Posts Tagged ‘grayling’

Warm Vltava

Říjen 18, 2023 - 7:59 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

p1070714 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.

Warm Vltava

Listopad 14, 2022 - 7:54 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

p1060008 Everybody posts pictures with graylings and also I could not resist and I visited our best grayling river Warm Vltava. Mild weather still not lifted olives to hatch and therefore fishing is mainly about nymphing. I started at about lunchtime, nothing was hatching, nothing was rising, so I was going relatively quickly downstream and explored suitable places with team of nymphs, which I was changing relatively often, and  I caught a few smaller graylings.  At about 2 o’clock I found  place where 9 graylings were rising. 5 of them had about 25-28cm, 4 were from range 32-34 cm and one had 38 cm. When I saw two another fishermen fishing downstream from me, I decided to return to car and visit another good pool on the way, where I caught another 3 fish on nymph and the best grayling of the day had 39 cm an took ping Bobeš. On the way home I made pictures of fog in the beautiful Vltava River valley, Autumn is nice but short :-(

Otava 6

Říjen 18, 2020 - 9:25 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

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.

Traun River, Austria

Leden 14, 2020 - 9:41 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

p1420259 Few years ago, we were regularly visiting rivers in Austria, mainly Traun River, and mainly in winter. But I have not visited it for last few years, so I very appreciated invitation from my friends Honza and Martin for one-day trip. After higher discharge during Christmas holiday, water level dropped down and conditions looked great. We left home at 5:30 and headed to south. At about 9 we arrived to parking place at river, it was -2°C, and blue sky promised a nice day. Water was very clear and fish were relatively shy, but we finally got about 25 fish between us including few nice rainbows and graylings attacking 50 cm border. I used SAGE Z-AXIS size 5, 0,14 mm fluorocarbon HC and jig nymphs size 14-16. What a nice winter day.

Warm Vltava

Říjen 8, 2019 - 8:41 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

p1410120 I had field work in the Vltava River above the Lipno Reservoir within one of my project, so I took gear to the car, just to be sure :-) At the end, later in the afternoon, I had nice two hours of dry fly action which resulted in the nice pictures below, beautiful fish :-)

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.

 

Broadlands Grayling Classic

Listopad 12, 2018 - 11:22 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

p1370582 We were walking trough the green forest last night of our September workshop, as every night before, and we were talking about our future plans, and Ben Bangham invited me and Martin to the competition which he organises with friends in the River Test, yes THE RIVER TEST, downstream of Romsey.

The conversation was approximately like this:

Ben: Hey Milan, it would be great pleasure to invite you and Martin to Broadlands Classic, you can stay in my home

Milan:  I would like to go, but I have to ask my boss whether I would like to go :-) I´m leaving for competition in Norway tmrw, so we can arrange it after I will return.

Martin: Yeaaah!!!  zeleny-les-3

Andy: If you come, so I’ll pay your flights.

Milan: Super, Andy, thank you very much

Martin: Yeaaaaaah!!!

Adam: Yeaaah!!!

Milan: Is it Farmoor fishable this time of the year? It has been always my dream to visit it.

Simon: If you come, I will take you to Farmoor, I´m best fisherman in this lake

Milan, Martin: Yeaaah!!!

Somchad: Guys, it is great that you are coming, I´m cooking breakfasts and lunches during the competition, next round of mint-shots is on me.

Milan, Martin, Ben, Adam, Andy, Tom: Yeaaaaah!!!

praha Martin remembered only that he is going to England, but no more details …. :-) But we arranged everything, Franta Hanák equipped us with the new brand Superb XP rods, and on Wednesday October 24th evening we drank the last Czech Pilsner beer in Prague airport and two hours later we met with Ben at Heathrow.

On Thursday, we were practising the river. It was very cold and northern wind did not increased perceived temperature. Martin had leaky waders, so I borrowed him one of my waders as I always take two for foreign trips. But I found, that I left all warm underpants at Ben´s house, so Martin borrowed me some. … We were drinking coffee and chatting with friends for about one hour, but finally we moved downstream to find a suitable place to fish.

p1370573 River was relatively busy as a lot of teams utilised the last day of practice. We found a suitable place at an island and I started to prepare leader, and I pulled out my competition leader from the nymphing line …. But I tied it up to the reserve reel with the floating line and it was possible to fish with it. Martin jumped to the water and caught a nice brown on the very fist cast. I stopped making of the leader and ran to make a picture of the first fish of the trip. Before I finished my leader, Martin was calling me back as he got a nice grayling … Finally I could go fishing, I found a nice hole between weed in the channel behind the island, first cast, take, I missed and all the leader tangled in the willow above me… It was to high, so I had to cat it, “kurva !!!”.

p1370597 I sat down to a bench, breathing slowly and observing swans and after five minutes I decided to make a new leader. Since then, it had been fine (I caught few nice graylings and small trout and salmon parr) before I went into a deeper water and found out that also my waders were leaking …. But it was not necessary to go to depths during the practice day and we really enjoyed the fishing. Later, we were fishing one nice pool for about one hour, and we caught many graylings, one sea trout and one nice brown, I could estimate about 25 fish from one pool. We decided to move a little downstream and another couple of fishermen replaced us in the hot spot, Martin told me with a slightly ironic tone ”I´m curious what they would catch after us” …. and one of them caught brown trout of about 60 cm on the very first cast just in the place when I was staying two minutes ago ….

p1370618 After the lunch we moved a little upstream to see another part of the river, and after about ten minutes of fishing I heard strange sounds, I turned back and saw Martin sunk in the water to the neck trying to climb to a bush at the bank :-) clay soil and weed are treacherous :-) so we had not any dry waders :-) Martin moved to the fishing hut to change his clothes and I was looking for next suitable places for fishing, which was extremely difficult in the river full of weed. But in the rifles, just above the sandy and gravel places, I caught some graylings. Finally, we found some flies which were working, and also typical places where to look for fish.

p1370641 On Friday, the river was closed to give fish a rest before the competition, so we managed the trip to Farmoor. Simon picked us up at Bens house at 7:30, he booked two boats in the Farmoor II, I was in one boat with Simon and Martin was fishing with Ben James Fox. We had a great English breakfast in the sailing club and after some difficulties with the engine :-) we headed to the upwind part of the lake together with sailing boats and windsurfers, I estimated gusts of the northern wind up to 15 m/s. . … Simon prepared nice snake flies, we decided to fish close to the surface, finally, we enjoyed sunny ten times , ten times windy and ten times heavy showers, and we had 9 fish in the boat, and if I had heard Simons recommendation and used stronger tipped, we would have three more, what a nice day :-)

After fishing we moved to the hotel close to the river, We had a nice room with a queen bed and one big duvet, pure Martin :-) but Ben asked somebody in the reception of the hotel and Martin could sleep at sofa with his own duvet :-) In the evening we attended the draw of competition and opening banquet and we met a lot of old friends from all over the Europe.

I thing, that it is necessary to explain system of the competition. They were competing 40 teams created by two competitors, three sessions fishing and three sessions controlling. Both competitors fish the same peg. After end of the session, the team which was fishing in the first session is controlling the same peg in the next session and the same team which was controlling them. So you can see another team fishing before you or after you. Which can be sometimes very useful, and sometime very painful :-)

John Emerson brought new waders for Martin, I created special underpants from plastic bag, so we were looking for a nice dry day full of fishing :-) Day D started with scraping of ice from the cars windows and by the great breakfast prepared by Somchad. The northern wind was strengthening and definitively not worming up :-) We were controlling during first session the peg No 20 (the most upstream peg, as pegs were marked bottom up), so we had enough time to warm up and to prepare rods. Spanish guys caught only three graylings and one sea trout, and they shoved us two productive places. In the peg 19, Max was controlling Tom who could not catch one big grayling which we could observe from the bank in the deep pool at the border between our pegs. Max shoved me his leader, and as I offer “life time warranty” for clients of our workshop, I rebuilt his leader for the pool and chose flies from his fly box. Five minutes after the start of our session Max got the queen of the pool :-)

p1370585 In our peg 20, we caught 11 graylings, two nice browns and one sea trout, and the 11 countable fish was enough to win the session. Ben said “very good” :-) . After great lunch, we were controlling peg 9 just under the fishing hut. Rising olives provoked fish to feeding activity and the team Manningford Monkies caught 16 fish and lost maybe another 10, so they hooked majority of the active fish in the pool. Adam, who was helping with the organisation, commented their approach by “I thing that you guys are making Czechs sad :-) ” . Mainly the double hook up 1 minute before the end of the session was the most painful thing for us:-) After them, we caught only 8 fish which was not good and we finished in the 8 place of the session.

Lynchy offered us to give a lift to the hotel, but he did not know the way, so he decided to follow Tom, but he also did not know the way …. but after 45 minutes of sightseeing tour we reached our hotel, and when I took my mobile from the bag, I found 5 miscalls from Ben and Martin found keys from Ben´s car in his pocket :-) But finally, the river was only 5 minutes from Hotel, so somebody took Ben to the Hotel for keys …. and we finally successfully met in the pub for dinner. In the morning we had to pack all things as we had to leave the hotel, and when we arrived at 7:10 to the parking place in front of the hotel, nobody was there :-) But Ben returned for us and we still had enough time to enjoy the great breakfast :-)

On Sunday morning, we were fishing first session in the peg 2, which was not bad. But we again caught only 8 fish, and gained 8th place in the last session and also in the final ranking. Finally I won a nice soft shell jacket in the raffle. Andy was so kind and took as to the airport after the competition and we even found possible cooperation in our businesses  :-)

heathrow To summarise our fishing, we had not enough time to practice in the dirty water full of drifting weed when all competitors jumped to the water and we did not have some effective flies for this conditions. We won only first session, in the clear water in the peg 20. Our draw was not bad, at least for the third place, but we were not fishing for 100%. It was great privilege to attend such friendly and well organised event in the famous River Test, in which you can catch grayling up to 45 cm, brown trout up 60 cm, sea trout, monster chub or even salmon.

To summarise our trip, after all the difficulties, we were very happy to sit in the pub in the airport. Thanks to the great care from our friends and mainly from Ben, Andy and Simon, we enjoyed the trip very much despite of the all difficulties and I hope, we had not done the shame, next year we will have more experience with this very special style of fishing.

Some pictures you can also find at this blog:

http://iflyfish.info/blog/24-25-oct-2018-broadlands-river-test-part-12

http://iflyfish.info/blog/26-27-oct-2018-broadlands-grayling-classic-part-22

 

Erik Eikre Invitational, Glomma river, in the gold colour

Říjen 15, 2018 - 11:15 am Komentáře nejsou povoleny

p1370493 Me and Honza Vender again attended in colours of the Hanák Competition Team the friendly competition organised by our friend Erik Eikre on the Glomma River, Norway. Franta Hanák could not go this year because of busy work, but he equipped us by the brand new Hanák Superb XP nymphing rods. We asked our mate Michal Rypl to complete the team, our ambitions were naturally high after the fourth place in the last year. The journey was a little stressful as I was wrong about the time of the departure of the flight for an hour and we left our home by an hour later …. but we caught the flight, pick up of the rented car in Oslo was without problem, Michal proved to be a great driver, and in the evening we met Erik and other friends in the Telneset Fishing Lodge.

vender1 The Glomma River looked great, only the morning temperatures under zero were not pleasant, so we had longer breakfasts and the air temperature reached zero at about 10 O’clock  and with enough of caffeine, chocolate and rum in blood, the fishing was endurable :-) . First day we were practising the river, we moved a little downstream from the camp and the local style of fishing for grayling was mainly for Michal something different to his experience from little home waters. We caught first fish immediately, both on nymphs and squirmies, the sun shone through the clouds, Honza brought for lunch great sausages, I expect that we hooked about 60 fish between us, we also caught few fish just under 50 cm limit, so we very enjoyed the first day. The first day of practice we focused on the adaptation to the local conditions, we tested our flies and mainly our equipment, 0,12 mm fluorocarbon was strong enough, new rods and hooks worked well, and I did not lose any single fish during the day.

Second day we were practising the lake, which was something unknown and challenging for us, we have no grayling in still-waters in our country. I get important tips from Franta  Hanák and Martin Drož and also from Erik and Nuno, so we had a rough plan what to do. Weather changed to a small blizzard, the snow showers when snow was falling horizontally :-) were changing rapidly with the sunny periods, even the journey to the lake on the summer tiers was real adrenaline. But we found a sheltered bay in the west coast of the lake and Honza caught a nice fish on the very first cast. We found how to get fish close to the bank and also in the distance and we left lake with the clear tactic for the competition.

Last day of the practice we returned to the river to prove our experience and flies and also to a little work on the team tactic, which is very important in the river of this size. After the lunch we decided to go fishing to the place at road, where almost all teams had been practising, to test fishing after the high fishing pressure which is the most important thing in all competitions. In the first round, everybody catches fish, but the final result is always created in the last rounds. In the evening I attended the captains meeting and draw and I had “lucky hand” to take relatively good rotation starting by two rounds in the river.

p1370467 For the competition days, the weather improved and it was relatively warm, however, it was very strong wind mainly during the first day.  I started with Honza on the beat A4, which was not bad, but fish were at the opposite bank and we could not beat Nuno and his team in the beat A7, we had to go for every fish at least 50 m, while in the beat A7 you could catch fish almost from the bank (I expect, that we spent 30 minutes by fishing and 90 minutes by running :-) , but 41 fish and the second place in the sector A were good start of the competition. The second round was won by Honza and Michal with 46 fish from the beat A6 and we moved to the lake in good mood. In the lake, we had a nice rugged beat B7, with few peninsulas and bays. We started upwind, Michal was fishing close to the bank and I was fishing behind him with the intermediate line to catch fish from the distance, in 90 minutes we went through the whole peg and next we returned to the best places, and we finished with 21 fish which meant second victory in the sector and the first place of our team after the first day (2+1+1, 108 fish caught), and also the second place for me in the continuous individual ranking (2+1).

Second day we started in the lake in the beat B4 (on the way to the lake we saw nice dear and moose), I was fishing with Honza and we again gained the victory in the sector with 13 fish (I also caught nice white fish – Corregonus, in Czech is called “síh”, in Norwegian “sik” :-) . Next Honza and Michal caught 8 fish in relatively difficult place B1 which was enough for the second place in the sector, to be serious, it was impossible to beat Anita and Christian who were perfectly fishing in the beat B2. We moved to the river for the last round full of hopes, I was fishing with Michal in the beat A5, and the A4 was occupied by Nuno and Anita. It was strong fight till the very last minute of competition, and we lost battle only by 2 fish 32/30 :-) , but the second place in the sector was enough to win the team competition (2+1+1+1+2+2, 159 fish) and I gained the gold between the individuals (2+1+1+2, 61 fish) while Honza was second (3+1+3+1, 63 fish).

To summarise, I thing, that selection of flies was not too important. We had well balanced equipment, new Hanák Superb XP rods as well as older Superlight worked great. In the river, we used the rods size 3, and 0,12 mm flurocarbon HC, in the lake I used Sage Z-Axis size 5 for longer cats, and we used the 3-size rods for the fishing close to the banks, I used 0,16 and 0,14 mm fluorocarbon.  We did not use squirmies in the river, but smaller nymphs. In the lake, we had good tactic when we covered all fish both close to the bank and from the distance. The most important things both for the river and the lake were “keep tactic”  and  “move and move and move”. It is always the same, to win any competition, you have to fish well and also you have to have the big portion of luckiness :-)

Big thanks to Erik for inviting us to this friendly and well organised event, his passion for improvement of all the details is inspiring (I thing, that organisers of many fly fishing championships at the European and World level could learn a lot from him), and his new application for counting and presenting of results can bring new fresh air to the fly fishing competitions, also big thanks other people staying in the Telneset camp and attending the competition for creating the friendly atmosphere for all the week, simply  “tusen takk og vi får se neste år”!!!

Here you can find links to videos which was made during our trip by Michal.

https://youtu.be/iZI2Mbns6Fs

https://youtu.be/B9V0BLVylG0

https://youtu.be/gCUmZcd5ubE

 

Vltava in Český Krumlov

Listopad 26, 2017 - 1:31 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

p1320634 Maybe one of the last fishing days in the season. After few outings of pike fishing with big streamers, I was missing light nymphing with my new Hanák superlight rod, and also looking forward to test new colours of beads. Nice weather was irresistible, so I went to Vltava river close to Český Krumlov, at first I caught few graylings in the town, it was good message, that grayling is able to survive and to growth after stocking. We stock them regularly in the age of one year and size of about 15 cm inside of the town, where they are sheltered against cormorants. Next I moved a little upstream and caught few browns, chub and also about 20 rainbows. Not monsters, but nice fish in good condition, three of them I took home and made dinner for our family.

People visit in this stressful time psychologists, psychotherapists, therapists, life-coaches, or church, I go fishing, river is my church, therapists and coach :-)

Glomma river, Norway – Eikre-fly Invitational

Říjen 13, 2017 - 9:16 am Komentáře nejsou povoleny

p1320190 Erik Eikre invited Hanák Team to first year of the new fly-fishing competition which he organised on the Glomma river in Norway. Franta Hanák offered me a place in team and this was for me the unreasonable offer. Franta more over covered part of expenses and also supplied our team by great Hanák Superlight rods. Honza, the third member of the team, was guarantee of well-being and good mood during the trip, so it was nothing to solve and I took the place in team. We were travelling two days in advance to have some time for practice, and also a little enjoy fishing in the famous Glomma river. On the way from Oslo we were a little mushrooming and in the evening we reached Telneset, where Erik booked for us great fishing hut close to river. It was great to meet Erik and also Cathrine, I knew them from the World Fly-fishing Championship which I organised in the Czech Republic in 2014, so we had a lot of to talk till the late night. If you meet good friends after long time, you feel, like you parted with them even yesterday. As I have organised Hanák Open competition with similar structure since 2006, we were also talking about organisation of this events and I give to Erik some advice.

p1320126 Next morning we decided to practice close the hut as we were first team in the area, so after great breakfast we prepared rods and walked to river, me and Honza crossed river, and Franta with Cathrine stayed at our bank. I found a nice place on the edge between rapids and pool, casted my nymphs, after few seconds the indicator slowed down, so I lifted rod a little in disbelief, and first Norwegian grayling was on!!! First cast, first fish, it was not a bad start :-) . Whole morning, we were looking for different habitats to localise typical position of fish in the river, and in every suitable place (not shallow – not deep, not fast – not slow :-) we caught a fish mostly of size from 35 cm till 45 cm, so it was great. After quick lunch (I cooked three different bags of instant pasta to create an original flavour :-) ) we moved a little downstream and also enjoyed fishing, finally I got also few fish on dry. In the evening, other teams arrived, so we had again a lot of things to talk ….

Second practice day was running also successful, including the grayling of 49 cm caught by Franta (as usually :-) so we were looking forward to the competition. Our secret method? No secrets, nymphs size 14-16, gold, copper, silver of pink beads, pheasant tail, peacock or black body.

p1320249 Competition had similar schedule like Hanák Open held in Wales or the Czech Republic: two members of team were fishing together in one peg and the third one was controlling neighbouring team. It consisted from 6 rounds, so everybody was fishing 4 rounds and controlling 2 rounds. Competition give us all we had expected, many nice fish (it was caught 996 graylings in total, average length of fish was 38 cm, longest fish had 50 cm), great weather (in the morning was -3°C and during the day we enjoyed heavy snowfall :-) , a lot of friendship (controller was always very helpful and gave us good description of peg, when I was controlling Geriatrics team, Stein had problem to make leader in the snow fall, so I made it for him and he caught on it three fish in the last 10 minutes :-) , tight results (differences between teams from 2nd to 4th place was created in fact by one single fish), nice prices (Erik wisely brought nice medals for first 4 teams, as he said, he hates to be 4th :-) . Erik also made the detailed statistic of catches during individual rounds which offered all teams possibility to compare the results and also to improve competition for next year. I hope to be there again, thank you Erik for the great week.

p1320070 Concerning equipment, Franta supplied us by three Superlight nymphing rods 10 ft size 3 and two 9 ft size 3 for dry fly. The rods totally got me, there are soft enough to fish with nymphs size 18 and leader 0,10 but strong enough to fish nymphs size 14 and securely hook and play graylings up 50 cm. In this four days I hooked maybe 120 fish including graylings up 47 cm and I did not lost any single fish. During the practice we started fishing with fluorocarbon Hanák Competition 0,14 mm, but we decided to test also 0,12 mm and we found, that it is strong enough and we used it during whole competition. I twice got to the net couple of fish. For dry fly I used 0,10 mm and it was also OK.