My fly fishing friends invited me for a short trip to Denmark, I needed to rest so I agreed, our goal was to explore the southwest of the island of Fyn. There had been several groups from the Czech Republic before us, the fishing was good in March, while at the beginning of April it was very difficult. But it was getting warmer, so we were looking forward to it. The trip went perfectly, the crew and the food were great, and in 4 days we caught over 50 trouts and two were over 60 cm, most were around 40 cm.
People ask me about any secrets how to succeed, equipment etc. I think it is not too complicated, success is based on luck and also on own activity, if 4 people come to a spot and they have no a take in 30 minutes, it’s time to move. I prefer to fish in deeper places with plenty of plants and also always in windward side and in waves. I fish with the special Hanák Competition See Trout rod, I still have two first prototypes, they are strong for long casting, but have a fine sensitive tip.
I use exclusively Airflo 40+ fast intermediate line, 5 m long tippet from 0.28 mm flurocarbon  and two flies, as a dropper I have my Danish olive and as the point fly my version of Ullsock. This year we also caught something on a shrimp. I won’t publish the exact places where we caught fish, those who know them will recognize the pictures, those who don’t know them have to find them themselves
I greatly appreciate the work of our Danish colleagues connected with the stocking of trout and also their protection agains predators and monitoring, if you want to maintain long-term quality fishing, I would not be afraid to increase the price of licenses and also to increase the size limit to 50 cm. A sad surprise was the complete destruction of the nice spot on the south coast of the Helnaes peninsula caused by a huge storm, hopefully the seabed and seaweed will recover soon.

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I have recently not too much time for fishing, but Jirka came to help me to arrange some things connected with the upcoming championships, we visited Rožmberk and Vyšší Brod, and finally we moved to Květoňov lake to wet our fishing gear. Water was not as clear as we expected, so I decided to fish lures and look for some stockies, Jirka was fishing nymphs, finally we caught about 10 fish and we had some more takes, which was not bad.

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This weekend was discharge in Vltava river again decreased for three periods, the water always went down in the afternoon, and although we attended two balls, I found time and power for two short visits of the river, such an offer can not be refused And it paid off, I caught a few nice fish including one barbell and few rainbows over 50 cm, the blobs did not work so well, but I have other flies in my box

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We usually open fly-fishing season in Vltava 24 on January 1st, but this year it was impossible due to flood. Discharge in the Vltava had been high since Christmas and it culminated at 160 m3/s, our flies are not heavy enough for this conditions But the discharge was purposefully decreased due to a verification of the flood damages in the town of Český Krumlov from last weekend for three days. Together with relatively nice weather this was the right impulse to start this fishing season and also to check the condition of the fish stock after the flood. Fishing was great, rainbows survived the flood without problems, the were exactly where I expected them to be, and they weren’t shy thanks to minimal fishing pressure during last weeks. I managed two visits, one with Honza and Tobi and the second one with Jakub from which are also the pictures. I caught over 20 rainbows together, 5 trouts had over 2 kg and the biggest one had 62 cm and 3,8 kg, all fish were in a great condition. My friends were also successful. I even saw one hatching big stonefly and Tobi and Honza saw few rising fish.

We have short rest just now as the water is high again, but we expect next decrease of flow in the end of February and this will be hopefully also start of the dry fly season due to the hatch of stonefly.

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Winter came without warning, it started with heavy snowfall, when it fell as much as 70 cm of snow per day, then came frosts over -15°C, and after a week it warmed up again, but we managed all the winter activities, so it can be spring again

First I had to go to save our floating island on Lipno Lake, which was apparently cut off by some poacher, it was quite fun in the snowfall, especially when our boat engine broke down in the middle of frozen Lipno. But we managed it, we disassembled it and stored it on the shore, where it will wait until spring.

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We also went to Lipno with Blanka and managed to skate, cross country ski and snow windsurf in one day, no one got hurt, so it was very successful trip

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I also found one afternoon for Vltava 24, it was not easy, water is low and clear and fishing pressure is high, I had not so many takes, but if you don’t blank, it’s not a bad day.

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David invited me to Květoňov lake, it has been really good during last days according his stories. The conditions looked ideal, we were fishing different places, slowly moved to the tributary part of the lake, but we saw not any rising fish and we had not any take. In and hour and half we returned to main basin and decided to let flies sink deeper. David had first take on the sinking flies at an estimated three meters, so I decided to try egg flies 3 metres under bang. Finally, we caught about fifteen fish between us. Whether it was a change of weather or a change of location, or whether it was a change of depth that led to the success, we will never know, maybe combination of all factors :-) But the big fish had 60 cm and over 3 kilos and it was very tasty

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I took my colleague from work Jakub who is starting with fly fishing to one day trip to Warm Vltava. We were in water at about lunch time, as it was nothing hatching, we started with nymphs and caught few graylings. We awaited a massive hatch of olives, but it took only one hour, still we caught some nice fish on dry. It total, we caught about 25 graylings, what a nice day.

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As it is middle of October, so we had probably last WS day on our lake, so it is time to evaluate, it was not a bad season, we have had good wind in Lipno from April, mainly June and July were great. Hopefully I will have time for some good fishing before the end of the year and coming winter will be nice and I will make some good winter windy sport, this time without injury

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In the middle of September we organised our traditional competition in Vltava River under Rožmberk. Czech A-team was competing in the World and therefore there was a chance to get a good result for the rest of competitors. I helped with preparation of draw and database as usually and I also tied some flies. I prepared three rods: one standard nymphing, one dry-dropper and one with dry fly.

I started in beat B11, place looked well, I started from the upper border and caught first fine fish under one big stone by the third cast. I was gradually fishing the most promising places, including the opposite bank, and about 15 minutes before the end I had 9 fish, so I decided to try the best pool with the dry-dropper rod. In 10 minutes I had no take, so I picked up the nymphing rod again and caught last fish just before the end. The 10 minutes with the different rod cost me probably a medal, if I had continued nymphing, I would probably have caught one more fish … Libor had also 10 fish and his biggest fish was 1 cm longer then mine, so I was third in the session. In the next round, I was keeping my nymphing rod whole the session and 9 fish brought me second place. In the last session, I was fishing one of the best places in Sector A, there was cascade of pools at the opposite bank. Tomáš, who was fishing before me, caught 11 fish on nymph, so decided to try dry fly to have better chance to catch fish in shallow parts under trees. But it was not good and I wasted 15 minutes, so I took the nymphing rod and finished with 7 fish and Libor had also 7 fish and his biggest fish was 2 cm longer then mine … In total, I was 7th, which is not bad, but one more fish or few centimetres could gave me bronze medal, it is always about one fish or one centimetre. And in this style of competition, when sessions take only 75 minutes, the most important thing is to make proper decisions.

We caught 1088 fish, there was caught few nice trout but the majority were  coarse fish like dace, chub and roach, which is not good for trout water.

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We will host four subsequent World fly fishing championships in the coming years and Mario Podmanik, President of the FIPS MOUCHE, came for an inspection last week. We visited competition sectors and hotels, talked about programme, rules modifications, budget, and other things connected with the organisation of this events, but we also drank few beers, talked about fishing and life and fished the competition sectors. We expect that all fish species will by eligible and minimal size limit will be 20 cm.

We started in the Malše River under Kaplice, which will host one 3,5 km long sector of the Ladies comp and maybe also Youth comp. I had already visited lower part with Finnish ladies and middle part with Czech and English ladies, so we went to the upper part of the planned competition sector. This smaller river hosts good mixed stock composed mainly by coarse fish, we caught chub, dace, bleak, roach, and perch, but brown trout created about 25 % of catches. We expect that dominant fishing technique will be dry fly combined with nymphing and dry-dropper technique, maybe also wet fly. We were fishing about three hours and caught about 40 fish between us, I hope that fishing during championship will be at least as good. Mario was fishing only dry fly, I combined nymphing and dry fly and at the end I caught few fish also on wet march brown.

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We stayed in the Penzion Herbertov and in the morning I took Mario to my favourite place above Rožmberk. We again caught a lot of fish, I hooked three rainbows of about 50 cm, but I got only one, the other two smashed my 0,12 mm tippet. We also caught few brook trouts, many brownies, and in the pockets along the banks also few cyprinid fish like chub, dace and roach. Next we moved to Sport Hotel Zátoň, which will be one of the bases of the championships, and next we visited Restaurant Rybářská bašta for their famous fish soup and kind talk with Franta Kůrka, owner of the Restaurant and local fly fishing legend.

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We finished in the upper part of the “Devil stones” under the dam of the Lipno lake, fishing was not so easy, but I managed to catch about 15 countable fish in 2 hours including nice brook trout (on the very first cast) and one bigger brown trout (in the same place). Mario caught about 10 fish, my local knowledge of this difficult water gave me a smaller advantage . We started with nymphs, but finished with dries just before sunset to be at home safe and sound.

It was a pleasant start to the demanding work that will last more than two years, so hopefully everything will go according to our expectations and to the satisfaction of all participants.

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