Fly fishing in Slovenia

Fly fishing in Slovenia

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The Idrijca River, very beautiful and full of trout

I’ve been fairly busy lately which has kept me from updating the blog.  To make up for it, I have an interesting fishing report which takes me far away from the usual New England streams.  A couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go fly fishing in Slovenia.  It was a beautiful river, and an experience I’ll never forget.

While this wasn’t specifically a trout fishing trip, I managed to fit in a few hours of fly fishing while on our way from Tolmin, Slovenia to Lake Bled.  Of course, right?

This is actually the first time I’ve ever gone fishing with a guide.  I enlisted the help of local guides at the Soca Fly shop in Most na Soči. Since we only had a couple of hours, I didn’t want to take a chance on paying for the license and exploring the rivers by myself.  A license in the Soca Valley region of Slovenia will set you back about 60 Euro for the day in the catch and release areas.  The guides at Soca Fly were incredibly helpful and knowledgeable of their local rivers.  Most importantly, we were into trout in the first hour or two!  First fish hooked goes to Anna, who hooked into a rainbow that leapt out the water, and shook the fly.  As I found out in Slovenia, the regulations are similar to competition fly fishing, and require single fly, barbless hooks, and no indicators. Anna is very new to fly fishing, and I was so proud to see her land a trout.  Here she is in an action shot.

 

Check out that rod bend!

Shortly after Anna’s trout, I caught a rainbow which jumped 3 or 4 times and shook off.  I was amazed at how energetic many of the trout were.  A few casts later with a streamer, and I was able to bring one to the net.  I briefly held the trout, put it into the water to revive it a bit, and it shot off like a rocket. It clearly didn’t need my help, and goes to show how trout thrive in Slovenia’s crystal clear streams.

Rainbow trout Slovenia Idrijca River
One of the rainbows

 

By the end of our three hour trip, we had brought about 6 or 7 trout to the net, lost a few, and had a lot of fun enjoying the scenery and talking with our guide.  Honestly, you can’t completely capture the beauty of Slovenia’s rivers, but below I’ve posted a few photos in which I tried my best.  If you ever have a chance to go fly fishing in Slovenia, I highly recommend it.  Feel free to reach out to my contact details in the About section if you want more info on traveling/fly fishing in Slovenia.

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