I attend only few competitions a year to visit favourite places, to be in contact with friends and to compare skills with more active competitors. After two years brake, Michal and I attended pairs-competition held in Jetřabice, a small reservoir located in the South Moravia. Competition hosted 50 pairs including all top Czech competitors, conditions were ideal,  it was caught  2,082 fish in total, we were catching fish continuously whole day, but our effort was only enough for an average result, however, we were 38th, so it was not an average result

The system of competition is relatively fair, it consists from 4 morning and 4 afternoon rounds, every round takes 1 hour and it is evaluated separately, and thanks to rotation matrix everybody fish in all places in the lake.

Our draw was not bad, our neighbours Milda and Roman finished on the podium, but we missed too many takes and we were fishing too deep, next time we have to more focus on lighter lines and flies.

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After two weeks of discharge over 50 m3/s, the gate in the Lipno II dam was closed a little on Friday morning and we had under 30 m3/s on Vltava 24 in Boršov from Saturday, more over weather forecast promised nice sunny spring days. Although the best discharge is 15-20 m3/s, for tall and heavy men is 30 m3/s no problem, mainly under withdrawal symptoms and nice warm weather I had to work at our cottage on Saturday, so I only visited river during the way and water looked a little muddy, but Tobi caught 4 fish in the afternoon at the bridge. I called David and we met in the camp on Sunday afternoon, we tried both streamer and nymphs, sometimes I had water level 5 cm under edge of my waders, but we caught over 10 fish, we even saw a few fish rising for hatching stonefly. What a great day.

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Discharge in river raised to 50 m3/s last week, so it was not good even for tall men like me and Tobi, but the Květoňov Lake has been already filled by water after winter reconstruction and it has been stocked with fresh fish. Tobi is not a lake flyfisherman, so I offered David to visit it on Sunday afternoon, it was not bad, weather was freezing, about 30% of the surface was frozen, but water was clear and fish were active and we caught about 15 fish in two hours, my best fly was Candy Booby on DI5 line and my best fish had 48 cm and 1,25 kg. It’s been four weeks since my injury, time flies ….

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After two weeks of healing my hand recovered enough to get out the gypsum and replace it by a removable orthosis which enabled me fishing Since I injured my hand, the conditions for fishing hadn´t been good, discharge in river had been really high and weather was cold, rainy and windy, so I hadn´t missed too much. But last weekend, we were lucky to have two good days with nice weather and relatively lower discharge (saying lower it means 25-30 m3/s under recent conditions), so I called Tobi and we had two nice afternoons there, we caught of about 20 fish both days, mostly on blob, streamer, and nymphs, but I saw one fish rising for large stonefly. Thanks to the high discharge in river, we will unfortunately probably lose the first traditional dry fly fishing during the hatch of the large march stonefly for this season.

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I have been  always irritated by the frozen surface of Lipno, when there was a layer of snow on the ice, it was impossible to skate and the wind was blowing. And winter windsurfing pause is so long …

So I constructed with my friend Jonáš (builder of boats) special windsurf for ice, the board is made from glass composite and it is equipped by par of old skis for ski jumpers, which I got from Ski-jumpers-museum in Harrachov 

Lipno Lake froze with flat clear ice in the beginning of February, my back was already OK, so I could not resist to try it. I put on it my 6 m2 windsurfing sail and I went to the lake. Testing was successful and the snow surf was really fast and relatively stabile, however, it slipped when the weight was not well balanced because it has no blades or steel edges, and a layer of snow of 5-10 cm on ice would be ideal. Second day I tested different position of sail, and when I was trying to turn downwind in relatively slow speed (sailors call it “gybe” ) I got a skid, fell to ice and I pinched bon in my left forearm … so it was end of ice windsurfing for this season and I hope it will recover quickly

To be honest, I was relatively lucky, the injury doesn’t look bad, another keen sportsmen used skates and wing, fell into a crack in the ice in high speed and had a concussion, a broken leg and collarbone… ice is harder than water  So I refrigerate it and ice it and it will be good.

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January didn’t start quite as I had expected. On the New Year’s morning I bent down for my bag to go fishing to Vltava 24 (it was 18°C) and my back hurt and I’ve been treating it all the January. I finally ventured out to fish with Tobi last Sunday Feb 5th. The water was a little higher and a bit murky due to the melting snow, but it was fishable and fish took, we caught 10 fish in total and we had some more takes, we caught some nice rainbows and I caught also two brook trouts, my best fly was a black streamer, chasing after orange blob, of course . Now it’s finally winter, just now is -10°C, so we’ll skate and ski for a while, and in three weeks we can expect first hatch of large stonefly

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The weather in December was very interesting. Beginning was quite warm and we went fishing regularly, but next it started to cool down. I welcomed two keen fly-fishermen Tobias and Jörg from Dresden who wanted to learn a bit about our style of nymphing. Fishing was not bad despite the rather difficult conditions, higher discharge and temperatures just above zero, I was lucky during demonstration of nymphing technique and caught first fish on the second cast Majority of fish we caught of my favourite nymph – orange blob tied on jig hook with 4mm TG.  Jörg caught except trouts also roach, barbel and perch on his own nymphs. Tobias caught on a small black nymph the biggest fish of the trip, he had no net, so after 10 minutes of dancing around of a big stone I got the fish to my net (everybody can imagine how risky is to net the biggest fish of a client …), but the rainbow attacking 3 kg didn’t want to be photographed and escaped before I pressed the shutter of the camera. We also visited local pubs, and as the Christmas gift they received from me the German version of the Karel´s book about Czech nymphing. Simply nice weekend.

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Then it got colder to -25°C, so everything froze and we even skated with my daughter Anna on Lipno Lake.

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But the cold period was only short and it warmed up again, during the Christmas holidays was really warm weather, I even found some dandelions blooming, I also went fishing several times and on the New Year’s it was up to 18°C, which was a temperature record. But the New Year didn’t go well for me …

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Weather is extremely warm this year in November, however, when I checked posts from last year, it was not too different. We had bank holiday last Thursday November 17th, we celebrate this day “Day of fight for freedom and democracy”, this day in 1939 were closed Czech universities by Nazis and after 50 years in 1989, students protest started main part of “Velvet revolution” which resulted in the fall of the communism in the Eastern Europe.

The weather had been rainy from night, but the best way to celebrate this important day was of course fishing and in the late afternoon when the rain stopped I went to Vltava for a short visit.  I caught 6 rainbows within one hour and the last one was invited for dinner, I made three-course menu, as a starter we had touts with meat from tail marinated in the lemon juice, Dijon mustard and herbs, next we had fish soup and the main meal was grilled fillet served on mashed potatoes with Swiss chard.

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Another cold front came on Friday and we got our first frost and snowfall, about 10 cm of snow fell during Saturday.  I didn’t even count on fishing this weekend, but on Sunday afternoon an unexpected window appeared in my busy schedule and the weather also improved, so I packed my things and went to Vltava 24. I met David who was just finishing, he caught 5 rainbows on nymphs, so I started where David left off and he made me a few pictures. The low sun and nearby shower even conjured up a rainbow in the sky, so I thought I’d hope to see some rainbows too.

David was successful with black nymphs, so I used similar patterns, but water started to get a little muddy from the melting snow and nymphs did not working and it was necessary to use something more distinctive … in a fluorescent orange colour . I caught three more rainbows in the end of the pool after David, then I continued downstream and I caught one trout in every nice spot ending up with number seven. Not a bad day in November

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We usually have first snow in November, but this year is crazy and we even had another great windsurfing day in the Lipno Lake, weather forecasts promised wind of 8-10 m/s, air temperature over 10 °C and clear sky, simply irresistible, however, water was cold and I used my fly-fishing trousers to keep my feet dry and warm, it was another nice closing day

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I returned to service my floating islands anchored in the lakes in the northern part of our country, I took my fly-fishing friend Vojta on a work brigade, and surprisingly, after one and half day work we found time for a half day fishing in the Ohře River, which is the best trout and grayling river in our country. The discharge in the river was ideal, we started with nymphs, but after very short time I noticed first hatching olives and also first rising fish, so I replaced nymphs by my favourite olive emerger, the olive shuttlecock size 16. We caught about 45 fish together, Vojta lost one good brown trout and my best fish was also brown of 44 cm, caught on nymph in one deep pool in the and of the day. I caught about 10 graylings of size 26-28 cm, and my friend Ondra, local fisheries manager, told me that this fish were stocked in Spring and they are only 1,5 years old, the river is very nourishing, hopefully cormorants will not kill them during Winter.

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