In part three of Kris Kent's trilogy he hops aboard the Millenium Falcon and heads to Slovenia. The Force is strong is this one.
In part two we explored my more recent experiences of fishing abroad ending with the trip to the Trysil in Norway. In part three we consider this year's trip to Slovenia.
After the success of our trip to Norway in 2013 we decided to go all out and arrange the entire next trip ourselves. Charles had always fancied Slovenia, so Slovenia it was.Our arrival at Ljubljana airport was inauspicious. Grey cloud hung low over the broad plain on which the airport is situated so that we only glimpsed it as we dropped out of the cloud moments before touchdown. A light drizzle set in as we picked up the hire minibus and started to make our way out across the plain and then up and over the low mountains hiding in the clouds before us. As it turned out the weather gods were going to be kind to us. It was only a ninety minute drive to our destination but after a 4.00am start and zero rations on the budget airline flight we were hungry so we stopped off on route for a quick beer and a pizza. First key learning point, always check the size of the pizza before ordering. The pizzas turned out to be somewhat large, enough for one between two but we had ordered one each. So we left Škofja Loka feeling full. Next key learning point, don’t trust TomTom. The sat nav took us the most direct route which turned out not to be the main route. It was a bit tight in spots but on the bright side it did offer us some stunning views as we crested the mountains and started to drop in to the Idrijca valley. Paul was the nominated driver and he looked a little nervous at times especially as he clipped the trailer of an elderly farmer transporting firewood down the mountain. Close call.
Stuart Minnikin had recommended our base for the week. Kate and Brett Bedford sold up in the UK and moved to Slovenia to live the ‘good life’. They make the perfect Barbara and Tom Good. Tilnik Farm is perched high on the hillside looking down on the Idrijca river.
They renovated the old farmhouse creating apartments for paying guests. They live there with their two dogs and a small herd of sheep and are trying to be self-sufficient learning the local ways to grow and preserve produce from their Slovenian neighbours.
Kate makes a few extra euros providing physiotherapy to the local farmers worn out from making a living on the steep slopes bordering the river and Brett helps out the increasing number of visiting fishermen, driving them up and down the river, dropping them off at the most productive stretches and offering a little advice along the way. They can also arrange local guides and generally make life easy for you. Unfortunately our party was too large for Tilnik Farm so we were staying at a friend’s farmhouse a little way upstream on the opposite bank at Reka.
Kate and Brett met us on arrival and immediately made us feel welcome. The local dark beer flowed, wine was uncorked and a large platter of local prosciutto and cheese was proffered and quickly wolfed down. If this was anything to go by it was going to be a great week, food wise, and we weren’t disappointed. It was too late to get on to the river that evening so we settled in and made the most of the hospitality.
Over beers and snacks I presented everyone with their tour t-shirts. Slovenia 2014 on the front and our Darth nicknames on the back. Sean was new to the party and hadn’t been with us in Norway. Therefore he hadn’t picked up a nickname along the way. He quickly tried to compensate for this and attract an alternate identity. It could have been ‘Darth Haul’, for his ability to put out a full fly line, even when casting to rising fish, usually from two pools away. It could be ‘Darth BG’, his flats cap made him look like Beau Gest from the French Foreign Legion. Time would tell.
The great thing about fishing somewhere new, somewhere abroad, is that it tests you and stretches you. In Norway klink & dink, a small nymph (the dink) suspended under a buoyant dry fly (the klink), had been by far the most successful method, with Czech nymph a close second, for the game Trysil Grayling. But in Slovenia this was not an option. On the Soča and Idrijca there is a one fly only rule, and no indicators apart from the inline variety. This was going to really test our ability to get a single nymph down deep enough in the deep powerful waters and keep in touch enough to feel the takes.
That first morning challenged all of us as we got to grips with the river and the constraints placed upon us. Luckily the river was in perfect condition. A little low and very clear but with plenty of current to work the flies. I fished with Charles and he was first off the mark with a nice rainbow but I wasn’t far behind with a brownie. By the time we had worked up to where Brett would pick us up I had had another couple and Charles had even managed a grayling, sadly quite rare on the Idrijca. We had hoped for a hatch and a few risers but it wasn’t to be. As Brett dropped us back at the bridge where Paul and Simon had begun their campaign we could see that there was a hatch on and the others were targeting some steady risers with a dry fly. Looking down from the bridge, high above the river, the fish were easily spotted even when holding deep. The water was so clear you could count the spots through three metres of water. We did our best to direct the anglers below onto the fish, “left a bit, right a bit, further upstream, fire”. I’m sure this was most annoying for Paul and Simon but it made Charles and I feel useful. A round of applause erupted as Simon hooked into one of the better fish that was hoovering up flies in the surface just off the main flow. Then we spotted a lunker sitting in the softer current in front of a large rock on the far bank. We did our best to steer Paul in but a less than stealthy approach sent the fish running for cover.
Actually the really big fish rarely ‘ran for cover’ they mostly just evaporated long before you could effectively cover them or they would just continue feeding whilst completely ignoring anything you threw at them. Later in the week Charles spotted a potential personal best trout stationed close to the far bank. It was holding just below the surface and rhythmically rising, showing its head and shoulders in the process. Charles spent a lot of time and effort trying to catch that fish and it cost him a good few lost flies into the bargain. It was a deep wade and then a long cast just to get near the fish and then some creative casting to get enough slack into the cast to compensate for the flow. Despite every best effort that fish just ignored every imitation whilst continuing to sip up every natural that drifted over it. That kind of fish builds character. Two days later it was still in the same place and still rising so I had a go. It skunked me too. I don’t think I took it as well as Charles did.
Even if you could get them to take there was no guarantee you would land them. We were often down to 6x or 7x tippet either for presentation or because we were fishing a size 24 ant pattern and you couldn’t get anything heavier through the hook eye. When those big trout went for it they went for it and there wasn’t much you could do about it. Even with a soft rod and a furled leader the fish often parted company with you.
Mid week I spotted a number of very good fish rising right on the edge of a tongue of very fast water that was between me and them. The fast water meant they couldn’t see me and I could get reasonably close to them but not close enough that I could hold the line clear of the current. Each drift lasted moments before the flow ripped the fly away. I tried a few large patterns, caddis and hoppers, in the hope they couldn’t resist a big mouthful. They did. Every cast gave me further opportunity to watch the fish. They were big fish and my heart was pumping as I tried every different angle of attack and every different style of cast I had up my sleeve. They looked like porpoises playing in the sea as their backs cut through the surface, water pushing before them. A local guide, Gregor, had been with us earlier in the day and he had given me a couple of tiny olive imitations. I tied the size 20/22 pattern on to the 7x tippet and managed to get enough slack into the cast to get a good foot of drag free drift over the nearest fish. Its head broke through the surface followed by its broad shoulders then dorsal fin and finally a spade of a tail. I lifted the rod and all hell broke loose as the fish realised what had happened.
I tend to fight fish quite hard preferring to get them in and released as quickly as possible, I rarely have fish take line off my reel. This was going to be a whole different ball game. I daren’t lean too hard on the fish with just 7x between me and it. The fish ran downstream hard, peeling line of the reel but as the river shallowed below me the fish slowed and then turned, heading across the river toward where the river undercut the road and high wall that hung out over the far bank. I applied as much pressure as I dare and the fish responded by running upstream into the tongue of fast water just in front of me. It was then that I remembered the large boulder that lay deep below the river's surface before me. If the fish got round that it was game over. Luckily the fish came up through the water column, launching itself powerfully into the air three times before charging back downstream. This went on for what seemed like eternity, each time I made some headway and recovered some line the fish would make another powerful run. Just as I started to think I was getting the upper hand everything went slack and the fly came back to me sans fish. The 7x had held but the hook hold hadn’t. I slumped onto the bank shattered and despondent. The words of Homer Simpson rang in my ears, “if at first you don’t succeed, give up”. I momentarily considered putting all my rods and reels on eBay and taking up golf. But then I saw another fish rising and I was back on my feet.
I always assume that those in foreign climes don’t have the worries of us UK anglers. Their streams will be full of wild indigenous fish swimming in gin clear pure waters through valleys clothed in nature's plenty. Of course what you discover is that they are often facing the very same challenges that we face. Whilst the area of Slovenia we visited has retained much of its ancient forest with abundant, diverse flora and fauna it also has its fair share of invasive plants, particularly the sickly sweet smelling Himalayan Balsam with its ballistic seed pods. Slovenia had a particularly red variety that kept company with the pinkish variety we are busy trying to eradicate in the UK.
Many of the farms that cling to the steep hillsides of the Idrijca valley are being abandoned as the younger generations drift away from the family homelands for the jobs and bright lights of the cities. The forests quickly reclaim the pastures their forefathers cleared a few hundred years before and this is changing the nature of the runoff and inputs that feed the Idrijca. The river comes up and colours up much more quickly after the rain these days according to Brett. Brett also said that the fly hatches weren’t as prolific as they used to be. There had been very few good hatches that year, but that could have been the erratic very wet weather they had had. Whilst the Wild Trout Trust are busy trying to protect our native brown trout in the UK, in Slovenia they are busy trying to stop brown trout, probably descendants of those Loch Leven brown trout that seem to have ended up everywhere, hybridising with the native marble trout (Salmo marmoratus).
After fishing the Kanomlijca, a tributary or the Idrijca, and the headwaters of the main river, Zone A, with Gregor, excellent local fishing guide and proud owner of the most dilapidated car I’ve very been in, we met up at the home of the Idrijca Fishing Club just outside Idrija. No aged fishing hut for them. Their HQ is a two story brick and concrete, red tile roofed palace. And it has its own restaurant and bar available for special occasions.
We seemed to count as a special occasion as when we arrived a fine lunch of local specialities was served with cold beers to wash it down and revive our flagging spirits. Next to the HQ is the hatchery. In an effort to protect the fragile population of marble trout a large number of brood females have been caught and are now held in a spring fed stream that runs behind the hatchery. Each year males are caught from the spawning streams, like the one that ran past our accommo-dation, the farmhouse at Reka, and their milt is harvested to fertilise the eggs gathered from the brood females. Some of their progeny are reared on in the hatchery with the vast majority planted back into the spawning streams either as fertilised eggs or eyed ova. It was fascinating listening to Gregor describe the process and the lengths and effort the club are going to, trying to protect this iconic fish. It also made us all the more determined to catch a few after lunch on the Trophy section that runs through Idrija.
Whilst Slovenia hasn’t suffered the effects of industrialisation to the extent that the UK has, manufacturing, population growth and modern lifestyles are putting pressure on the rivers of Slovenia. Stuart Minnikin was insistent that we should fish the Cerknica, a tributary that flows into the Idrijca just above were we were staying. Our first sight of the river didn’t endear it to us. It flows through the town of Cerkno, through a large factory complex, often contained between high concrete walls with a major road following its meandering course. Brett was also keen that we should give it a go, despite appearances, so we indulged them.
The first thing you notice on the Cerknica is the smell. A distinct whiff of sewage. It came and went as we fished upstream, worse in some places than others, but it was always there. The second thing you notice on the Cerknica is the detritus. Toilet paper, sanitary towels, condoms and other general rubbish. We even found a large turd coiled off on top of a rock beside the river. There is obviously a lot of things going into this river that shouldn’t be.
The third thing you notice on the Cerknica is the fish. They were everywhere. A fly cast behind any rock or into any deeper faster run generally produced a fish. There were small game trout in every pocket and run. We didn’t always hook or land them, they were fast as lightening and battled hard in a fast waters. Whilst we found the conditions on the Cerknica faintly unpleasant the fish didn’t seem at all bothered. And they weren’t all just small fish.
As with a lot of British rivers the rivers of Slovenia have often been impounded to power mills. Lumber mills, flour mills, cloth mills, you name it they’ve milled it. Many of these have fallen out of use as access to other easier, more reliable power supplies have become available but the weirs and other structures are still there. Whilst they create barriers to migration and hinder access to spawning tributaries they create great habitat for the bigger fish. Charles and I have always been fans of the streamer. Streamer fishing has been, until recently, a niche, minority tactic in the UK. It's often looked down on by other anglers, discouraged or banned by fishing clubs and angling associations. Where rules allow it Charles and I often fish a streamer, particularly through big weir or corner pools at the back end of the day. These pools often hold bigger fish and the fish become more active as the light fades. In Slovenia streamer fishing is mainstream and extremely productive. Half way up the Cerknica right in the middle of the factory complex we came upon a large weir. I saw the glint in Charles’ eye as we approached it, he was fumbling in his vest pocket looking for his streamer box.
After only a couple of casts Charles almost had the rod ripped from his hands as a fish hit the streamer. He missed a couple of good takes and follows before he was into a nice rainbow.
I had a similar experience covering the right hand side of the weir pool. We swapped and almost immediately Charles was into a better fish. Was it going to be the big marble trout we were hoping for? Yes it was. Almost 50cm of angry marble that tore around the weir pool before making a break for it downstream. Charles chased after it and managed to get it under control as I followed on behind with the net. It was touch and go and Charles was determined not to lose it. He looked relieved as the fish slid over the lip of the net.
We found Slovenia to be a wonderful fishing destination. The food and drink is excellent and inexpensive. Despite its recent history the people are welcoming and generous.
One thing I often realise when I travel abroad is how little I know about places almost on my doorstep. Slovenia was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until after the First World War when the Kingdom of Yugoslavia started to be formed. But Western Slovenia was gifted to Italy by Britain and then subjected to Fascist Italianisation. Gregor remarked how easy it is to give away something you don’t own. During the Second World War the area we stayed in was a major centre for the partisans who were persecuted by the Italians and then the Germans after the Italians capitulated. The village we stayed in was raised after a partisan newspaper was discovered in one of the farm houses. After the Second World War western Slovenia re-joined Yugoslavia and became part of the communist regime under Tito. After Tito’s death in 1980 demands for Slovenian independence grew until it achieved self-rule in 1991. Slovenia joined the European Union in 2004. Quite a history. And now a lot of happy memories.
We enjoyed our trip to Slovenia, Tilnik Farm, the Idrijca and the Soča so much we have already booked a week in June for 2015. Part Four?
If you fancy visiting Slovenia you can contact Kate and Brett at:
http://www.tilnikfarm.com/
Biography:
Kris Kent has been fly fishing and trotting for brown trout and grayling for over 20 years in the UK, Europe and Scandinavia. He is PR Officer for the Grayling Society and helps out The Wild Trout Trust with their online communications and events.