Covid restrictions limited travelling this summer, so apart from our trip to Slovakia we were staying at Lipno Lake for the whole summer. I visited a river a few times, but I focused more on the predatory fish in Lipno Lake. I was fishing both with artificial lures and on a life or dead bait, I preferred fishing with a dead bite on the Drahkowitch system. I caught many zander, few pike and perch and also one decent asp, I thing, that I have never returned without a fish. But one day was exceptional, I was fishing on life roach and bleak and had few takes from smaller zander. Smaller zander rarely takes fish seriously and runs away like a bigger fish (size limit of bite fish is 15 cm), it only sinks floater, stays on place, and releases the bite and again. If you strike immediately, you usually miss or has the fish hooked in jaws and you can release it without a serious injury. So I caught two small zander and also missed few takes, so I had the last life bite fish  – roach of about 18 cm, so I used a bigger floater and released the fish to the lake.  After one minute, the floater sunk by about 15 cm, I thought that it is work of the life bite, but it moved slowly and sunk deeper, so I expected again a small zander, so I struck and what was my surprise when I felt a big resistance, fish was heavy and I could not pull it from the depth, I estimated zander of 1 metre, but finally after about 10 minutes I saw a decent pike jumped from water, I was lucky as it not smashed my 0,30 mm mono tipped without wire,  it had 90 cm. It spat out the dead bait fish, so I decided to give the bait fish another chance and cast it back to water. After 5 minutes, I caught 65 cm zander on it and could go home, some days are happy days

We also enjoined a lot of windsurfing, mainly in the end of August and in September, it is a pity  that we could not go to Lefkada this year, hopefully next year will be OK.

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In the summer, I fish in Lipno lake for zander, sometimes alone, sometimes with a friend, sometimes with “gumi”, sometimes with life bait. I´m presenting few pictures from the last summer

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And if there is windy, I focus on windsurfing

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After snow strom and rains, almost all rivers in our region were flooded, so I decided to visit my cottage and prepare some things for windsurfing and next to go to Vltava 29 Devil stones , which flows from Lipno lake and it is always fishable, and next to go to Květoňov. On the way to cottage I came around to Bruno for coffee and found him just packing things for fishing so he joined me.

It was still very could, in the mountains was still about 30 cm of snow, and water in Vltava was a little dirty, so fish did not cooperate to much, we caught about 20 fish between us including some nice browns and one rainbow in one and half hour. Not bad start of the day, I´m always satisfied if I catch at least one fish.

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Next we moved to Květoňov, Bruno is mainly zander-fishing specialist in Lipno lake and he had never been there, so I prepared rod a leader for him, demonstrated casting, how to move lures and how to hang before recasting, and I gave him rod and went to prepare my rod. After few seconds Bruno lifted rod and a fish was on …. and he caught zander Next he hooked also pike but it bit the leader. Simply predatory fish specialist.

I caught two rainbows on lures and 7 on dry fly including nice 47 long older fish which was jumping like salmon, great fun with 5 weight rod and 0,14 mm leader.

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I had holiday with my family during first two weeks of July, we stayed at our cottage at Lipno lake and I made also some fishing. I was fishing Vltava above the Lipno lake with Honza Vender, but we caught only coarse fish and few graylings, I thing, that grayling moved upstream because of intensive run of coarse fish from the lake. I also visited Vltava 28, Vltava 29 and Vltava 24, but I will make separate posts.
In fact, I had no much time to pay attention to Lipno lake, but I can write two things.
I found out how to catch asp praying on the small fry along the banks. They were not selective and ate also numerous terrestrials falling on the surface and buzzers. I found out a lethal method, I made set-up from three big black glass-buzzers with green-holo rib and red-holo cheeks on midge tip line, I was wading to the lake about 10 metres far from bank and waiting for an asp attack. After the fish attacked fry in shallow water in casting distance, I casted behind the fish and closed its way back to the deep water, I used quick figures of eight and the take was strong pull, almost like in England.  More over I found, that smoked asp is delicious, so I thing, that they will have a difficult time … first day I noticed 7 fish praying close my shipyard and after one week, there were only 3  :-)
One day I was fishing for zander with Bruno and we had no any take, Bruno said, that it happens once a year Next day, when I was on trip with children and he caught 12 fish…
I bought new echo-sounder to find interesting structures on the bottom which helps during zander-fishing. First day I decided to test some ruined houses on the bottom close to opposite bank of the lake, I marked them on the old military map, found them using GPS and anchored in casting distance. You can see the form,er houses on picture below. the blue area is present are of Lipno lake, on the right side you can see the pristine river bed of Vltava river.
In the first place I caught small pike (you maybe noticed the orange blob in the tail of the bait ), in the next place I tried several types of wobblers and rubber baits, but I had no take. So I decided to move, I casted wobbler behind the ruin and started rowing to try trolling on the way to the next place. The brake of the reel began to sign immediately and I was thinking that I got stuck as the resistance did not moved, after few seconds I felt slow pull and my heart almost stopped, it had to be a good fish. When I saw decent zander with the wobbler in the mouth after few minutes, I imagined nice steaks, and fish probably sensed the danger and made quick swipe to side and it was gone … At the next ruin I found a slope falling from 2 to 5 metres. I let a big rubber bait sinking along the slope and when it stopped, I struck and after few minutes another zander was finally in the net. I put it to the keep-net and rowed to next place. But the cord was probably rotten and the fish ran away with the net, hope it was able to escape … I decided not to chance my luck more an went home …

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