I visited the Trophy section in the Otava River under the ruin of the Rábí Castle, I met there Honza who was guiding Katka, she had never caught tiger trout, the hybrid between brown trout and brook trout. This fishery is famous for this fish which are produced by a local hatchery.
I prepared two rods, one for a lighter fishing mainly for dry fly (Hanák Superlight 3), and one for a little harder work (Sage Z-Axis 5). I have to say that it was good team of rods for this water, and I caught a nice fish with all the method which I used. I got few graylings (max 38 cm), two brownies and also few smaller rainbows on the dry V-olive, some nice rainbows on the Orange tag nymph used on dry-dropper system, and also few rainbows on nymph and blob, and finally I got one bigger brown and one tiger trout on the streamer (small bullhead), in total I caught about 20 fish, not a bad day
Honza and Katka focused on streamer for the whole day and got few bigger fish, the tiger is really nice and hard fighting  fish.

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April 16th is the Opening Day in trout waters in our country. We decided to visit the trophy section Otava 6 close to the Hotel Annín. It was simply fantastic day with great friends, we caught rainbows, brooks, browns, tigers, graylings and chub, for lunch we had schnitzel and Pilsner beer,  I caught fish on streamer, nymph and also on dry fly. Dream day. Thank you that we can go fishing in this difficult time. I had camera under repair, so there are some pictures made by phone.

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We organised spring masterclass by Luboš Roza in Hotel Annín. My old friends from Swizerland could not attend, so they come to Herbertov one week earlier and they spent there week of nice fishing, I joined them only for one day as I had to much work in my scientific projects.

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Three guys, Kai, Keith and Ivan came few days before the masterclass to warm up, so I took them to Vltava river. We were staying in Hotel Růže in Rožmberk and we were fishing Devil stones, Vltava 28 and 27. Roman Heimlich also joined us for one day. More over, in the same weekend, the 1st Czech fly fishing league took part in the Vltava River, I helped with organisation of the event and my friends could observe our best fly fishermen during competition. Where do you have a chance to see more than 20 medallist from European and World Championships in action ?

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Next they moved to Otava River and Hotel Annín and on the way we don´t forgot to visit Vltava 34 in Šumava mountains. We caught natural brown trout and also few nice graylings, but raising graylings trained us this day

Masterclass in Annín was in charge of Luboš and Patrik, I visited it only half a day, and according feedback which I got after course, everybody very enjoyed it despite of rainy weather. Super service in the hotel, nice wild mountain river, many fish, special trophy section stocked also by tiger fish (hybrid of brook trout and brown trout), willing guides, what else you need As usually, many fish was caught, many flies was tied, many beers was drunk, hope to see you next year

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If somebody is interested, we are organising our annual workshop in Herbertov in the first week of September.

I had no time to make reports in summer, so I will be brief to summarise summer activities. I attended three competitions in Otava river in late summer. In the middle of August, two open cups  ”Milan Janus Memorial” and “West Bohemia Cup” took part in two days in two different stretches of the river. Both competition had similar schedule which I introduced few years ago, that 44 competitors is divided to the two groups and in every round one half of people fish and the second half of people controls, and we fish and judge three rounds.

I was practising with Roman on Friday before competitions, fishing was good, we caught many fish on nymphs, wets and also dries. Roman decided to try to catch some perch on streamer as in competition stretch were also deep pools hosting abundant perch population and every fish counted.  He hooked small perch and when he was pulling it, out of the blue, he saw a crocodile mouth bolting down the poor fish. The pike parked just under his legs, so Roman waited a little and struck. He was very lucky as the perch with the point fly was away and pike was hanging on the dropper. After 15 minutes, fish was in the net, Roman brought it to the bank, I measured 69 cm. I was looking for the camera, Roman was packing his rod and we were talking about a recipe … and fish started to get bored and turned to side and escaped, she was quick like an eel and we were not able to catch it

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I was fishing not bad in both competitions, but in good pegs I won, average pegs I made an average result and in bad peg I lost, so I made twice average result. It was generally caught not many fish, however, the first round I won with 16 graylings caught on dry fly, later was for victory enough ten fish and in the afternoon five. In every round I lost few fish which could lift me up and this was the difference between me and successful competitors, they did not lose this fish. Every round took only 75 minutes, so there was no time to test anything and in 100 – 150 m long pegs was no time to cover whole space properly, so it was necessary to choice the best place in actual conditions and to concentrate on it and therefore the local knowledge was essential.

In the last round on Saturday I caught nice barbel of length 74 cm which took me 30 minutes of rare time, but I decided to try to get it as I knew that I lost previous round and had no chance for top ten and I it was really great fish. Sage SLT size 3 and Hanak Competiton fluorocarbon of diameter 0,10 mm were thoroughly tested . Competitions had friendly spirit, both my judge and also Michael, who was fishing same peg after me, waited before I got the fish to the net

When I was controlling Michal, I made interesting photo-set how he caught nice grayling on dry.

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I stayed in Strakonice town at my friends and we visited Bagpipe festival, it was amazing, in every pub was and bagpipe music band from whole world
West Bohemian Cup took part more upstream on Sunday and weather was very cold and rainy, fishing was even harder and some people blanked in the afternoon. I had similar result like on Saturday. For me was my result in competition disappointment but also challenge for next year as I liked the competitions and I would like to be more successful there, it is mainly question of concentration and good resolutions. Result was nothing special but I found good flies which were important later when we had in the same river the autumnal round of our Second league which I fish in the Team Hanák .

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The autumnal round of the Second league took part in the first weekend of September. As we totally spoiled spring round we had a lot to atone and we took the competition very seriously. First day of competition was sunny with clear low water but storm coming in the afternoon stopped activity of fish and night rain coloured water to the chocolate colour. I was fishing on Saturday afternoon and on Sunday morning and I had two very difficult pegs and did my best to get a good results for our team in these tough conditions as well as Pepa, but Franta and Tobi were more lucky and won both their rounds, so finally we won the autumnal round by big difference and finally gained third place in total.  On Sunday morning in the chocolate water I caught good grayling on a Czech nymph with red rib, after my round finished, I gave the rod to Franta and he caught on it another 4 graylings in already cleaning water. This is the team spirit which I like.
When I was judging, I had time to make some pictures of flowers flowering along the river. On the last picture, there is the very important grayling from Sunday morning.

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Otava is another nice and big river flowing from Šumava Mountains. When I was studying Medicine University in Pilsen, I was doing whole day trips instead of lessons in Autumn (and my studies finished according that ). I sat on the train in the morning and went to Sušice and next I was fishing whole day going downstream and next I sat on train in another station and returned to college. It was not unusual to catch 100 graylings a day on dry this time. Cormorants affected significantly the fish stock but it has been improving in last few years as winters has been not too cold and we have not hosted so many cormorants in South Bohemia.

Upper part, which is  is managed by the Western Board of CAU, belongs to the trout and grayling zone of river, lower part from grayling zone to barbel zone is managed by myself. It is a pity, that my colleagues from the Western board are not enough courageous to heighten the size limit for grayling to 40 cm like me, in their beautiful stretch of river is difficult to catch grayling over 30 cm, people simply kill all of them. And their statement, that it is better, when people kill them than cormorants and people pay permits, is poor. In our waters few kilometres downstream is grayling 36-38 cm long not rare and you can meet fish over 40 cm.

We will have two competitions in Otava river this autumn, so I decided to visit the river for practice. The opportunity occurred when I was taking my family to one week holiday at Grandma in Pilsen. First weekend I visited upper part in Žichovice, it was very hot day and flow was about 6 m3/s, I got from 7 till 11 about 35 fish, mostly grayling of 25 cm, three of 30 cm, dace (one 31 cm long monster), chub, roach and also brown trout and rainbow. The best method was nymphing with 0,10 leader and small jig flies size 16, fish were distributed equally in holes in riffles and in mouths of pools, and also under banks. But big part of the river was very shallow as the flow was extremely low.

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In the beginning of the next week came a heavy storm in the mountains and the flow increased from 7 m3/s till 30 for two days,  but it decreased quickly and on Saturday the flow was  again about 8 m3/s. I visited a little lower part close the town Hydčice with my friend Lukáš, fishing was more difficult as fish moved from riffles and they were aggregated only in several places, so we always caught more fish  from one place and in next similar place was nothing. Interesting was, that in one place under weeping willow Lukáš got 40 cm long chub and two dace of 30 cm and next I caught there the monster roach on picture.

I thing, that bigger problem for fish could be in the future shoals of shelduck, they are less shy than cormorants, very effective and the stay here whole year around.

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