The snow has entirely gone, although we still have cold nights down to minus 5. The water is surprisingly clear and low. Fish don’t want to cooperate, probably because of the water state and a constant strong wind causing pressure variations. I’ve tested another brand new, 25 years old Orvis – the 10 feet 7 weight, western series. If there is perfection in heavy wet fly/streamer rods, this is certainlt this one. Why don’t they build such rods anymore ???

First try of spring. Up to 15 degrees during the day makes you want to live.Grayling feed like crazy on dries (grayling is out of season here) so to avoid catching them we stick to streamers, which in last 3 days weren’t too effective. This is just simply not a good trout weather – too bright, water too clear. They will probably drop some water soon as the lake starts to be full from the melting snow.

Brilliant day. Testing my new rod – actually it is a 25 years old Orvis HLS 9 by 9 but never used – I had 7 trout all above 50 cm, the biggest was 68. On streamers of course! The river got slightly higher and coloured because of melting snow. Oh, I love this streamer fishing it is at least as exciting as dry fly, definitely much nicer than nymphing. And this 25 years old rod is the example of good old mastercraft.

It got warmer and the snow starts melting slowly. The fish are very active – as you can see on the picture, they are taking dries – tiny duns flow from around 11am till 2 pm. Avoiding catching grayling we fish streamers only. All trout caught are really in a good condition, well recovered after spawning. That doesn’t surprise me seeing the amount of food they have!

The cold continues, minus 22 last night made the river almost entirely frozen. Masses of ice have gathered by the lodge, where the river gets deeper and the current weaker. On the rapids above, the water flows freely, but the blocks of ice are stopped just in front of the “stairway to heaven” – the stairs that lead from our garden to the river. Oh, I can’t look at the rods catching dust….

We got richer in about 15 cm of snow during last night (we had almost none). It got really cold. Down the garden of our lodge the river carries some ice, and due to it’s very low level there is quite a few ice fields by the banks. There is an ugly cold wind, which makes beeing outside a torture.

Mild days make fishing interesting. I had a chance to experience the trout fury – I caught about 70 fish in 80 casts on streamers. This really seemed like fishing a stock pond! Hey! I’m not promissing such results every day!!!!

Trout opening. A 71 cm trout was reported in Lesko. Weather is not nice, cloudy, rainy, temperatures around 0. few more weeks and it will start.