Story, Photos and Art by Alberto Rey
While traveling to remote fly-fishing destinations around the world, I have found that there are hotbeds of great fishing that are not well known. Slovenia is one of these underrecognized but very productive fishing locations. It has been only in the past few years that I have heard anglers discussing rumors of its merits, but I have never met anyone who has fished there.
I probably would never have gone to this former Eastern Bloc country, which at one time was part of the Soviet Union, if I had not met Robert Redding, the owner of the Krka Lodge in Slovenia, at an Orvis partners meeting. We chatted for a long while as anglers tend to do when discussing their addiction to the sport. By the end of our animated discussion, I was dreaming about visiting him and realized that I needed to add this destination to our upcoming trip to Europe.
A few months later, my wife Janeil and I found ourselves on a vaporetto (public water bus) on the Canal de San Marco heading to the international art exhibition in Venice. As we explored pavilions filled with some of the world’s most important art, I kept thinking about the fishing adventure that awaited us in a few days.
I had somehow convinced my wife, a nonangler, to join me on a three-and-a-half-hour bus ride to a little lodge in a remote section of the country that we knew nothing about. We soon discovered, however, that the Krka Lodge is located within a tiny village that happens to be at the epicenter of some of the world’s best trout fishing.
Krka Lodge has 50 trout streams within an hour’s drive and an additional 50 if you were interested in driving another hour. The lodge is built on the banks of the Krka River, and it is not an exaggeration to say that you can have a 20-plus inch rainbow on your line within minutes after your arrival. You can find large rainbows throughout the river, and you only need to walk a few minutes to find them slurping on dries.
The real trophies for me, however, are the beautifully colored Karst brown trout that are native to the region. A 33-inch beauty was caught a few months before our arrival on a streamer when the river was high and off color. The river is also home to the Huchen (Hucho Hucho), which are closely related to taimen, the largest salmonid in the world. Taimen prowl the stream, and several anglers have been surprised by Hucho Hucho attacking their catches while they were reeling them in.
If you want to treat yourself to a unique landscape and epic experience, you will need to take the scenic two-hour ride through the Julian Alps to the Soča (Isonzo) River Valley. As you zig-zag your way up and down steep lush mountain sides on a stone road built by Russian prisoners of war, you will drive through what was once one of the bloodiest battlefields during World War I. This is the location that inspired Hemingway’s novel, “A Farewell to Arms.”
When we reached the sacred valley in the early morning, a thick mist blanketed the river. A subtle breeze softly rolled the fog back and forth over the gin-clear emerald-green water.
As I looked down at my feet to cross the stream, I could see rocks dotted with hundreds of nest-building caddis. About 30 feet from us, you could see dimples on the water as large rainbows and native marble trout swam laterally across the current to pick off blue winged olives and caddis as they drifted by.
I slowly got into position downstream of the rising fish, took a deep breath and focused on the task at hand. I surprised myself by making two accurate casts under overhanging branches upstream and to the right of feeding trout. The small, pink-hackled parachute post fly, a local favorite, floated near the spot where the fish had been feeding. I did not, however, get any response. I had a few looks from other fish later that morning as the fog lifted but the feeding remained slow until we switched to small, weighted nymphs on 6x tippet in fast-moving currents. The large, elongated shadows on the streambed provided easy casting targets. These fish were, fortunately, more obliging but were tricky to land on the thin line.
I periodically lifted my head from staring at the hydraulics of the currents to partake in the stunning scenery around me. I realized how fortunate I was to be part, if only temporarily, of this environment. By some twist of fate, I met Redding and found myself in this spot on the globe.
I have heard anglers say that this realization makes fishing seem inconsequential and that’s true, but it is because of this sport, that I was standing, for hours, in the middle of a stream watching as an extraordinary part of the world subtly changed around me. These unexpected moments keep me searching for the next location where I can experience this spiritual connection to nature and history.
Alberto Rey is a fly fisher, retired educator, painter, writer and filmmaker who has run a youth fly-fishing program for 30 years. Rey’s paintings can be found in over 20 museum collections and have been in over 200 exhibitions. His films and videos have been screened internationally, and his illustrated articles and artwork have graced the covers and pages of Gray’s Sporting Journal, Art of Angling Journal, Fish and Fly Magazine, American Angler, Fly Fishing International Magazine, The Drake, Saltwater Fisherman, Anglers Journal and Buffalo Spree. Learn more at albertorey.com.
