Croatia and Slovenia
We had no plan for this summer except to spend as much time as possible in our cottage at Lipno lake, but kids persuaded us to go to sea. For Czech people, the most favourite destination is Croatia, it is accessible by car, the language of local people is similar to Czech, and the countryside and sea is definitely nice. My best friend from the university Marek goes to Croatia with family every year in the end of July, so I checked website of the tourist agency he uses and I found out, that there was one apartment free, maybe somebody cancelled his holiday as this agency has usually all apartments sold out one year in advance. So I booked it and started to thing about a fishing on the way home in Slovenia ….
Holiday in Cres Island was perfect, the journey took only 8 hours as there were built new highways in Slovenia and Croatia, countryside in Cres was beautiful, weather was fantastic, food delicious, water in see was warm like coffee, service great, I can really recommend the tourist agency Nykar. We were snorkelling whole days and we sew a lot of fish, so I made for kids easy poacher lines with jig hook in the end, we found a snail, put it on the hook and next found a fish and dished the hook just in front of its nose. We caught few nice fish and kids really enjoyed it.
As the stay in Croatia finished on Tuesday (the agency keep this to avoid weekend traffic jams) we stayed in Slovenia on the way home for couple of days, we visited Postojna caves and at six p.m. we were in Tolmin to arrange fishing permits 
We stayed in Silva Sobe in Čiguinj and I can again recommend this apartment-house, they offer different apartments in good price, it is located 5 minutes from Tolmin and river Soca, from the rooms you can see the mountain scenery, there is also terrace and across the street is pub with local bier per 2 Euro … We made some trips with kids, I can mention trip with car train (great idea) to Bohinska Bystrica and with cabinne to Vogel (the mountain offering great view to the Triglav), swimming in Bohinske lake. And I also found time for some fishing.
Permit is valid in few waters in the Tolmin area, but I decided to fish only Soca as the inflows were almost dry, I started a little upstream from Tolmin. Water was very low and crystal clear, so fishing was not easy. At first it was necessary to accept, that I could not catch fish which I could see, the big fish cruised deep pools and simply did not take. Second strange thing was, that it was necessary to be very careful while wading, clear water looks shallow, but current is strong. If the water had a little blue shade, it was to deep. So I looked for deeper streams and edges of pools and rocks and I caught about 15 rainbows size 30-55 cm on nymphs, I saw also rising fish but they absolutely avoided my patterns. In the afternoon we made a trip, but I was determined to get the rising fish, so I tied some small CDC flies and at 7 p.m. I was back. I found a nice place with rising fish and I get about 10 rainbows about 30-40 cm, but mostly of them I caught in dark. When the sun was about horizon they did not take my flies size 16. So I made CDC palmers size 18 and next day I was back again in the morning. I found a place with slow stream and occasionally raising fish. When I used fly size 16 and tippet 0,14 mm, they did not take, when I used fly size 18 and tippet 0,14 mm, I caught about half fish but I got rise all of them, when I used fly size 18 and tippet 0,12 mm I hooked all fish but snapped half of them . It was great to see behaviour of raising rainbows, they always observed the fly before they take. Next I moved more upstream under Tobarid and in the mouth of a big pool I caught another bigger rainbows and I also saw big Marmoratus only following and observing my fly. So it was great experience and I will be definitely back to catch also local brown trout, grayling and the marble trout.
