As every September, my friends Grant and Kevin arrived to enjoy 10 days of fishing on Vltava river. This year, they brought their mate Keith. We met in Hanák Shop in České Budějovice and after quick coffee which cooked Franta we headed to Rožmberk. They stayed in Rožmberk for five days and next they moved to Volary to fish Warm Vltava. I was fishing with them for two days, one in Vltava under Vyšší Brod and one in Lenora, as usually. As Keith was here for first time, I paid him a little more, but he was complete angler, so I only gave him some advice concerning fishing in our rivers and also concerning working with rod while nymphing. It was great fun, I as usually get great crisp-sandwiches for lunch, and we caught a lot of fish of different species (brown trout, brook trout, rainbow trout, grayling, chub, dace, roach, bleak and perch), both on nymphs and dries. Mainly dry fly fishing in Warm Vltava was interesting, it was cold weather with wind and clear sky, which is usually not the best for dry fly, and the fish were rising in waves, and they were very selective. But the olive emerger size 20 was the solution of problems

The bad luck was, that I lost my fly box with jig nymphs somewhere during first day, but I took it not as a tragedy, but as a great chance for upgrade I´m looking for long winter evenings at vice.

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I had withdrawal symptoms as I had had fly fishing rod in my hand at least month ago for the last time. Flow has been high in all waters in our region because of rainy summer and I was spending holiday at Lipno lake so I was fishing for zander. But it is another story. Last week I had twice dream about fly fishing, so it was high time to undertake an action. Coincidentally, I met my old buddy Vítek Misar on Monday and he told me, that he was in Vyšší Brod despite of flow over 20 m3/s last weekend and he caught nice fish, so on Tuesday afternoon I picked him up at his summer house. Sky was full of strom clouds, but after “detailed analysis of satelit pictures and animations” we decided that we are not on the trajectory of storms and we headed to Petrol station in Vyšší Brod (in fact we looked to the sky and said “it will miss us” . At six we stayed at the bank of Vltava river, it was nice to be back after one month. I was fishing with extended Hanak Alpen nymph rod size 4, stronger leader HC 0,14 and also nymphs size 14-12 according to formula:  high flow – stronger gear – bigger nymphs – bigger fish. We caught altogether about 40 fish including one rainbow of 46 cm, three smaller rainbows of about 35 cm and  three browns over 30 cm. All fish were in great condition, what a great evening. Just before dark, after few light showers, it started hatch of small olives and fish started rising, so I simply cut of nymphs, put one dry-fly to the point of nymphing leader, removed extension part of the rod and caught last three brownies on the dry fly. The change of setup took me about 2 minutes.

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On Thursday I was watching radar pictures of moving storms whole day and all clouds were travelling in right direction far away from Vyšší Brod. Problem was, that just in the time when we arrived a storm was developed just over our heads, poring rain closed us in petrol station where we met David. Espresso and cake were not bad and we had time for some old stories. One hour later when rain stopped we decided to go just under the dam as  water should be there relatively clear and it was good idea. David caught rainbow of 49 cm, I caught about 20 fish including brown, dace and perch both on nymphs and streamer, top of the day was the nice brownie.

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Workshop is over and I can say that it was one of the best event in memory. We had no any problem and we really enjoyed the week, we caught many many fish. After development taking few years we get to the almost ideal schedule, moreover I prepared few improvements for this year.

At first, we worked a little with Chef of the Hotel Růže on the evening menu and it was great. We decided to present local food, and it is definitely not rice, pasta or chicken. In the Czech Republic, we produce beef, pork, potatoes, ducks and some vegetable and we love soups and beer ….  we started with steak from honest beef from Šumava mountains followed by schnitzel on Monday, pork chop on onion sauce on Tuesday, pork steak on mushroom sauce on Wednesday, and the menu was crowned on Friday evening by roast duck with dumplings and red cabbage. For Thursday evening, I prepared small surprise, when we came from fishing, we were awaited by grilled pig. During lunches, we as usually visited Rybářská bašta, Lesanka in Vyšší Brod , Pizzeria in Kaplice, and during whole day trips we simply bought lunch packets. I thing that is enough about meal as introduction.

I also prepared nice present, wooden fly box with logo of workshop and map of warm Vltava in the second side. I brought two kegs of non-filtered lager made by my good friend in his small bravery, which was also very appreciated.

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We hosted 15 attendants from Belgium, England, Germany, South Africa and USA, team was composed by Jiří Pejchar, Martin Musil, Roman Heimlich and Karel Křivanec, on Sunday came also Michal to meet old friends and fish one day together. Few people arrived already sooner, but we officially started on Sunday evening by opening of Karel´s  shop and keg of beer. After dinner we had  short introduction lecture and we started with some fly tying and as majority of attendants were our long-term friends we had a lot to talk. I divided people to the two groups (UK + SA and Belg + Ger + USA) always with two guides and we changed groups and guides after two days.

Monday we spent in Rožmberk, for Hendrik and Iwan from South Africa was also interesting experience to help with stocking of rainbows. Fishing was not bad, but fresh fish a little improved catching rate and tested quality of tipped materials. Under weir we caught some marked graylings which had been stocked 3 km downstream one month ago.

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On Monday evening came heavy storm and therefore we spent Tuesday in Vyšší Brod and Devil stones, where the water was relatively clear. I thing, that mainly for newcomers was demonstration and practising of nymphing technique very useful, not only casting technique, but also reading of water and movement in water during fishing in different types of river. I was lucky that I got few nice fish during demonstration. Trophy part in Devil stones is annually stocked by nice brook trout and for some people was it the first possibility to meet this interesting fish. This is the only fishery in South Bohemia, where brook trout remains after stocking and moreover is able to reproduce.

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From Wednesday, the flow in rivers was gradually decreasing and we visited also Malše and Černá rivers, relatively small streams with wild brown trout and grayling. Nice tactic used Ben and Mark, they were fishing one rod with dry fly and they were changing by every fish. I joined the party with my rod with dry fly/nymph set-up and we were rotating Mark managed fishing and smoking together. In Malše, we make some small competition, Ben was fishing nymphs and I was fishing wets and we found out, that we are not able to catch anything one after another As the water was a little muddy, the wet fly worked well.

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We were also fishing during evening hatch in Vyšší Brod and it was superb. There is a lot of small browns, but it was possible to catch fish of about 30 cm. I started with green sedge, next fish preferred Yellow Sally and finally big brown sedge with orange tag.

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We also visited Warm Vltava, we were in Horní Vltavice, the water was clear but still red as it flows from peat-bogs in mountains. It was nice day in pure nature and we caught also few nice fish, I found good graylings in the most steep currents, I was fishing with czech nymph on the point and small pheasant tail nymph on dropper. Big surprise was shoal of bleak which migrated from Lipno lake. Thousands and thousands of different cyprinid fish migrating annually from Lipno lake became big problem for pristine salmonid fish stock, I´m leader of a big scientific project aimed on evaluation of this affect.

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UK team was leaving on Saturday early morning at 5 a.m., so I also got up to say them goodbye (and to see red lights and Stefan also woke up to go fishing with me. Out of the blue, in front of the hotel stopped Taxi with Martin and Roman returning from a Disco in Vyšší Brod, Martin a little staggering and Roman with a nice black eye  So we were transporting them to beds and went fishing. I promised to our kind house-lady a fish for lunch. I got one chance, as I hooked rainbow of about 1 kg, but I had chance only during first 2 seconds where the fish was surprised, next I was only  spectator, at first the angry fish flew past Stefan and jumped in rifles 20 metres upstream from me, next returned back to the pool and next headed to opposite bank and snapped my leader between stones …

Thanks to all attendants for nice and friendly atmosphere and hope to see you next time.

Hanák Open 2014 started in Květoňov lake. After victory in the May cup 2014 in the same lake I was full of ambitions. Jiři and Jitka helped me with organization so I could concentrate on fishing. We had 66 competitors, I divided them to 6 groups by 11 competitors and competition was composed by 6 rounds, so everybody fished all fours sectors and had two times break. In every round was rotation by 6 pegs in the middle of time which is more fair.
In the first round in the Sector D I got 3 fish on the fast glass line and yellow lure, which gave me third place, sector was won by Ben landing 8 fish. In the second round I moved to sector C under road, I started in peg C1. On first 10 casts I had 10 aggressive takes and no fish on hook …. next I lost 5-ponds fish at the net …. but finally I landed 4 fish and gained 2nd place in the sector. Next I had one round brake. After pause I went with great schnitzel in stomach to the Sector A and started with the same tactic and I had no contact for 20 minutes, so I decided to change rod and when I was reeling the line, a good fish hooked them self. After rotation we saw school of fish under surface in casting distance, my both neighbours David Chlumský and Radek Svašek got few fish on hover line, so I took slow glass and got two fish and lost two another on rolly-polly , this time on orange lure, 5th place was not bad as there was a lot of blanks in the afternoon. Before the last round, it was clear, that if I caught a fish it could be good. After 5 minutes I saw rising fish just in front of me. I immediately took rod with dry fly and after 5 minutes an older fish took claret hopper and brought me 3rd place in the Sector B and also in the whole competition . Winner was my friend from Team Hanák David Říha, orange blob specialists, and second place was gained by David Chlumský, member of the Czech A team.

River competition hosted as usually 40 teams, this year we invited also teams from Belgium, England, Italy, Netherlands, Slovakia and Slovenia which tried to face top Czech anglers. In the first round I was judging team from Slovakia, I had also time to make pictures of our beautiful nature, however, the strange mushroom originates from Australia and its spores were introduced to Europe by boat or plain 50 years ago. Our team was not lucky on draw and otherwise we did our best we finished in the 21st place which was behind our expectations. In this high concurrence and under conditions, when is possible to catch more than 50 fish in a round, the draw plays important role. For next year, which will be 10 years anniversary, I plan to evaluate results from all previous years and modify marking of beats and also rotation matrix. The competition was won by teams composed by best Czech competitors, surprisingly

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I have also visited few times Vltava 28 in Vyšší Brod, brown trout population was not affected by the flood and there is a lot of fish, I caught also rainbow trout and brook trout and also grayling stocked in May. Evening fishing is never easy in July. I used maybe 15 patterns of dry flies and I caught a fish on all of them, but I did not catch more.

I was asked by Bruno to guide three of his German friends, Thomas, Stephan and Reinhard. We met at 7:00 at the petrol station in Vyšší Brod and moved a little downstream to Herbertov, we were in water at 7:30 and we met immediately few canoes. I asked the guys in boats why they woke up so early and they told me, that they were going directly from bar … Water was nice, flow of 10 m³/s was ideal. Reinhard was beginner, I paid attention to him at first and I made our nymhing setup for him. Thomas and Stephan decided to fish their “German” style with tapered leader and one huge fly in the end. Peter unfortunately broke his rod by very first cast, but I had reserve rod in the car. Fish were active and I presented technique to Reinhard, he practised the fishing quickly and he caught few nice trouts, also Thomas and Stephan had a fish and they started to be interested in the nymphing. Next I joined Stephan and I lent him my rod to try the nymphing technique and as he is experienced fisherman, he mastered it quickly and also caught few trouts. We realised, that flow in river was suddenly increasing and we had to go out, the guy operating the dam upstream probably dropped off  and his head fell to the button … you can see the flow in Vyšší Brod on the picture below … It came so quick that I had no picture from Vltava 28.

We moved to Vltava 29, I made nymphing set-up for all guys and I was fishing with Thomas, we were going about 1 km downstream from the parking place and next we moved together upstream and searched all pockets.  As the sun was high, fishing was not easy and it was necessary to cast to the shadows, under threes and as close to stones as possible, but we caught a lot of fish, we also tried “New Zealand style” with nymph on the point and big dry on the dropper. We finished in a big pool, but we can not catch a fish. But we found out what happened quickly, at first I found otter excrements at bank and next I hooked dace in the mouth of the pool and one kilo pike took it and did not want to give it to me. We finished the nice hot morning in Lesanka pub in Vyšši Brod with “vepřo-knedlo-zelo-kapučíno” (in German: Schweinebraten mit Knödeln und Sauerkraut und Cappuccino, in English: baken pork with dumplings and sauerkraut and cappuccino). Tschüss!

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Everything changed during last few days. I has been very busy, I´m finishing few projects in my job, I was finishing also preparation for our June course, some time took preparation of the October course for UK group, and I started preparation for WFFCH 2014, I preliminary booked hotel and we prepared preliminary programme and budged. The weather has been very bad, so I was out for fishing only few times, I visited Vltava 29, Vltava 28 (I met Jaromír Šram practising for elimination to Czech team) and I had great afternoon at Vltava 24 trophy, I caught one nice afternoon and get 14 rainbows in size 0,5 – 2 kg in 1,5 hours, mostly on nymphs but some of them on dries, I finished at six and more over I managed in-line skating along the Vltava river with my wife during sunset, what a romance !!! .

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We also continued in our programme aimed on the reintroduction of grayling to Vltava river, we stocked 20 000 YOY fish and also 400 older fish from hatchery and we also restocked 100 mature wild grayling from Volyňka river. My challenge is to have there a self-reproducing  population by within ten years. We will see.

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Last Thursday I was called by dispatcher from Vltava River Authority that they can not probably keep lower flow for our elimination to be held during oncoming weekend as there is expected heavy rain. They had to increase flow in Vltava river from 10 m3/s to 25-30 m3/s, which is un-fishable. … so we decided to change the schedule … but on Saturday morning was flow 60 and in the evening 100 m3/s. In České Budějovice, where the standard flow  in this part of the year is about 20 m3/s, Vltava culminated at 483 m3/s and almost whole Czech republic has been flooded in two days. It was unfortunately clear, that we had to cancel our June course. I will try to organise a substitute programme only for people who are flying from Canada, South Africa and Finland and can not change fly tickets, hopefully there would be  fishable rivers in the north-east part of the Czech republic, we will see.  Hope that next report will be more optimistic.

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The last weekend in September belongs to the peak of the fly-fishing competition season for our competitors as well as for our foreign friends. The bank holiday 28th September fell on Friday, therefore the Hanák Open Series started with Svatováclavský cup at the Květoňov lake.
As we welcomed 72 competitors,  we stocked 1200 rainbows (including fish over 2 kg), we ordered great refreshment stand,  I prepared special draw composed by six rounds which includes four rounds in all four sectors and two breaks for every competitor … but despite of suitable weather, the competition was absolute flop,  it was caught only 149 fish altogether, fresh stocked fish did not take and the big fish lethargically tottered along the banks and were probably easy target for local pikes. Interesting finding from this competition for everybody was unquestionable fact, that under this terrible conditions could win only the best competitors, who were able to concentrate and to score from sporadic takes.  (I had no any take The Svatováclavsky cup 2012 was deservedly won to Roman Heimlich, who caught fish in all four rounds as well as the runner up Pepa Hanák.

We don´t exactly know what happened with the stocked rainbows, but this fish did not died, they were not visibly ill, but they started to take gradually during next four weeks. Fish were probably affected by long transport, for the future it is necessary to stock not only one sort of fish, but to combine fish from local hatchery with fish from other suppliers and it is necessary to find another supplier.

The Theodor Kouba Memorial hosted 40 teams from five countries including top Czech competitors (inclusive of 18 medallist from European and World Championships). Before the competition, we stocked 700 kg of rainbows from raft (to every beat 20 fish), but they were unfortunately from the same supply like the fish in Květoňov lake.
Before the official draw in Lesanka pub, I made short meting for foreign teams as usually to have time to welcome old good friends and to explain rules of competition, as we had prepared something new. Minimal size of fish was decreased to 15 cm and fish were only counted, not measured. Competitor only showed fish in the net to judge and released it back. In case of doubt, competitor is required to go to judge and to measure the fish. Every team can measure bigger fish, as in the case of the same number of caught fish, better is the team with the bigger fish. The main aim of this rule was to limit handling and replacement of caught fish and to protect them, second aim was to try to make competition more fair as stocked rainbows are usually concentrated in few beats with deep pools and it is very difficult to beat this beats.
Everybody went to sleep after draw and few beers as the first round started at 9 o’clock. I again fished with my friend Jiří Pejchar in the team called South-East, the third one was Míla Trousil, member of the Czech Youth Team. I always don´t fish in the first round in the case, that it is necessary to solve a problem. Boys had relatively good richly rugged beat in the Sector B and they thoroughly hoovered it, however their 82 fish was not enough for the first place which was taken by 90 fish !!! In the afternoon, we had one of the best beats in the Sector C, the big pool called “At the Track” . But the problem was, that stocked rainbows did not take and there is not to many browns. I was fishing with Míla and we could not catch on, but after approximately one hour I “tuned” my leader and started catching fish. I finally caught 16 fish and Míla added another 8 and our 24 fish sufficed for the 6th place, if only we have caught 6 more fish, we took 3rd place in this round and the bronze medal in the whole competition. On Saturday evening was official dinner, roasted dug with dumplings and cabbage was amassing and  whole party was great, it is always good to see old friends. I was surprised, that people who claim that they don´t speak English were almost fluent in the end of party.
In the last round we had relatively good long beat in the Sector C, it was caught there 47 and 67 fish on Saturday. Our bank of the river was shallow with weed, behind the weed was significant edge and the middle and the opposite part of the river had the ideal depth of 0,5-1,5 m. We were fishing upstream and I was searching the middle of the river with three a little heavy nymphs while Jiří was going after me and he was focusing on the opposite bank of river with many pools and backwaters. We started well catching fish during first few casts, but after 15 minutes I told Jiří, that except serious takes on the point fly (black with cooper head) I had few short hits which I could not convert. He had the same experience and we decided to change silver bead of the fly in the middle of the cast, I used orange tag jig with cooper bead and Jiří the same fly but with violent bead, and it worked well, fish had probably seen to many silver beads on Saturday. We caught altogether 75 fish including brown trout, rainbow trout, brook trout, grayling and dace, and it was victory in the last round which lifted us to the total 6th place. What a shame the second round.

It was caught 4605 fish and the Theodor Kouba Cup was won by the team from our Fly fishing club České Budějovice, detailed results and more pictures you can find here

I had some thinks to arrange in Rožmberk before CNFW so I connected it with exploration of evening activity of fish. I was at water at six, water was low and clear and it was drizzling but the sky was getting clearer. I tried dry fly and caught few small rising brownies in pool close parking place in Herbertov, but it was nothing special, so I tried nymhs. In this stretch, river is divided to the two streams as people built stony wall in past time to concentrate water for wood transport and the wall was renaturised by vegetation and creates just know a bushy island. Right smaller and more shallow stream is full of boulders and brown trouts, but in the lower flow is difficult to catch them. It was necessary to slink upstream and present nymphs absolutely naturally in all deep holes and around stones. I got about 10 trouts in smaller stream and about 10 in main river bed. When fish started to rise, I moved upstream to wider part of the river between islands.

There were about 30 fish rising but they absolutely ignored my sedges. So I decided to try wet flies. I choose three different patterns of March Brown from my box and put them between lips and started making leader. I put first on the upper dropper, second to the middle dropper, and I made small tangle in the rest of leader, so I had to untangle it and I played with the last fly between my lips and… I swallowed it. I tried to spit it out, but it was already on the way to ma stomach. Nothing could be done, nothing was paint-full, so I drunk a little water and took another fly from the box and went to fish. Wet flies did not worked and fish were rising more and more, so I returned back to dry fly, I used leader 0,10 mm and sparse light sedges size 16 with orange tag and it was the key, I got all rising fish in my area. They were probably rising for some small sedges or olives.

But the fly in my stomach drilled my head. I went for the dinner with some Belgian friends, so I ordered big boar steak and chips and went home. After I came to work next day I called to my doctor. He told me, that this small things usually go through without problem, but it is necessary  to eat 1 kilo of sauerkraut to encase it and next to check my excrements. I have small kids and I have their “shit-age” just behind me, but exploration of my shit was a little stronger coffee for me.  More over, I had been already in toilet in the morning after breakfast. So the doctor recommended me to go to hospital to the X-rays. So I ate pork, dumplings and double sauerkraut for lunch, visited again toilet and after work I went to hospital. In the waiting room, there was about ten people with different injuries and sorrowful faces which lighted up immediately after I told my story to nurse. But the end of the story was happy as the fly was already not in my intestines. However, I a little regret the X-ray picture with the hook in my stomach, I should go to hospital sooner, it would be hit in Facebook

(thy fly was either taken away by the steak or Jindřich Knapek make hooks not from steel

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