Posts Tagged ‘Vltava’

Hungarian Vltava Cup 2023

Květen 2, 2023 - 8:17 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

After the first very successful year of the event, I was again asked by my Hungarian friends for help with the organization of second year. Vltava cup 2023 was again hosted by Penzion Herbertov, our favourite fly-fishing base. The camp consisted of two practice days, one day competition and one day of free fishing. I helped with arranging of all necessary licences, during the two practice days and with organisation of the competition. We had problem with high discharge in Vltava river under Vyšší Brod, so all four days we had to fish in Vltava 29 Devil Stones. However, the fishery consist from three different parts, the upper trophy part, middle wild only brown trout section and lower section with mixed fish stock composed also by rainbow trout, brook trout and white fish, so it was not and monotonously and  I hope that everybody was satisfied and enjoyed the camp. The group of 20 people consisted from both beginners and experienced fishermen who had already attended World Championships. The only chance how to improve for Hungarian fly fishers is  to go abroad, but on the other hand, location of Hungary is not far from Czech Rep., Slovakia, Austria  and Slovenia, which is not bad :-)

During competition, organisers used special system of evaluation known mainly from carp and predatory competitions, that we had no judges, all competitors fish in the same time, and every catch had to be photographed. For me it was great  opportunity to see it and test it, but I thing, that for fly-fishing competition in rivers is this system not suitable as handling with expensive mobile phones in the river is not safe and more over, preparation for photographing takes time and it extends handling and stressing of fish, which is not good.

Camp for Youth team Slovenia

Červenec 7, 2019 - 11:46 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

p1390376-kopie I was asked by member of the youth team from Slovenia to help with short camp before the World Championship. In  the end, only Nejc Pesjak with his father Juri and team mate Žan could come. We used accommodation in the new apartment of our friend Vlasta in Rožmberk (http://www.milanhladik.cz/?page_id=2852) which is ideal base for fishermen for our region.

We met on Thursday afternoon and we started in Devil stones. After warm up under 33 degrees, for evening hatch we moved to Vltava 28 under Vyšší Brod, and we caught many browns and a lot of fish in size 30 – 40 cm. It was worth staying till night. Friday morning we spent under Petrol station, and we were successful with nymphs, I was lucky and caught brown of 50 cm, one of my best browns from this river, on 3 size Hanák Superlight rod, 18 size jig hook and 0,10 flurocarbon :-) . On Friday afternoon we were resting while shopping in Hanák shop, next Vlasta joined us for evening hatch and we finished with grill party and few bottles of wine. On Saturday morning we moved under Rožmberk, it was big disappointment, we caught only few fish over 20 cm and it was very important for me before the championship and we have to stock some fish to this sector. We finished day back in the Devil stones. It was intensive, but I believe, that boys learned something in our nice rivers.

Apartment to rent in Rožmberk

Červenec 7, 2019 - 11:32 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

My friend Vlasta Král, keen fly fisherman and windsurfer, bought and reconstructed cozy house at the bank of the Vltava River in Rožmberk. Downstairs, he prepared nice apartment to rent, ideal for a group of fishermen. It offers:

- Two separated rooms with two beds + one sofabed in the kitchen (5 beds in total)

- Kitchen and living room

- Bathroom and toilet

- Fly tying room

- Drying room for clothes and waders

- Garden with terrace above the river for resting and grilling

- TV, Wifi

- Town centre, shop, local pubs  -   5 minutes walking

Pictures from fly fishing events taking place in the apartment you can find there:

Practice camp – Youth team CZ – July 2019

Practice camp – Youth team Slovenia – July 2019

 

Spring courses

Červen 13, 2019 - 10:49 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

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.

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 :-) ?

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 :-)

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

 

Vltava in Český Krumlov before winter

Prosinec 12, 2016 - 6:47 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

p1280195 One of my challenges during my work for the Czech Angling Union is recovery of the population of grayling in Vltava river between Vyšší Brod and Český Krumlov, which was destroyed by wintering cormorants 15 years ago. Before winter, we decided to check grayling which we regularly stock to the river inside of the town of Český Krumlov, where fish are a little protected.  Moreover, we stock fish also to the small right inflow called Polečnice which is also suitable for grayling, in pas time, the brook was  full of graylings. I met Jiří there at about lunchtime. The three-years old fish were in great condition and they occurred mainly around the intake, I was fishing 3-size Sage SLT, 0,10 fluorocarbon HC and nymphs size 16 and it was funny. Any nymph with silver of pink bead was working, but the PTN with silver bead and orange neck was the best.

After two hours we moved upstream from the town to catch something for table, I caught few small coarse fish, small barbel, few small browns, one smaller rainbow, and finally, in a big pool, I hooked good rainbow of about 50 cm, slimmer silver fish with big tail. I was patiently playing the fish in the pool and the fish was relatively calm, I drew it to me and we were observing each other for a while, I imagined nice pink fillets, and the rainbow was probably a telepath and after three quick jumps left me with my imaginations :-) Next time. What a nice day fishing.

The panorama of one of the largest castle in the Europe is always nice.

Few days fishing with Tim Strong and Roman Heimlich

Srpen 16, 2016 - 11:57 am Komentáře nejsou povoleny

p1260994 My old friend Tim Strong, who had already attended our workshop and also participated World Fly-fishing Championship 2014 representing team Australia, asked me whether it would be possible to spend few days fishing together in the beginning of August. He would like to a little practice before the oncoming Commonwealth games taking part in Canada later in August. So I checked my diary, reorganised my field work to the foregoing week and weekend ( I´m working on a big feasibility study aimed on fish-passes on majority of Czech rivers)  and arranged the trip. Tim also asked me whether it would be possible to ask somebody of the top czech competitors for few guided days, so I called my friend Roman Heimlich.

I finished my field work on Thursday morning, went to Prague for two appointments in the afternoon and I was waiting for Tim at the Prague airport at 8pm , it is great, that it is possible to find flight details including exact landing time on internet. Journey to Vyšší Brod took 3 hours and at midnight we were in the hotel, we were staying in Penzion Herbertov, which is great base for fishing in the Vltava river. On the way we visited Český Krumlov, of course.

For morning session we went to one good pool in the Vltava river above Rožmberk, despite of higher flow we get some fish and it was good warm up. I showed to Tim how to start fishing unknown place with streamer, localise fish and next to catch them on nymph. When the raft-traffic increased over the  endurable limit we moved to Devil Stones. It was rainy whole day, but we caught a lot of fish and we were practising mainly leading of nymphs and casting and mowing in this very special water. Angler, mainly during competition, must follow plan for the whole beat but also have to make plan for almost every cast as there is always a branch behind you. It is big lecture of concentration, other vice you can catch only squirrels :-) In the evening we were resting, tying  nymphs and preparing for Saturday.

We started earlier just above the penzion and Roman joined us during morning and he overtook the care about Tim and we accidentally met also Martin Musil with Johanes Krill from team New Zealand also practising before CW Games , world is small :-) Tim and Roman were fishing side arm of the Vltava river under Vyšší Brod which is a little sheltered against the rafting madness. I had to go home to arrange “housework” as I had been out for 10 days. Fish in fish tank were almost staying behind door :-)  I returned in the evening and we met under the Petrol station, we caught few nice fish both on nymphs, wets and dries. Roman  focused during his lecture on control of nymph during nymphing and also on the wet fly as it is a little forgotten technique which can bring important fish in every competition. In the evening we were again tying flies, Tim also tested Becherovka, which is one of the “must to taste” things in Czech republic  similarly like dumplings.

dsc_3198 In the morning I was going to a children´s camp organised by the mother of Honza Vender to have presentation about fish and water life in the Lipno Lake, I had been already teaching at the University, but it was my first lecture for kids, in the begging I gave to everybody sheet of paper and crayons and asked them for a picture of fish and they were listening and drawing whole 75 minutes, hope it was interesting for them, I get many of nice pictures.

Roman and Tim made whole day trip to Šumava mountains to Warm Vltava and we joined them after lunch with Honza and his fishing buddy Flyn. Fishing was not easy because low flow, the best was to down size nymphs to 20. After fishing, Roman went home and we returned to Penzion.

Whole Monday we spent in Vltava close to Penzion, in the morning we went downstream to another nice pool, at lunch time we had to flee before drunk rafts so we went for lunch to penzion Rybářská Bašta for their famous fish soup served with home baked bread. Franta Kůrka, owner of the Penzion and “old otter”  came to talk about fishing and when we were leaving I noticed nice smell of relatively rare mushrooms called “syrovinka”.

“Franta, what are you cooking?” “Syrovinky”

“Tim, would you like to taste czech mushrooms?” “Of course” :-)

After great lunch we moved to Penzion Herbertov, where is also a short side-arm of Vltava. I showed Tim my set-up for the “New Zealand Technique” and next we exchanged our rods and Tim disappeared in bush for few hours catching fish after fish, browns, rainbows and coarse fish. In the evening just before dusk, we get also few nice browns on dry flies. If somebody asks, whether it is possible to catch 100 fish a day, it was possible this day.

Last day we were fishing again from early morning, the stretch in front of the penzion looked like botom-less. I hooked rainbow of about 1 kilo and decided to take it for Ludvík, the owner of the Penzion, tippet from fluorocarbon HC 0,10  was strong enough to keep the fish until a brownie took the second fly and broke whole leader, I had no rainbow, no nymphs, no leader, “kurvaaa”  :-) We were leaving at lunch time just with first drops of oncoming cold front, during our journey to Prague we visited Hanák Shop in České Budějovice where Tim bought some hooks and leaders and I bought the brand-new hover line for lake fishing developed in cooperation with Luboš Roza.

What a nice few days out spent with great friends full of fishing, fly tying, english and czech language mini-lectures, enjoying scenic toilets, exploring czech design from 60ties, talking jokes (Jesus smoking grass in a mountains cottage, The oldest man in a village, etc.), one of them I can write. The joke originates from an old czech TV show:

An old man is explaining to his friends what is his key for the successful marriage.”Well, immediately after our wedding day, I clarified with my wife that I would decide all important things and she can decide only les important things. And since this day, we have had no any problem. However, nothing important had happened yet ….”

Good luck in Canada

First and last opening day in Vltava 24

Leden 2, 2015 - 10:35 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

p1140790 From 2015, our trophy water Vltava 24 is fishable whole year around, so we had first and last opening day on January 1st 2015. We met there with few friends at about lunch time, the river was a little higher and muddy and full of drifting ice after night thaw, but it was possible to make a cast and to get few rainbows in great condition, surprisingly on orange blob :-) Another hot and cold test for the new rod.

Honza

Říjen 30, 2014 - 6:39 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

p1140755 We had planed an afternoon trip to Warm Vltava with Honza Vender for this week to check rising graylings, so I called him yesterday and surprisingly instead of a joke I heard a desperate voice and groaning, he got renal colic and he was on surgery on Monday and they removed from his kidney a stone of diameter 4 mm … But he is recovering quickly and we will catch something together this year. I found some pictures from our trip from early October, good luck my friend !!!

CNFW 2013 spring – a blessing in disguise

Červen 27, 2013 - 11:15 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

p1060323 We had to cancel our spring course due to the terrible flood which affected whole republic and mainly the middle and northern parts, 15 people was killed and the damage is estimated at billion EURO…

Three attendants could not cancel their fights, so I asked Martin Musil and we decided to take care about them and to try to find a fishable river, at least to accompany them in pub :-)  I was checking websites with flow in rivers and with meteorological radars almost every hour and I had idea to go to Moravia, the eastern part of our country, which was not affected by rain so heavily, I ordered fishing permits and hotel, but on Thursday June 6th came another storm which raised water also in Moravian rivers, there were no floods, but rivers were unfishable. I had something to do in Vimperk on Thursday morning, so by the way home I visited Warm Vltava and it looked hopefully, water was high but it was already in the river bed and it was clear, downstream from Lenora was to high. Another expected storm missed South Bohemia, so we decided to go to Warm Vltava,  I booked Penzion Lenora and on Friday 7th evening I picked Hendrik Eslin from South Africa and Kai from Finland up at the Prague Airport.

The journey was relatively quick  and on the way we were checking Otava and Volyňka rivers, which were unfortunately unfishable. We arrived Lenora and accommodated in Penzion which is owned by mother of one of my fishing buddy Honza Witner and after few beers and few stories about South African crocodiles and hypo we fall to beds. After great breakfast we headed to the river close to Horní Vltavice, river was higher, but clear, we can say in ideal condition, and fish were hungry. I explained to Hendrik our system of nymphing and almost on the first cast I caught couple of brownies. Fish were concentrated only in some places, mainly on the edges and surprisingly not in the deeper parts and in pools. I can say, that it was nice day, we had great roasted dug with dumplings and cabbage for lunch and I vpersonally caught about fifty fish including few graylings of about 35 cm. Bets fly was red-tag on the jig hook with tungsten gold bead (Kai commented on it that after 1000 years of development of fly-patterns I discovered red-tag :-) . My friends were also satisfied and we were lucky that few storms missed us by a whisker, however it was raining in the upper part of the catchment area an the water started rising and getting muddy at about six o´clock, so we decided to go to dinner.

In the morning was water higher, but still fishable and it was going down, so I found a little less steep part of the river. My friends adapted to fishing relatively quickly, fish were still active and some of them were even rising in the afternoon (Kai caught all of them on fluo-green Czech nymph size 6 …) , Kai got nice grayling and Hendrik caught roach, bleak, dace, and also nice brown trout.

Martin Musil with his son Martin jr. joined our group on Sunday afternoon and they brought the last member of our small team Hamid from Canada. At about six started pouring rain which raised river and it was unfishable for next two days, so guys visited Karels´ shop and Hanak shop. I had to go home to look after kids and to work and Martin took over our guests, he brought his fly-tying suitcase, so mainly the evenings were nourishing. The weather were relatively good since Tuesday and on Wednesday was river again fishable and they discovered the upper part of the fishery, in which is flow reduced by the channel to power-plant. I joined the group on Thursday afternoon, fishing was nice, we found the last not-fished parts of the river, lower parts were still to high, flow from Lipno to Vltava in Vyšší Brod was 130 m3/s …

On Friday morning we returned back to the stretch where we were starting our fishing week and it was nice to compare location of fish, we caught few nice browns, hope that Hendrik will send me the picture of the king of the Warm Vltava.

On Friday afternoon we visited small inflow of Volyňka river called Spúlka, the brook is full of small brownies and it was another nice experience for our students. Kai had to leave on Friday afternoon for a competition in Finland.

I checked flows in rivers on Friday afternoon and I found out, that flow from Lipno was reduced to 40 m3/s, which meant, that flow in Vltava 29 – Devil streams was reduced to usual flow of 2 m3/s and we decided to show to our friends this beautiful stretch of river and also the Lesanka Pub in Vyšší Brod. We warmed up in the lower more wide and more easy stretch and after the great lunch in Lesanka pub we wended to upper and more wild stretch. It was nice end of the week, fishing was not easy due to a lot of sticks in the water, but we really enjoyed it.

It is a pity that we had to cancel the course, it is fact, that although we were very lucky on the weather (after one week of temperatures over 35 °C it has been again raining for 5 days and there are another floods nowadays) , the fishable stretch was to small for 25 people and one week, but I´m sure that Autumn will be nice when we have no summer.

Cold Warm Vltava river with Honza

Březen 6, 2013 - 11:22 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

p1040972 After almost three months of overcast sky (it was the record period of lowest sun shine in memory in Czech), we had have first few nice sunny days which promised incoming spring. I was skiing with kids during weekend and I watched the blue sky through the windows in my office and through the pictures from weekend fishing from my friends. Yesterday I decided to a little refresh my working enthusiasms and I arranged one day fishing for Wednesday. We met with Honza in Volary at 10am and we headed to the stretch of the Warm Vltava which is open for fishing all year around. The weather and nature were so nice that it would had been a great day without any catch. I also looked forward to test my new rod which I bought from one competitor, the specially extended SAGE SLT 9´00´´ for line  3, which is great for all kinds of fishing and mainly the french-nymph style.


The water was still low and clear although the afternoon temperatures has reached 10°C during last two days as in the night, there is still frost and snow in mountains is still not melting. We started fishing at about 11, I caught couple of grayling in the first pool by almost the very first cast, but beginning of fishing was slow. We were enjoying nice countryside and admired work of beavers and we were trying to localise fish.

The hatch of black stone-fly enhanced activity of fish after lunch and we found, that active fish are not in deep holes but in relatively shallow parts with slowly flowing water, usually in the end of pool above rifles. Best flies were jigs with dark body and pink or coper head, the olive one was also good. We caught over 30 fish between us, fifty fifty grayling and brown trout, I also got two small rainbows. Five graylings were in size 35+ and also few browns was over 30, so it was great day.

Journey back to the car in the warm afternoon sunbath was a little demanding as we had to go through the deep snow. We missed a few military bunkers which were built before the Second World War to face Nazis, finally not any shot was fired from the bunkers and only angling weapons can be seen here nowadays :-)