Fishing world: River San Poland 2011 Graying dreams are made

left to right...Roger Bryant, Steve N, John Aussie, JT, Richy M, John M, Andy C, Richardo

Well here it was the second year for me on the famous river San in the south east of Poland, this year we had the same group as last year with the inclusion of top angler Andy Cliffe a good mate of Jt.. As usual I had my room mate big balls Roger Bryant, the Geordie cunts richy and john and big lad Steve (half Serb) and as usual our host Jonny T

John Aussie cunt

Ricardo what a top bloke!!

wojtek polish twat

Last year gave us some rock hard conditions and we all hoped for some better conditions to give us easier dry fly fishing, this year was pretty much the same the forecast was not good with hot conditions and low water... We were all picked up from the airport by Ricardo our polish guide, a top bloke who I meet last year and always up for some good crack...the two hour drive to our fishing lodge he told us the fishing was very testing with very low water and low hatches...grrrr... We were slightly gutted but hey I never listen to anyone until I seen it for myself and wet a line.... Arriving at the lodge we packed our gear and looked out onto the holy San in our back garden, it was a completely different river to last year showing it's bare bones!!! We all looked gutted... Well it's takes a lot for my to get down on fishing and I knew if the fish were there we would be in for some action... At the lodge we met a new angler john, a Aussie lad who had travelled to fish the San only two weeks after a hip opp to fish for the ladies, as you can imagine the crack got going as I gave him some stick and he returned with 'you pomm bastards' we all knew from then he was one of the lads!!

That night the lads went out for the last few hours and produced a few small fish, I was knackered and took the option of a early night to get myself fit for the following day.. Up at 9 tying flys with JT and breakfast at 10 we all loaded our stuff in the van....we were going to the beat 'the islands' a famous part that is known to produce good hatches and hold lots of ladies....winner... Here the river is at it's widest point and then splits around the islands...I choose to fish above the islands in it's widest point...a little scour looking upstream on my left looked a perfect spot to hold some ladies...now in these conditions stealth is the key back home but I am talking supreme stealth on this river, I waded up to my spot taking my time, almost a hour to get to where I wanted !! There was a raised rock in the river and I knelt down in the river for extra stealth and waited for the rises to come....... We all turn into mad dry fly men when we come here, our goal is to catch a grayling on the dry every day, we could all use duo techniques and French nymphimg to better effect but there in nothing like catching a Graying to the dry, and certainly a huge one we all know come and take the dry...this to me is what this river is all about...I could go back home and catch grayling nymphimg but where do you get a river that sees 50cm plus sipping bwo? Class Soon enough I saw a few smutting rises in 2ft of water, this was enough to get my heart pounding, the under water boil with a single bubble drifting downstream was the sure sign I had grayling in my pool.... I sat for a while watching and a lovely hatch of pale wateries came sweeping off...I selected my green fly size 22 and started to cover the rises, for a hour I my fly was totally ignored and I knew I was back on the San! I eventually went down to a 0.06 Tippett which might seem insane but these fish are so clued up you need a complete natural drift... Soon enough I had a take and struck into thin air! Before long I was getting takes and missing loads so altered my striking with a slight delay... This produced my first san lady, a small fish but i had fooled these San wonders... Richy and myself were in a corner and had the fish locked in and as the afternoon came we were matching the hatch with a pale waterie f fly...i took two fish bang on the 40cm which really did give the run around...San Grayling are like no other strain i have seen and they act quite different from the ones back home, they have a crimson flank and have a powerful body but most off all they have the same anger as a trout and go mental when hooked... In the evening the whole pool i fish came into a sight i will never forget, the sherry spinners and pale watterie spinners were in there millions and imwatched with amazement there were literally hundreds of trout and grayling feasting on this easy meal.. I had to wait for the fall to calm down as my spinner had barely a chance to get taken amongst this carpet of dying duns... Another lesson learnt.......... When the sherry falls onto the river the wings are upright like the dun, and obviously once the eggs have been laid the wings will lay flat as the spinner we all try to match... I noticed at this point that early in the spinner fall the fish would lock onto the upright spinner, ignoring the flat wings but the rolls would reverse as the flat wingers become more...

Notice the Sherry spinner with the upright wings, the bright orange is a huge giveaway, the grayling and trout would 'lock on' to the upwing!!!

Power Lines

Jts footprint olive is a perfect match for the Pale Waterie Duns size 21!!

Above the islands, presenting a dry in this is not for the faint hearted!!!

I took notice of this and back at the lodge that evening jt set to tie some of these upright winged bwo... Later that night we all had different storyies to tell and some of the lads had tough day with no hatches, this obviously showing that finding a good spot was crucial... The next few days saw us all have very testing action, the sun was bright and the river very low and we all stood for hours looking for rising fish, most coming in the evening as the light started to fade...all the lads were getting fish but there were no signs of any of the biggys we come for... The hard fishing took its toll and on the wednesday night we had a full session on the beer wine and spirits, this turned out to be a right good crack as we all got hammered...aussie lad John was on top form as he told us his storys of his fishing adventures around the world, and mainly taking the piss out of the pomms!, we did get our own back as we all strung into full chorus english yob style and sung him a song that i would not dare repeat on my blog lol In the morning we all had breakfast with Aussie John as he was leaving, a really top bloke who we all got to love, we sung his song as we pulled out the drive and he came to the van and said 'fuck off u pommy bastards' !! with cheers from us all we gave him the v and we were off fishing still drunk from the night...

Geordie John wore Vision gear and looked a right twat

Big cunt Steve..ppp

'They say it changes when the sun goes down'

JT n Cliffy, Jt kept missing his lips and Cliffy was singing artic monkeys all night!!Class

Bryant on the piss, my room mate...we had endless night of filthy sex together xxx

The night on the lash really battered us for the day and arriving at Balaclava the next day we all trudjed off quietley to our pools, Andy C had a 3 hour kip in the sun and woke up with a snake not far from him!!!

Last year fishing at balaclava i lost the fish of my life and hoped i would get rewarded with my hard efforts to land one of these clunkers that we all want to the dry...
Today there was a haze around and midday saw me and Richy get onto a huge pod of rising Grayling in a lovely hatch of PWO, we did not hang around and started to ping out 20 cm grayling to emerging duns and full duns, within half hour of the hatch the big boils started leaving huge bubbles the size of a golf ball!!! heart pounding stuff....Richy and myself had our chance and basically fucked it up....we were rising big 50cm grayling hooking them and the tiny 22 hooks were pinging out there mouths, richy hooked a monster and it dumped him in the weed instantly....we were gutted.....how could we possibly land these massive sippers on size 22 barbless, 0.06 mm tippet??? we could not get takes using heavier line and bigger lines...Jt has done it in the past with a 49cm which is some feat...
Night came and we all trudged back to the van for the trip back to the lodge....i was contantly thinking of ways to land these fish...It came to me as i spoke to Wojtek at the lodge...he said 'Glen you cannot land these fish on such light tackle, you need to go to them'

On Friday night we decided to got to the local club in Leskow, our guide Richardo said we would have a top night there, it was nice to get out for a change of stopping in the house tying flys...
Arriving was a eye opener, we walked down into a basement to a pumping euro hardcore, polish headcases with skinned heads dancing to this mental base line!! now i am not new to this seen but its 20 years since i seen a club like this.... Richy got stuck with a polish Alcholic and he would not leave him alone pmsl!!We all got stuck into the Vodka and before long we were all puling shapes in the mosh pit!! lol... Roger Bryant sank a full bottle of vodka and was off his face on the dancefloor!! There was one problem...we were being eyeballed by every polish lad in there, infact some of them never took there eyes off us...us English are always up for a ruck if needed but we were out for the crack and did not fancy a night in the polish cells!!! we stuck it out until i was having a fag outside, a polish lad came out shouting his head off..i heard his mention England at the end of his sentence, i turned to Richardo our polish guide and asked if it was time to go... he said yes!!! We rounded the lads up and were away in the van like the A team with stares outside the club!!! Near miss i thinks but a experience to say the least..

We all had the choice to fish where we wanted and my fishing parter Richy and myself decided to go to the Islands where we had good success on the first day, i knew the fish were there but getting them to take a dry here was very hard indeed...
we had learnt in the week all the flys we needed to get the takes, the most productive being a size 22 f fly with a very pale green/white dubbing...sitting for hours in flat water you get to see what is actually going on with the Grayling feeding...many a top angler will say a f fly is taken just for anything, this maybe true in some respects but on this occasion they were taking them for pale waterie as they were free of the shuck...i could see the fish only taking the emerging dun... our green f fly was imitating the moment where the wings are still flat down and the grayling loved them....the problem as i knew was going to be holding onto a big fish if it happened...i had taken note of Wojtek and had set my plan to hook and go to the fish....

Me and Richy had a L shape into a lovely scour and sat waiting for the fish to rise, a French group of lads pulled up in there van and looked gutted we were in this pool, they started to have dinner right infront of us making lots of noise!! this really pissed me off as they were trying to distract our fishing so we would move on...we were not having it and i think they got the hint as they must have spoken English as i shouted a few words across to the lads!!
Well some things happen in fishing and at this moment all my hard work repaid me over the last two years visiting the San..
I could see a grayling rising 20 yards away from me and i did not want to move downstream to spook the fish infront of me...i was pucking the odd 25/30 cm out and in the corner of my eye i kept seeing this fish feeding heavily... i pulled out a long line and covered the fish..it totally ignored my first few casts...the fish was rising at the back of a boil and it was slightly dragging my fly over it.. JT has taught me to present a beautiful presentation over the last few years and all my lesson paid me kindly... i did a huge downstream cast and threw a big slack lined loop across the boil...
Heart pounding thinking 'come on come on' and that lovely bubbled boil swept my f fly away..a side strike to my left and the rod sunk around...i then saw a huge bow wave come across the boil and saw the most magnificent moments in my fly fishing...the huge shape of a crimson bodied grayling came leaping clean out the water shaking its head!! i heard richy shout fuck me your into a proper san fish!!!
I shouted 'get the fucking camera'!!
The Fish was kiting for the fast water then back to the tree root downstream...in all the madness i realised i was was on 0.06 stroft..i was standing yards upstream in sidestrain holding the fish a best as i could but it was totally beating me about, i let of the power and ran down the river to the fish keeping only slight tension, i came along side the fish and to my amazement the fish was diving into a bolder shaking its head trying to release the hook..i lifted the fish away and it held at the side of me holding the flow...i was just holding the hook in and did not try to bully the fish...richy came running down though the river to give me a hand...we decided that i would hold it in the flow to the side of me and he would walk behind it and softly scoop it in the net, he got 5ft away and it spooked it into madness as it came around me diving away from the net hitting the richys legs!!! it started to go wild as it kept leaping out the water...i was in trouble as my fly excess fly line was downstream and this had caught my leader...
Now you see some mad moment in your life but Richy performed something for me i will never forget, he knew what this meant to us and he leaped across the river horizontal with the water, crashed underwater with just his head above and scooped the fish into his net... i stood there in amazement and he pulled it out the water and we both sceamed 'YESSS' ...I looked around and the French Twats who had been pissing about were all watching on the bank side with there faces dropped...they never even clapped or said 'well done', i did not care about them, me and Richy had just landed a fish of a lifetime, a perfect plump 47cm cock San Grayling...
We took him to a flat pool and rested it in the net for a minuite then got some snaps and released it back...the feeling i got was overwhelming, all the lads shook my hand at dinner and they were all buzzing for me..
After dinner they all went out fishing and i just found a secluded spot and sat and drank a few tinnies next to the river and soaked up a feeling only us specimen anglers have...winner

Check out the San strain...crimson flanks

47cm cock San Grayling on a size 22 dry dont get any better for me.....

Well this has got to be up there with my 23.13 carp , my first ever river Barbel, my Wye huge brown, and my Tean 2lb 2..

This trip was amazing for me as i accoumished what i set to do, but the crack with all the lads on this trip is second to none, JT sorts a quality trip here and is always there to help us out...Every one of us can fish to a high level and i really hope we all get to be in the crimson wacker club
I know there is Grayling there above the 55 and i have seen them for my own eyes, i shall be back in search of one of these and a night out in the club Vegas!!!