Stan Mankov is back this month telling us about a trip he made to fish the Tara river in Montenegro
I decided to go fishing on my birthday this year. Like the last few ones. This time I went fishing on river Tara in Montenegro located in the Durmitor national park. I fall in love with it from the first time I saw it earlier this season. It forms the second biggest canyon on earth after the Grand one 1200 metres at its deepest and about 70 kilometres of almost unexplored magic blue waters.
I get in touch with the local guide who certainly has the best knowledge about the river Velibor Ivanovic. Velibor is a great Huchen fisherman so I decide to try to fish only for the main predator in the river and steal some of Velibor's wisdom. We went fishing in the afternoon of the day we arrived. I decided to spend some time with Velibor and see how he is fishing. We spend a few hours on a really nice and deep pool. He said that the Huchen lays deep and is usually hiding, but when it gets out to feed it is out to feed. On our way back we swam trough the cold waters of Tara. We couldn't cross it otherwise. It was a "jump, jump, jump" the first time we crossed but on the way back we couldn't make it and it sounds more like "jump, jump, swim, swim".
It was a new moon with more stars than we can imagine and still so dark. The canyon is absolutely phenomenal.
Early on my birthday, we were casting a bit further up from the camp and I left the others to try the pools downstream. I fished for about two hours before I reached the pool I was on with Velibor last evening and where he said the big hucho should be. I cast a 15 cm streamer tied on a jig hook. Stripped and then I felt a heavy take and a decent fish started fighting for its life. My nine weight nine feet rod I usually use for pike fishing bent heavily. It was a good fish. After the first few seconds and the huge amount of adrenaline I pressed the button of my radio station and screamed Huchooooo, Huchoooo... And I hoped for my friends to come.
The fish went very deep and suddenly I didn't feel it anymore. It looks like I stuck into a stone or tree or whatever, but I have no contact with the fish. I started pulling strong hoping that 0,40 mm of tippet is strong enough. I tried to unhook my fly from the bottom for about 15 minutes and I was praying for a miracle. And it happened. I felt the fish once again. This time I fight it really hard and It started coming out. I was expecting to see fish over 5 kilo, but I was really surprised when I saw it was a brown trout. A good one over 55 cm but what a fight it gave for its size. It was incredible. I manage to net the fish. So beautiful, wild Tara's brown trout with huge hot orange spots. Certainly one of the most beautiful fish I've ever caught.
It was not a Hucho, but it gave me hell of adrenaline and felt really good. I tried hard to the rest of the day but didn't caught any more fish. On the next day we had to go on a competition in Bosnia, called the Golden grayling. It was a great birthday party on Tara, one I will surely remember.