Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Anglo - Czech Angling Interactions


The long and distinguished history of fly fishing is full of surprises. I was fortunate to experience one of these by myself. A friend of mine, who was about to relocate from Prague, sold me a part of his large angling library. This included some pre war issues of UK fishing magazine Fishing Gazette. In one of them I was surprised to find an article by Czech fishing author MVDr. Václav Dyk, reporting on the successes of the first Englishmen to fish the Vltava river.

The article was published on June 17th 1939, and it referred to Mr. Dyk's findings in the records of the domain of Schwarzenbergs in Stožec, dated 1911. The first Englishmen were Messrs. Johnson & Morgan, who visited in 1911 and again in 1912, spending two weeks fishing on each occasion. Their report, as reproduced by Mr. Dyk, reads as follows:


It was interesting to note the things that have changed - and there were a lot of them: the state that Messrs. Johnson & Morgan visited was the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the state from which Mr. Dyk reported was Czechoslovakia and the country I live in now is the Czech Republic. The village formerly called Tusset has diminished after its German inhabitants were removed after WW II and goes by Czech name Stožec. A hundred years have passed.

But one thing has remained constant ever since the visit of the two adventurous Englishmen: the fishing in Upper Vltava is excellent. It remains one of the premier Graling rivers in my country and I will think of the two early visitors fondly the next time I visit there.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Pork 'n Beans CZ Nymphs



Working on a couple CZ nymph patterns today. Nothing fancy, just plain but nutritious fare to replenish my nymph boxes. A fine way to pass a foul weather day, sitting tight at my tying table, churning nymphs and listening to the History of Rome podcasts.


The tie:
# 8 Skalka Gammarus hook
tan elastic thread
a single layer of flat lead
4 mm golden olive shellback
0.16 mm monofilament spinning line
homemade rabbit dubbing, Golden Olive
homemade mohair dubbing, black
a touch of black CD marker


The tie:
# 8 Skalka Gammarus hook
tan elastic thread
a single layer of flat lead
4 mm brown olive olive shellback
0.16 mm monofilament spinning line
homemade rabbit dubbing, Medium Olive
homemade mohair dubbing, Hot Orange
homemade mohair dubbing, Black
a touch of black CD marker


The tie:
# 8 Skalka Gammarus hook
tan elastic thread
a single layer of flat lead
4 mm brown olive shellback
0.16 mm monofilament spinning line
homemade rabbit dubbing, Brown Olive
homemade mohair dubbing, Claret
homemade mohair dubbing, Black
a touch of black CD marker

Thursday, January 5, 2012

A little promo...

Please have a look a the Back Country Journal - a new project across the pond (isn't it funny how the Americans feel it is them who lives on the here side of the Atlantic? :) dedicated to outdoor writings.

Definitely worth a look, not least because the editor deemed worthy of publication a recent story by yours truly.