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.

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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I spent two weeks of holiday at Lipno lake with my family and I also managed some fishing. I visited twice trophy stretch at Vltava 29 under dam of Lipno. During second visit I was accompanied by Bruno, who got permit as the birthday present. I have to say that Bruno is already good flyfisherman. Fishing was not easy due to warmer water and due to the weed, which was two times more extensive comparing situation in June. But we caught fish in every suitable place, also some nice fish, our catch included perch (Bruno caught only perch during first hour , rainbow, roach, brook trout and brown trout. Bruno lost one big brown under weed, he had had no experience with this conditions. After strike you can not give to fish any centimetre :-). The best fly was pheasant tail nymph with pink bead, in the afternoon worked also the dry fly. Fish were not actively rising, but they could not resist bigger sedges and emergers. Bigger fish we found in the deep under weed and it was question of right casting technique to get nymph to this zone without snagging in weed.

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I got an interesting e-mail from Andy Kapral from South Africa in May, the subject of the e-mail was “I dream to fish in Czech rivers”. Andy has Czech origin, his parents escaped from our country from communist in 1969 and they met in Vienna and after  few years in Austria they got visa to South Africa. Andy was born already in Vienna, so in fact he is Austrian . After the Velvet Revolution in Czech republic in 1989, Andy has visited our country for several times, but this year he also planned to fish our rivers. He is keen fly fisherman and he fish mainly for yellow fish in SA. We communicated by e-mail in English, but he speaks good Czech.  He was with his wife on the round trip across the Europe and he had only two days for fishing as he visited Český Krumlov in the first week of July. I was on family holiday at Lipno lake, so we arranged one morning session.
I picked Andy up at the hotel at 5:30 as it was expected very hot day and more over the Vltava river is  full of canoes in summer. We headed to Rožmberk as other smaller rivers were high after night storm. After our workshop, there were still stocked rainbows in the C&R stretch, and we had more time for fishing, as canoeist usually start in Vyšši Brod and journey to Rožmberk takes 2-3 hours. I brought also my reserve waders for Andy, as he had no enough place for it in his luggage.
We  started under the weir in Rožmberk at about six. I recognised that Andy is experienced fishermen, he caught first rainbow immediately after short explanation and demonstration of the nymphing technique. But he remained in one place too long. I explained him, that while nymphing in this bigger rivet,  it is necessary to cover as much water as possible to find active fishes. He replied, that in SA, yellow fish is very shy, so after you came to water, you have to stay 15 minutes without any movement to wait for fish and next you can catch something.
We “cleaned out” the space under the weir and moved slowly downstream. At about 10 o’clock the river was unfishable due to canoes, so we a little observed pretty Czech girls in swimsuits and finished first half of fishing. It was nice start of the day, we caught about 40 fish of 9 species altogether between us, I caught brown trout, rainbow trout, brook trout, perch, roach, dace, grayling, chub, bleak and my really first fish was gudgeon

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Next we moved to Vltava 29, I would like to show Andy one of my favourite river and enable him to catch some native brown trout. As it was sunny and hot, I choose steeper stretch covered by trees, which is a little difficult for fishing, but I expected, that fish could be there a little less shy.
(Andy caught squirrel by the second cast   and he was going to snap the leader, but I told him, that he could not leave my secret patterns at river, so he climbed the pine a got the flies back ).
We started in a bigger pool,  I sent Andy to the mouth under rifles and I crossed the river in the end of the pool. In this river, if I go there with a friend, I always prefer to go along  both banks slowly upstream, we both can fish our half of river and we can compare results and talk about fishing. Andy got nice brown immediately after the squirrel and his face shoved, that he is amassed by this peace of pure nature. We started with team of two jig nymphs, next I tried also wet flies and big dries, all methods were good, but we caught no bigger fish than 30 cm, for bigger fish was to bright. At about 1 p.m. we had to leave as I promised to kids a bicycle trip for the afternoon.

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Andy, thanks for nice fishing morning and see you next year in workshop.

We had long weekend as we have bank holiday on Tuesday 1st May and we spend it at our cottage at Lipno lake  and we were lucky on great sunny warm weather.
I have good friend Bruno, he is Austrian and he has Czech wife Miluška (she is my classmate from grammar school) and they have two children of similar age like my kids. They have apartment house in Lipno close to my cottage a we visit each other almost every weekend in summer. Bruno is specialist on zander and other predatory fish and mainly on Lipno lake, but he also travels for zander across the Europe. He asked me to introduce him to fly-fishing, so I came up with nice family trip. We went to Vltava 29, which is one of my favourite rivers. Wives and kids walked by foot path and we had 3 hours for fishing. This river is university of patience and self control as it is full of boulders and covered by forest, but it is full of wild trouts. I made nymphing rod AFTMA 3 for Bruno with two my best nymphs and presented how to fish, it was good, that I got three trouts in five casts It was visible, that he is generally good angler and he started catching fish after he quickly mastered basic technique, caught a few squirrels and understood trout behaviour. Fish were very active and Bruno caught about 20 trouts and lost or missed the same number and I thing that fly fishing caught him, he asked me to buy a basic tackle for him, so I have to visit Franta Hanák shop
It was apparent, that after the sun hid behind forest, fish were more active and we caught bigger trouts, my last five fish were over 30 cm. I tested more nymphs and the best were jigs with orange or red tag, but I got fish also on PTN and jig versions of March brown. Fish were also rising, but I caught all of them by nymphs.

Bruno had head-camera and made this short  video

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