Having spent the 2010 Opening day on a put and take stream, which turned to be a disappointment of sorts, I teamed with my friend Vlado and drove to our beloved river Střela for the weekend. It is a smallish stream in what counts in relatively densely populated Central Europe as hard to access area and it supports a healthy population of both Brown trout and Grayling.

We knew from the online peg that the trip will most likely end up in a disappointment, as the heavy rain in the week immediately prior to Opening day caused the river to rise substantially, but the weather forecast promised a warm sunny weekend and we both suffered from a serious case of cabin fever.

The river turned out to be as unfishable as we had expected, and even though we assaulted it with flies of the Heavy Metal kind (Tungsten beads of 4 mm plus some lead) it refused to yield a single fish. The waters were high, muddy and cold (about 7°C). The fish were sensibly hugging the bottom in the deepest of deep pools and refused to be tempted with any of our flies.

After trying for a couple of hours we conceded defeat and turned out attention to the streamside to fully appreciate the beauty of early Springtime in the country.

And despite the fact that we got what we expected and not what we hoped for fishing wise we had a wonderful time, confirming the old saying that what matters is not the quarry, but the chase.

In any case, here is a toast to the successful 2010 season, wherever your fishing might take you - Cheers!

Opening of the 2010 Trout Season

The adverse weather and water conditions forced me to rethink my plans for the opening day of the 2010 Trout season. My initial plan to start at a wild and remote stream, casting to wild and native fish had to be scrapped due to high water. Plan B called for a civilized stream close to Prague, full of sickly stockies and spin fishermen eager to catch the full bag limit.

Since the alternative would be to sit at home on April 16^th, which seemed unthinkable, I decided to go and fish on Kocába.

The stream was as full as I expected: lots and lots of fishermen - and I did not start at 6:00 AM as the local custom dictates - and still some Rainbows from stocking earlier this week, who somehow survived the onslaught. I killed one and headed home, no sense tarrying.

The good part was that - since C&R makes little sense on this river - I was able to end the day in a festive manner, with a grilled trout and a glass of fine Veltliner.


The Recipe:
1 Rainbow Stockie of appropriate size
3 sprigs of Rosemary and a little butter inside the belly
a sprinkle of Lemon Pepper and a little salt
enough Bacon to cover the fish (about 2 to 4 slices)

Grill till fish until the bacon is done (it should take about a 1/2 an hour or so), serve with grilled vegetables (mashed potatoes are also fine) and some Grüner Veltliner :)

Whitefish in Bohdaneč

With still 3 more days to go till the trout season starts on rivers I headed off to my favorite stillwater fishery in Bohdaneč.
It is my favorite because it has on its banks a distillery of fruit brandy (also called Slivovitz) - a very potent drink nourishing both body and soul, that for some strange reason happens to be unpalatable to persons of other than East European upbringing.

For a time I tried fishing at surface - with shuttlecocks and foam buzzers - but that turned out to be just a case of wishful thinking. The air was cold - about 10°C - and the water colder still. After an hour or so of fishing a light rain started to fall. At these conditions no fish could be tempted to strike on the surface.

However, when I switched to a team of small dark buzzers I learned that the proprietors of the fishery prepared a surprise for me by stocking Whitefish (Coregonus peled). This is a pretty uncommon fish in the Czech waters and it was my first time I caught one on a fly (my initial impression was that a huge Bream had inhaled my fly).

The Whitefish seemed not to mind the weather and once I figured how to approach them I had an easy time catching several. The right way seemed to be with a smallish black buzzer fished almost static on a floating line and long leader (about 12 ft). I fished a 3 fly cast, but the fish almost always took the point fly (the only exception was one fish on mid dropper). I killed a couple and examined their gut - they were feeding heavily on small buzzer pupae, probably picking them off the bottom.


The tie:
#10 Kamasan B160 Hook
UNI 6/0 Thread black (builds the thorax faster than 8/0)
UNI Stretch Black for abdomen
UNI 1/69" Mylar Pearl for rib
UNI Floss Neon Hot Red for cheeks
2 - 3 layers of clear varnish