Dunajec river - where danube salmon lives

Dunajec is a polish biggest mountain river with trout, grayling and danube salmon.

It is running through southern Poland and it is right tributary of the Vistula river. Dunajec is a border between Poland and Slovakia for 27km while running through Pieniny mountain range.

There is a big dam reservoir on this river - Czorsztyn Lake. The best places for fishing are from this reservoir to estuary to the Vistula.

What kind of fish can we catch?

Mainly: Danube Salmon, Brown Trout, Rainbow Trout, Grayling, Chub, Barbel and sometimes zander or pike, when they come from Czorsztyn Lake.

Water in Dunajec is very cold all over the year because it comes from bottom vent on Czorsztyn dam reservoir. In summer it gets warmer with every mile.

Fishing in Dunajec river in summer is focused mainly on grayling and trout. In winter almost every one try to catch danube salmon. This fish, called "The Queen of Dunajec" is some kind of symbol of Dunajec.

Main fishing methods are flyfishing spinning. Sometimes people fish for barbel or bream with bread or cheese.

Even if you have no bites it is fantastic to fish in Dunajec because of stunning Pieniny views. Dunajec is quite far from me, but I am here as often as possible. I want to share with you some of my photos. I hope some of you will come to Poland and will fish in my favourite river!

MORE PHOTOS HERE: Gallery of Dunajec river photos

New site on my blog!

Hi!
Today I published new site, where i described 3 types of  my lure retrievers. I think it is a hot topic for every spinning and casting angler. Feel free to comment !! :)

Lure retrievers

Zander Fishing- lures, spots, technique

How to catch a zander ???

Zander (pike-perch) is a fantastic sport fish well known in almost whole Europe. it grows over 20kg (44 pounds), but typical catches are much smaller of course. most common are zanders between 1 and 6kg (2 - 13 pounds). Zander is a close cousin of American walleye.

Zander lives in lakes, dam reservoirs, rivers and in Baltic sea also. The best are deep spots with sand, rocks or gravel at the bottom. Of course zanders sometimes, when feeding come near to the shoreline and feed on fry in very shallow places. This situation occurs mainly at night. After sunrise it is better to find zanders near to sunken tree rots, big rocks, etc..

Zander fishing is VERY popular in Poland. That is why you need to find some special lures or techniques to achieve success. I have got 3 main types of lures, that I use regular 

1)POLISH JIG - "KOGUT" is a fantastic lure - invented in south of Poland at about 20 years ago. For a long time it was a good protected secret. Now everyone knows about "kogut" but not everyone knows how to make it and how to use it. I make this jigs by myself. Sometimes even my friends want me to do a few "Koguty" for them. I will write soon a tutorial "How to make your own polish jig - kogut". I'm using "Kogut" 70% of time when fishing for zander.

2) Most popular group are softlures with relatively heavy jig heads. If the depth of your spot is 3m (10ft), you should use 14 - 28g (1/2 - 1oz) jig head. The key is to raise your lure very fast from the bottom and let it fall down again. 90% bites comes when jig is falling down, so it is necessary to have great contact with your lure.

My favourite jigs are:

• Relax kopyto, california, clonay
• Lunker city shaker
• Dragon lunatic

3) Last, but not least group are slender crankbaits and slashbaits. They are fantastic lures, when zanders come to shallow spots to feed on fry. Most people use them only in rivers, but I do this in lakes and dam reservoirs too. In this group  I use mainly:

• Salmo sting 6cm, 9cm floating, suspending and sinking
• Rapala husky jerk, original
• Kamatsu jointed minnow
• Salmo minnow shallow runner and super deep runner

All this lures are effective, when you find zanders and use your lure correct. Zander fishing is quite difficult and it is necessary to learn all the time, but catching a BIG zander is the best reward.

Carp Fishing in Poland - My case study

As most of you know I prefer spinning, casting and sometimes flyfishing, but a few times every year i fish for carp and amur (grass carp). First successes came 2 years ago...

It was may and i was spinning for pike with my friend using waders in shallow (3ft - 4ft) parts of lake. We cought a few of them (20in - 35in). after few hours we found nice spot. It was a small bay - 4ft deep and with thin mule layer with small shallowing to 3ft with sand on the bottom. Wright next to this shallowing was end of bay and begining of deep part of lake with a lot of mule.

We decided that it is great place to find carp. Next day we brought there big buckets of cooked corn with hemp and agrimony and of course about 4lb of self made protein boiles plus some carp pellet. We did the same thing 3 more times in 2 day inervals.

After a week of regular putting there groundbait we came for the first time with rods and started to fish an 5PM with putting groundbait again.

In this night there was only one carp - 10LB. It was a good sign and we could keep on fishing and luring.

We came back 2 days later at 3PM. Of course we started with a ground bait and then we start to fish. At 11PM my friend Adam had the first bite but we did not land this fish. At 1AM in the middle of night on there was a delicate bite on my rod. I thought it is a small fish because I felt no resist. When i had it near to the shore we saw (using torch) huge grass carp. Adam saw it better and he rated it for about 30lb - 35lb. The fight started! After 10 - 15 minuts (i had a 30lb monofinament) we put this fish to a landing net, but it was still strong and tore a hole in net, broke the line and gone away...

I was mad and angry so i couldn't sleep... At 7AM I had next bite. This time we land beautiful almost 30lb grass carp and until 3PM we had 7 carps between 9lb and 14lb. It was fantastic day.

We have been fishing in this spot a few times more and every time we caught some carps and grass carps. Never came home with nothing.

Since this summer I like carp fishing a lot, but it isn't better than spinning and casting. Idon't have special carp equipment. I use my sea trout and danube salmon rods and reels :)

Now it is:

1) Shimano Nexave 3,3m 20-50g with Tic GD 4059
2) Shimano technium 2,7m 50-100g with Shimano SUper GT-RB 4000

I used to have other rods and reels, but i am still buying new equipment :)



Ready for bite!!

Any questions? Ask with a comment!