This month Stan Mankov takes us to a Bulgarian chalkstream.
No coffee, no shower, not any alarm can wake you up like the feeling when you hook a decent brown trout early in the morning on your third cast. This is pure adrenaline. It happened to me a few times this year and I can certainly say it is way to wake up. It is spring and everything is becoming alive. The surroundings are more colourful and the birds start singing. Some are waking up fast, some are slow risers.
So far I am quite happy with the brown trout season where I am now- Bulgaria. This is the reason I decided to share a few tips and places with the ESF readers as I consider them a pretty good stretch of water to be on and me and my friends are trying to make those places even better. Hopefully we`ll succeed.
In Bulgaria we have two chalk streams where we go fishing after the start of the season which is on 1st of February. From this year we are happy to announce that there are 14 Catch and Release rivers in our country. These two chalk streams are two of them. The one I`m going to tell you about is called Zlatna Panega.
It is the biggest chalk stream type of water in Bulgaria and the springs are situated between two caves in the central part of the country. The water temperature is between 8 and 15 degrees during the hottest summer days and it has variable green-blue color. The place where the springs are is a natural phenomenon since 1966. I guess there were plenty of trout back in those times. There used to be an endemic species of trout called Panejka trout. The data from the last researches is some 15 years ago and now it is consider for it to be extinct. A specimen of this species is kept in the National Museum of Natural History in Sofia.
Nowadays the river is one of the nearest places to the capital where trout fishermen go in the spring. It is common that beatis hatches are most abundant in the winter month- February and March. I have caught brownies on a dry fly in -14 degrees. The hatches usually start after 1-2 o`clock during the day and if the weather is cloudy it can become quite exciting there. Don't miss the party. Later on during the summer all kind of hatches go on all day long but fish rises mainly in the afternoons. Mayfly and sedge imitations are one of the best for the moment. Some gammarus tied on a curved hook with a small orange spot or bead can also surprise you if you have overestimated the freshwater shrimp patterns before.
This year is one of the best for the river. It seems that fish population is slightly growing and the stock of yearlings gives its effect. An average catch a day is between 8 and 10 fish from 5 inches up to record brown trout over 20 inches. All fish are released now and hopefully the river will become an even nicer place to be for more people in the near future.
Apart from the browns some rainbow trout are caught some with record sizes over 10 pounds. There is plenty of wildlife along the river and different species of birds. My favourite one is the kingfisher – it flies like a blue ferry above the water and every time I see it I have a great day. I think it brings me luck.
I hope I told you a word about a different place, not as famous as others but precious for those of us who go there. Protect your rivers and keep them clean!
Tight lines to all ESF readers. Next month I plan to go in detail about a favourite method for many – the dry fly nymph.
Stanislav Mankov
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