The night before our trip to Slovenia, I sat at my tying desk long after midnight, to fill up my fly boxes. My friend and “dealer” Christian Kuchelmeister, a professional fly tier, provided me with some tipps and warnings concerning the fishery in Slovenia. Christian had won several tying contests in Slovenia and had fished many streams and rivers some years ago. He advised me not to use any flash or glitter in the flies, because the fish were very cautious because of the gin clear water and the fishing pressure…. And so I tied a box full of nymphs in sizes 14-18, mostly variations of caddis- and small mayfly larvae. I also packed a box of CDC dries, although my hopes were low to catch a marble trout on dry fly.

Arrival

When, after a long car ride, we first crossed the Soča river on a bridge, it took my breath away! What a water, what a scenery! The feeling I had when I saw this river is hard to describe. It kinda felt like coming home, having lunch with Liv Tyler in St.Peters Cathedral and playing Jimmy Hendrix’ guitar all at once.

But as I was admiring the beauty of this unbelievably clear water, my dreams of catching a big marble trout shrank at the same time to the humble hope of catching anything at all.

The next day we explored the valley with the family, and visited some of the natural highlights, as e.g. the Soča gorge, where the river has cut deep into the limestone, with vertical walls of many meters in height… very impressive, but a bit too crowded for my taste. Nevertheless, I did see the first fish there, in fact a good number of them! And big ones as well! So I was eager to start the fishing and try both my skills and my luck in these emerald waters!

Lessons to be learned

The following day, my family dropped me off at some place I had chosen on the map. And it sure looked good! With my polarized glasses, I saw fish in almost every bigger pool. But although I had expected the fishing to be difficult, I was surprised how those fish completely IGNORED any of my nymphs. I tried almost every pattern I had in my box, and then stepped down with tippet diameter to a 0.117mm Riverge Fluorocarbon. And as I could not believe myself, I wasted quite some time trying to catch a fish in these pools.

A little disillusioned I continued upstream, as time was passing and I needed to get to the pickup-point I had arranged with my wife. And then, as I was wading through rather shallow, fast water, I saw a fish standing in front of a larger stone. It was very well camouflaged against all the pebbles, and of a light green-grey color – a marble trout!

I probably wouldn’t have seen it, if it hadn’t moved a little. I approached the stone from behind and made a short cast upstream beyond the trout. It was hard to see where the nymph was, as the water was fast and the nymph small… and I never use indicators. So when the fish didn’t show any reaction I was not sure if the nymph had drifted in the correct line and depth towards it. Several tries later, I had to accept that the nymph was probably not the right one, and I changed to a most unobtrusive, hardly weighted nymph and tried again. And then suddenly, the fish moved towards the nymph, and was hooked! With all the ignorant fish during the past hours, I was taken by surprise and with the short line the drill must have looked pretty funny. The marble trout danced around me, jumped several times and then BROKE THE TIPPET! A lot of words passed my brained but gladly didn’t make it to my mouth… This could have been the one fish I had hoped for – with roughly 40cm not a particularly big one, but a marble trout nevertheless.

First results

The gods were good to me though, and some ten minutes later and a hundred meters upstream, I saw a similar fish standing close to the bank in shallow water – a marble trout again. I had tied on an identical nymph as before and the fish took it on the first cast. And although I was again surprised by the strength and liveliness of this marble, the drill ended in my wading net finally. What a beauty, what a pattern, what a salvation! A dream had come true… And somehow I had found a recipe which seemed to work. During the remaining time until my pickup, I did not see another marble, but I managed to catch a handful of beautiful rainbows.

All in all a very educational day with some very beautiful fish. But I also realized, that it would be near impossible to catch a really big fish on nymph, as the thin tippet would not allow to fight a big fish in this strong current. And in the end, you don’t fish for salmon or taimen with a 0.12-tippet either?

So I decided a change of tactics for day 2: With a 10wt rod and big streamers, I wanted to give it a try. For the third day (I had a 3-day-licence), I still had the chance to switch back to 4wt and nymphs, if it would prove to be the better tactic.

To be continued…