Monday, May 14, 2012

Wrath of the Ice Men

Mid May is a period that traditional Czech folk lore calls The time of the Ice Men. It is a period of cold weather, supposedly driven by the same climatic forces as the Asian monsoons. The feasts of Messrs. Pankrác, Servác and Bonifác have been traditionally celebrated on May 12th, 13th and 14th. Nowadays the religious observance is all but gone, but the folklore tradition - and climatic phenomenon - remains.

I took some time off to visit a small stream westward from Prague. Just as the folklore predicted the weather has dramatically worsened for the weekend, and the temperature dropped by almost 20°C. This was accompanied by a sudden change in barometric pressure and further compounded by low water levels. As a result I had only limited success fishing.


An unexpected outcome of the low water situation was that I was able to check first hand the abundance of caddis flies living in the stream. The little critters were easily visible in the low water, and I could easily see that there were a plenty of them around to ensure a very rewarding caddis fishing later in June.

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