Fly Fishing

Valentin · Location: Vienna

Last year, I had promised my Slovenian guide, Luka Lukman that I will come back in 2010 as well to try and catch a Marble trout. This fish was missing in my "Catch book" so I wanted to be sure that this time it will happen. Last year we fished only the trophy part of Idrijca river for two days since we had terrible weather and that was the only water where we could fish after heavy thunderstorms and a lot of rain. Despite of the weather conditions, we managed to catch a lot of huge bronw trouts, hybrids, rainbows and grayling.

This year, after a very tough winter, and after couple of days of rain, we agreed to visit Slovenia again hoping that the weather will be nice. So, went to Slovenia on Friday evening with the intention to fish on Saturday and Sunday. Again contacted Rok Lustrik from www.lustrik.com to book a guide, maybe Luka again. Rok got back to us saying that he would like to guide us personally so we agreed. We stayed at Hotel Zelinc, beautiful farmhouse in Cerkno, s small place between Idrijca river and the area of Tolmin, where most of the gorgeus rivers are located (Soca, Tolminka, Baca, Trebuscica). The weather was nice on Friday and the forecast said that saturday should be nice as well. We met with Rok at 8:00 AM after the breakfast and we went to Idrijca river (the trophy part). We could not fish the some of the best parts because of graylings which were spawning. The weather was cold in the morning so we started fishing with nymphs and streamers. The fish were not active so we went quickly to a nice stretch under a bridge where there are many huge ones in that long pool.

we split into two groups of two I went just underneath the bridge to try and trick one of the spooky monsters. After 30 minutes I had a small drill but seemingly the fish spit out the fly quickly. After almost two hours of fishing none of us had a fish so I went just above the bridge to fish a small section of the pool with a tree in the water. After few casts I had a fish on. Here comes the first fish of the day

at around 11:00, there was some fish activity on the surface so our guide Rok suggested we change the place. We went at the other exit of the town Idrija fishing with dry flies. While my friends were successful and had caught few nice grayling, I had no success whatsoever with any of my dry flies, so decided to switch to nymphs again.

Jerome and one of his big graylings

while my friends were catching grayling on dry flies, I had my first fish on a small pheasant tail nymph,

soon after I lost two very good grayling...

then another strike, another rainbow...

after a short lunch break we changed the place again but there was again almost no surface activity so it was the time for everyone to switch to nymphs and streamers again. However, we decided to try everything so Jerome continued fishing dry flies, John with nymphs and I switch to streamer fishing hoping to catch one of the monster marbles I was seeing every 50 metres. Rok and Michaela were just there to help if necessary and take pictures of our catches which unfortunately were not many. While fishing with a streamer, soon I came to a fast flowing section and I decided to fish the shallows of that part. After 20 min, I had something big hooked and everyone thought it is our first Marble Trout. After 10 minutes of fight, we realized it was just a big brown trout,

that was my last fish of the day while Jerome and John were still trying to catch something further down the river. Soon, Jerome had another beautiful grayling and John had the first Marble Trout of the trip but we didn't manage to get a photo since he was 1km far from us and we had both cameras.
We went back to the hotel, had a drink together with Rok and discussed the options for day 2. Rok mentioned that it is not easy to trick a Marble trout so one guide is proud if during the entire season, he can catch with his guests 7-8 Marble Trouts. Well, that didn not make me very pessimistic so I told him that we should do our best to catch one tomorrow:)

We meet again at 8:00 AM next day and purchased the fishing license for Tolmin. This license allows you for a very symbolic price to fish the best waters of the region. We decided to fish the tributaries of Soca before moving to Soca itself. So, we started with the small river of Trebuscica, rich with Rainbow trout but also Marble Trout is present, and very few grayling. We had couple of rainbow trouts there and we went to the other tributary, the river Baca. Baca looked similar to Trebuscica but at least there was brown trout present as well as hybrids (brown trout - marble trout). At Baca, while some of us were having a short break, Rok took Michaela's rod and hooked a nice marble:), of course, with Michaela's permission

We were happy to have caught another Marble and this time we had a photo as well:). I could spot some other Marble trout but they were bastards to catch. After one hour of trying with nymphs and streamers, I gave up. Myself and John made another short cigarette break. John asked our guide Rok to give another try for a Marble, this time with his rod. Despite of Rok's arguing that he would feel bad should he catch another one, John insisted...
Not 2-3 minutes later and another Marble was landed, a 70cm one

we could not stop laughing with Rok since he really felt bad. But, few minutes later and John had his second marble, this time documented

I went further downstream with Jerome and all we caught were one rainbow I hooked on a dry fly and one small Marble (40cm)

It was already afternoon so John and Jerome decided to drive back to Vienna, Austria at around 14:00, therefore they did not want to drive to the third tributary, river Tolminka. After a short break, John and Jerome left and we continued further in Tolminka. I could see some huge Adriatic grayling swimming around but did not want to cast, may aim was still a marble...

The river is full of rainbows but very difficult to catch. Rok soon noticed a green line in one of the pools and asked me to cast there. Indeed, it was a very nice marble which I hooked but lost it after 3-4 seconds of fight.

Tolminka river

further up from the pool I had hooked the marble, there were two other marbles in a very deep and fast water. To take the heavy nymph or streamer down was almost impossible. I kept casting my streamer more than 50 times until I drew the attention of one of them which grabbed the streamer immediately. after it was hooked, the fish swam down like a torpedo, therefore I had to run about 150m downstream with the fish on. After 15 minutes of fight I was happy to land my first Marble trout

few pictures of Soca where we fished only for 20-30 minutes since it was already late and we were tired

I am looking forward to another trip there. Guys, should you get a chance to travel there don't miss the chance to do some fishing as well.