Down River Dry Fly on the San Poland

I haven't been blogging for a while with a lot of flies to be tied, work commitments and my girlfriend moving in it has been a crazy few months. However thankfully things getting back to normal now and I can share with you all the experiences good and bad, along with  tricks I have picked up over this time, it has been an eventful few months with plenty ups and downs.

To begin somewhere, I was in Poland recently on a four day trip with some angling buddies fishing the beautiful River San in the Lesko region. 
To get here you can fly from Dublin to Rzeszow  Wednesdays and Sundays then you would have a two hour drive to a town called Lesko which the river San flows past. Permits are reasonable enough at around 15 euro per day and accommodation is for around 30 euro with dinner and breakfast included. The whole trip would cost in the region of 500 euros including flights, car hire, hotel ect. This is not a bad price for three and a half good days fishing on one of the top rivers in Europe in my book.

You do however arrive at the hotel quite late on the Wednesday night, around 11 or 12, so after a quick beer we hit the hay to be fresh for the fishing in the morning. After breakfast we took a quick pit stop in a nearby town at a tackle shop called "TopFly", well worth checking out if you are near by for their fly collections. At the first glance of the river it was very obvious that the levels were similar  to our home waters and extremely low; however we didn't find this to much of a problem as this meant we could wade to any location of the river and also the big plus was that the fish were freely rising through out the entire day.

After setting up two rods one on the dries and the other on nymphs I headed down stream and found a nice section of running water and began to nymph the pockets, with poor enough results. The river is heavily fished and when you look up or down the river you will see a lot of anglers wading the vast river, this can be a bit off putting at the start but it dose not take you long to get used to it and see it wont inflict on your catches if you are doing the right thing. I didn't pick up to many of the renowned sizable Graylings through-out the morning catching mostly brown trout, some nice ones at that. Over the rest of the day we did manage to find the Ladies and it was productive enough but we knew we were missing something and the fish were not coming freely as the normally are.
Day two started with a bit of a sore head from a few beers the night before and we were a bit slower getting tackled up but we were still fishing by 10am. Approaching the river differently this morning payed off right from the start, instead of walking down stream to fish up the river we started at the car and fished down stream with small slight dries on fine tippet, 7x. 


Using a 12 foot 5x or 6x tapered leader with 6 foot of 7x or 8x tippet we stood facing down stream and casting at two or ten o clock allowing the dry to float down stream ahead of the tippet and leader. The fly is the first thing the fish sees and if they are spooky Grayling then this method will catch them. With the gentlest of takes it dose take some concentration to keep your eyes on the small dries and the subtle rises in order to connect with the fish as you do have to be fast enough. It was very enjoyable fishing especially when you lift into the fish and it tears off down stream.

Day three went much the same as the day before and there was cracking fishing to be had. One other aspect that was important to catching these fish was there is no need to move or wade at any pace, once you find a fishy glide or pocket. The Grayling just keep coming and if you move down river to fast you would pass by dozens and dozens of quality fish, this can take some reminding as you see rising fish further down stream. This was another enjoyable trip and finished up with a few beers in the hotel with a good laugh reliving the fishing from the last three days. This is a method that I will be working on next spring and summer in our Irish waters for sure and I know these fine dries do work very well here at home.

These fishing breaks can be easily put together and are a must for the developing angler or a fisher-person that just loves the sport of catching fish in stunning surroundings. If you would like anymore information on this kind of fishing trip please feel free to contact me and ill do my best to point you in the right direction. 

I hope you have enjoyed reading this post and can take something from it to enhance your angling. If you have any questions on the blog or any of the posts you can contact me here or on my details to the right. If you would like any of the flies on this blog tied or your own dressings do not hesitate to give me a shout and ill tie them for you promptly. Thanks for reading.