Fly Fishing the West Series

On May 14, 1804 Lewis and Clark and what has come to be known as the Corp of Discovery set out from St. Louis, Missouri headed for the Pacific Ocean. It turned out to be an epic journey uncovering the beauty and majesty of the American West. One major reason for the huge success and notoriety of the journey is the fact that Meriwether Lewis and others kept meticulous journals of their daily experiences. In this spirit of the adventure and trying my best to record these experiences, Fly Fishing the West has become a series of reports and pictures summarizing fishing trips I have made beginning in Nov. 2008. The purpose of the series is to provide some hopefully useful information to the reader for future reference, should an opportunity come to visit any of these locations. (Note—The summaries include more information that just about fishing. This lends credence to the notion attributed to Henry David Thoreau that, 'A man may fish his entire life before he realizes that, what he is trying to catch, is not fish at all...')

Rainbow Trout

Rainbow Trout
Caught by Tyson Lower Provo River

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Moraca River in Podgorica, MONTENEGRO 1


Fly Fishing the West
Vol. 100, Issue 1
12 July 2012
Moraca River in Podgorica, MONTENEGRO 
 
Where: Moraca River, in Podgorica, MONTENEGRO, below the Millennium Bridge about ½ mile.
When: 5:15am - 7:45am
What: nymphing w/ flashback midge, silver spider, and streamer fishing with the zebra midge and yellow bodied streamer.
River Flow: river way down
Fish: 2 landed 
World's Record: for smallest fish caught, length of fly was bigger than the fish itself. 

I tried nymphing with the flashback and the silver spider with no luck in the best place (above Millennium Bridge). I then tried the brown streamer with no luck. I moved downstream and saw some black bugs (terrestrials) crawling on the rocks (looked like about the size of the zebra midge (size 10) so I put that on. I then caught the first fish (about 4" long) on the second cast. The fish is called a ‘common bleak’and looks a bit like the European version of a Columbia River squawfish (pikeminnow)or mountain whitefish. It is edible but bony.
As I unhooked him I saw a long, yellow centipede-looking insect swimming around some rocks so I tried a yellow streamer and hooked the second fish, about two inches long. I will re-rig for the rapids above Millennium Bridge to fish next time then go through the fly box to see if I can raise a trout. 

Other Miscellaneous Information/Observations:

  1. The weather was sunny and warming up, but pleasant in the early morning, i.e., in the 70’s degrees.
  2. The Moraca River in Podgorica is a beautiful river that runs clear in the fall. It comes straight out of the nearby mountains to the east and is the confluence of the Tora and Zeta rivers, all undammed, it is a high flow, wild stream that can change rapidly if it rains. In Podgorica it can rain hard for hours.
  3. Non-resident Montenegro fishing license was $35 euro (about US$50) for a 1-year license I bought at a store in Podgorica called Megafish.
  4. Animals: saw none today but I saw a brown and yellow tortoise (about 8" long) on the other side of the river a few days earlier. There are a lot of these tortoises throughout Montenegro.
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