I have one project aimed on floating wetlands in the north-west part of our country, which is famous for the largest Czech trout river named Ohře. Surprisingly, I always find my fly-fishing gear during my field trips to this region

River is really cold as it flows from big reservoirs, and it is full of weed beds which hide deep pools with trophy trout, a brown trout over 70 cm is caught there every year, fish over 40 cm are not rare. Dry fly fishing for this monsters belongs to the cream of the fly fishing in our country. Fishing is not easy there, fish are under high fishing pressure so they are relatively spooky, and movement in the river is demanding due to large weed beds, slippery bottom and deep danger pools. To catch 3-4 fish per hour is a good result. If you see a rising fish, it is always worth to go there and try to catch it.

Last time I was there in August and I spent one afternoon and one morning in the river. Fishing was great, fish were occasionally but continuously rising all the time, so I was mainly fishing with different patterns of dry fly. I was not so lucky to meet a monster, but few browns over 40 cm were not bad, and the rainbow which took my new emerger pattern tied according a YouTube video from a Spanish Champion made my day. See you in Autumn

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I visited Vltava 24 for three times in January, it was always not bad, but I made no picture. Blobs were not working well as fish were a little smarter after high autumnal and Christmas fishing pressure, therefore it was necessary to use smaller nymphs and also to reduce diameter of tippet to 0,14 mm. During first two weeks of February, there was high discharge in the river, I had too much work and we also paid attention to other winter sports (indoor beach volleyball, winter windsurfing, fly tying, …. . The drop of discharge together with the warming pulled me back to the water yesterday afternoon. I was fishing mainly with dry dropper system, I finally hooked 9 rainbows in two hours, majority in the range of 45 – 50 cm and in the great condition, the best fly was PTN with orange bead. I saw one fish rising and one stonefly hatching, and also first spring flowers blossoming. Spring is coming, I expect first hatch of stonefly in two weeks !!!

Last trout was invited for dinner, meat from the tail was marinated in the lemon juice, mixed with teaspoon of Dijon mustard and herbs and served on toast, from the front part of the trout I made pasta with vegetable, white wine and Feta cheese, simply great two-course meal for five people from one trout

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In the first half of December we were facing Covid, but luckily we caught a mild version, so I had one day fever and chills and next I was OK. So I still had time in the second half of the month to visit Vltava 24, sometimes alone, sometimes with Honza or Tobi, I caught every time 4-6 trouts in one hour and half, few fish had over 50 cm. I also tried spinning rod and used different baits and streamers and I caught few smaller pike. It was nice, I´m always satisfied if I catch at least one fish in this time of the year. Weather was relatively mild, but after Xmas it cooled down and during my last visit, the river was very cold, on the surface was floating ice and I had not any single take. Not a bad closing day of the year

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But my friend Tobi was very successful in December, in one week he caught three fish over 90 cm on a twister, one pike of 115 cm, one carp of 90 cm and another pike over 90 cm. Franta Hanák added nice barbel, I borrowed pictures from their FB profiles.

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During Xmas holiday we visited our weekend house at Lipno Lake, we enjoyed ice skating and I made nice pictures of ice floes washed ashore, and what was my surprise, that there was a smaller place without ice on the surface and there was a fishing boat on it, are they brave or mad? We call them patients

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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.

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Some people say that we have no winter, but I like this weather. Of course, we have lack of snow, but winter and spring have still a lot of time to fill our groundwater supplies by a snow or rain. In mountains, there is colder, and in lowlands there are temperatures during days above zero which is good for fishing It is true, that 14 degrees during the last few days was pretty much for the coldest month in the year, and strong warm south-west wind almost lured to windsurfing, but we will see.

The spring weather was irresistible and as I finished two annual reports from my big projects, nothing prevented me to go fishing to Vltava 24. Water was a little higher, but relatively clear despite the night rain and I caught nice rainbow and brook trout in five minutes. Tobi visited me on the way home and as I just caught another nice rainbow, he jumped to car and hurried home for gear. He returned 30 minutes later and I already had six fish and caught another three before he started fishing.  I gave him successful flies and let him go first as I was already satisfied. Finally, we caught 19 fish between us, including the nase on the blob. Majority of trout took nymph, my favourite blob got only two trouts and the nase. Surprisingly, several fish had fresh injuries on their tail, I can not imagine what could case it, maybe otter or mink, cormorants or herons usually stab the back of fish and pike leave the tooth marks creating an arch.

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Not only fishing is our life, I´m adding few pictures from ice skating on the Lipno Lake

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I had another great day in Vltava 24, this time with Michal Rypl, who was novice at the fishery. So I took him to the all interesting places, showed him all the secret flies and also how to fish in this water. It’s not as easy as you would expect, fish change their position, last week they were only in the deeper and the slowest parts, this time they moved a little a stayed in the end of riffles in mouths of pools and along sides of the main current, still relatively deep. Nymphing is still the most effective fishing, streamer is too quick, I was fishing with nymphs behind another colleague who was using a D5 line and streamers, he was without a take and I caught 7 fish after him. Not only blob-jig worked, also PTN with an orange or pink neck, in the sunny periods with a gold bead, in the cloudy periods with a silver one. Size 12 was the best, leader 0,18 mm HC. Michal is a good pupil and he took my advice quickly as you can see in the gallery.
I had a nice story, I tried two colours of the blob-jig, one in the point and the other in the dropper, I hooked a rainbow of about 2 kg on the point fly, the fish was jumping a little and took about 15m of line, but next it calmed down and I pulled it to me. I could not lift it from bottom in the strong current, so I moved a little downstream to be under the fish and I was preparing the net, and suddenly two rainbows jumped from the water, both of them had a blob-jig in the mouth and I was clear. For this case, 0,18 mm is not enough

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The Lipno Reservoir was almost full after Christmas and in the mountains, there was almost 2 m of snow, so the Vltava River Authority decided to release water from the reservoir and make enough space for the spring melting. The discharge from the lake had been 20 m3/s for the last 4 weeks, which resulted in the value of over 30 m3/s in the Vltava 24 in Boršov, although the weather was relatively mild during the last weeks, the flow in the Vltava river was too high for fishing. So I paid attention to finish some work, to preparation of the European Championship and also to tying flies. Till last Friday ….

On Friday, the discharge from the reservoir was decreased to 10 m3/s and the weather forecast promised for the weekend sunny and temperatures above zero  …

On Saturday morning, I watched the phenomenal performance by Ester Ledecká during the Winter Olympics (I was windsurfing with her in the same bay in Greece last summer ) and next I got two very similar messages from Tobi and Honza, who also noticed the drop of the discharge. We settled the meeting  in the camp at 13:30. I was there 13:00, Tobi 13:05 and Honza 13:10 . We always compete and who is the first in the water has always an advantage

The river looked great, only the cold front coming from the north partly covered sky by clouds, so the temperature stayed under the zero for the whole afternoon. I was going upstream from the camp with Tobi, Honza decided to go a little bit downstream. I was fishing with blob in the point and nymph on the dropper, same Tobi. I found a suitable place in the first pool, and during the third cast I saw visible hit to the line, I struck, and I was missing the point fly, probably a monster fish. I took another blob from my fly box, and after a few casts I had the second take, and on the blob was another fish with the first blob in its tail. So the story about the big fish was away, but the decent rainbow in the net warmed my frozen fingers and the first blob returned to the box. Next strike I got a few casts later, and it was a silver full finned rainbow over 60 cm, we were observing each other eye to eye for a few moments, I saw the blob in the corner of its mouth, and I imagined great fillets, the fish understood what I was thinking about, and ran upstream, took all my leader, nymphing line, a few metres of backing and smashed my leader over a stone. So I went to the bank to make a new leader and let Tobi the hot spot. He had another three takes and 2 fish in my hand. Great start of the day.
Next we moved downstream to the next pool and we caught there another 7 fish between us. While we were having a break on the bank in a short sunny period to thaw frozen reels, rods and leaders, Jan Čerkl, owner of the local pub in the camp and keen fly-fisherman, brought us espresso and small beer. What a great service and a great life . Honza had also few takes in the downstream part.

The best fly was orange blob jig as usually in this time of the year, but we got a few fish also on the “traditional” jigs like Orange tag and PTN. I was fishing extended Hanák Alpen nymph rod size 5, I started with 0,16 mm fluorocarbon, but I replaced it by 0,18 after losing the big fish.

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Dear fly fishing friends, first of all, I wish you Happy New Year full of love, happiness, contentment and, of course, fishing. From the upcoming year 2018, I will cooperate on all activities connected with fly fishing with Patrik Jedlička under one brand CzechFlyFish.com. Patrik Jedlička is my friend, great fly-fisherman and owner of the luxury hotel Annín at Otava river. If you would like to visit us, let me know and we can arrange details.

January 1st – first trip of the year to Vltava 24

Mild weather on 1st of January was simply irresistible, so I called Tobi after lunch weather he had already bought fishing permit for the Vltava 24 and if he was already sobering. Answers was “YES, of course, Im just packing my gear” ….. and we met at the bridge in Boršov with Šindy in 15 minutes. After the windy morning, the west wind calmed down and sun was peeking out of the clouds, it was about 8 degrees above zero, simply ideal conditions for the winter fishing. In 1,5 hour, we hooked nice 11 rainbows of size 45-55 cm, a few barbel and coarse fish, not a bad start of the season, what do you thing? I saw also few hatching olives and midges and also a rainbow rising. Do you know another water in the Czech Republic where you can catch fish such quality in January? As the new year, so throughout the year

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We aimed last few visits of our trophy part in Vltava river on the pike fishing. I did not have a special pike rod, so I asked my friend Pavel, who is rod-builder, to cat my old lake rod by 20 cm and “sharpen it”. Tying of big streamers is interesting and fishing with them is hard work and strong rod helps. I was not so successful like Franta and Honza, but I caught few smaller pikes and rod worked well. One week ago we observed with Honza a big crocodile from bridge and estimated its length of about 1 m, and last Thursday morning Honza called me that it is exactly 96 cm .

Last Saturday was not so cold, so we went again to Vltava with Honza, this time to the lower part of the river stretch. We started with pike fishing, but I had only few follows of smaller pikes.  In the end, I decided to wet also some trout streamers because the place looked like a home of a big rainbow, my leader was not ideal   sink tip line,  1 m of fluorocarbon 0,50 mm, 30 cm pike wire, and next 2 m of 0,22 fluorocarbon with two black-orange streamers. After few casts I got strong hit to the line and decent rainbow was jumping above the surface of the river. What a surprise, finally I missed another take and one fish broke my leader, so it was time to go home. Hopefully we we’ll be lucky for few more mild days before the end of the year.

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Hydro energy provider CEZ finished hydro-peaking two days ago as they have to service both turbines in Lipno hydro power plant and we can expect stable flow in Vltava river for next two weeks. I was whole day on business trip in Prague, I had few successful appointments and I was hurrying home, I asked in doors whether somebody would like to go in-line skating with me, and two seconds after I saw all three refusals I had bag with fly fishing gears in my hand and I was heading to Vltava 24. I decided to try streamers, I took Sage X-AXIS size 8, sink tip line and 0,28 mm leader, I don´t like to underestimate my equipment when I expect good fish. I tested streamer Hanak Hooks, they are simple uncompromising, I had three takes in one hour, and I landed 3 trouts of the same size of about 2,5 kg, what a nice evening. Thanks to Jirka for picture.

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