Our good friend Stan Mankov is back this month and tells us a little about this river he knows...
A secret has to be kept a secret but as this is the ESF birthday issue I`ll share half a secret with the readers. It is about a river that I went a couple of times the past few months. A friend of mine shared his sacred fishing place with me and it became my holy place too. I know there are always better spots and bigger fish but I really enjoy this one. I only hope it stays as good as it is a little bit longer. So here is the story.
It was just at the end of the brown trout season when I received this phone call.
- You can fish the streamer pretty well Stan, can`t you?
- Well yes I guess.
- Ok. And you`ve caught big wild rainbows before, haven't you?
- No bigger than six/seven pounders.
- That’s big enough, that`s the size of fish I am talking about and I want you to try your best streamers out there. I`ll take you to the place but keep it secret please.
- Absolutely! I`m all in.
And that`s how it happened for me to find my way to the banks of that river X. It was foggy and still dark. I tied a big streamer on a number 2 hook with a heavy 6 mm tungsten bead - zonker variant. The river was amazing I liked it from the first time I saw it. I easily fall in love with rivers, there are just so many and they`re all so nice and what`s best is they don`t mind if you like one more than another. On my fourth or fifth cast I felt the take. I struck and the fish went crazy, took 20 meters of fly line in a few seconds, made a jump and took another 20 meters. O my god! I tried to stop it on the third run and that was my biggest mistake. It broke the line…easily. By the end of the day I had one more take of a big fish and lost it again. My friend caught one cock fish. Absolute gem of a fish - full finned with every scale in the right place. We had to go.
I went fishing for salmon on the Tyne after that trip. I tried hard and lost two nice fish and caught a beautiful sea trout which really made me happy but in my dreams there were only rainbows from the river X.
I came back and soon after I was on the river banks again. This time prepared to catch one of them. It wasn`t necessary to fish them with streamer, it is just that my friend wanted me to try my streamers last time. I fished nymphs – gammarus and caddis nymphs this time. I forgot to mention that there are some small rainbows in the river as well. It is interesting that we called one to two pound fish small but I know some monster fish are there two and that is the reason. By the time I was trying my luck with the salmon my friend had caught a 13 pounder on that river. It only took him about an hour to land the fish with his 5 weight rod.
It was a deep and fishy spot and I started checking it carefully - trying to cover every inch of water. There must be big fish lying there. The line simply stopped drifting, I lifted the rod and I felt what we later found out what all those big fish did. The first two to five seconds they shake their heads and you are not really sure if it’s a biggie or not. Then they make you sure. The drag went crazy, the fish jumped all over the place, five, six, seven times. After about 10-15 minutes it started to get tired and finally I had it in the net. Nice hen fish about 7 pounds, 64 cm in length. By now I have caught about six fish of that size on the river, some even bigger. Never had the chance to really weigh them only to measure their length. There are bigger ones out there and I`m really looking forward to hooking one of them.
I had a lucky day a few weeks ago when I hooked three fish over 6 pounds for a day and did landed all of them. One of the fish took about 70 meters of fly line and backing. I thought this is paradise, I must be dreaming.
Always fight the fish hard and release them quickly after. Maybe you are wondering why am I telling you this story, why do I share about my secret place. Well I only told you what happened to me and what made this year even better. I am sure everyone has their own secret spots and they better stay secret as long as possible or you share them with your best friends. What usually happens is that they have best friends too and sooner or later you meet someone new on the river who tells you "hey buddy, keep this place secret". Well we all live for the moment I only wish it could last longer.
As it is now closed season for fishing on that place I had to try something else and give a chance to my flies to catch another species of fish for which I`ll tell you in the next issue.
Tight Lines to you all!
More from Stan HERE