Michal and Peter offered me to go again to spring trip to Slovakia to fish Bešeňová Lake and to attend competition Kežmarská Zlatná Lake Cup, where I was second few years ago. First day we were fishing Bešeňová Lake, a mountain reservoir stocked regularly by rainbow trout, conditions were tough as it was sunny and no wind in the morning, but later in the afternoon a wind raised and we caught few nice fish, I was fishing washing line setup, sunburst blob in the point and two wets on droppers, half of fish I caught on the blob and second half on Bibio.

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Competition hosted about 130 competitors, it consisted from 5 ground spread between two days. Fishing was great from the first round, I finished eighth, which was not bad, I was fishing mainly slow glass line and hover line and team of lures, the best was my sunburst killer as usually. Almost everybody was fishing “dry-dropper setup”, which was very similar to “float fishing”, you use one big bushy dry-fly and two suspended egg-flies, you cast, sit on a chair, and if the dry-fly sinks, you strike. In my opinion, it is not fly-fishing and we have to thing about it in the future. However, I have to admit that I also succumbed to this “dark side” of the fly-fishing second day. In the fourth round I was casting 30 m and pulling my lures. Next to me was fishing a local uncle, he was sitting on chair, casting the float with fluo-green eggs 5 metres far from the shore and in 15 minutes he was leading 4:1 … so I also picked up the same setup and got another 6 fish.

I really liked the friendly atmosphere during both days, we have a lot of friends in Slovakia and we were nice group from the Czech Republic including Luboš Roza and Milan Čubík completed by Dutch Rene Koops as usually, hope to be back next year.

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Fishing club Chotěboř where Jiří Pejchar is member has rented smaller pond for trout fishing since last season, and he organised first competitions there this year, I decided to go there to see new fly-fishing location. As there were clear water and over-wintered fish in the lake, we all hoped for fine nymphing techniques and dry fly fishing. But whole day rain the day before the competition changed totally conditions and water was dirty and upper part of pond was almost similar to river. I finished in 9th place, which is not bad, but considering the fact, that I was leading after three rounds and blanked in the last one, I was a little sad, winner of the first year is only one forever Majority of fish I caught on Candy Booby fished on DI5 line, I used two similar flies tied 1 and 2 metres from the end of the line to cover more depths.

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After several years break, I went to Denmark with a group of friends for sea trout fishing, it was great, a great group of people, great food and drinks, beautiful nature, in some days fish took and in some days we didn’t even get a take, but that’s the Denmark, together we caught about 40 trout within five people, we did not caught a monster, but 11 fish had 50-60 cm, we will definitely go again next year. Majority of fish we caught on Ulsok on fast intermediate line. Aleš is specialist on this fly pattern, and if trouts damage the fly, he always repair it, some of them have already four layers of body In fact we had no fly-tying corner on our table, it was Ulsok service point

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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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