Quick report on my recent trip to Slovenia, might be of use to anyone planning a trip there in the future. A little light on photographs, I'm not much of a photographer and I was on my own.
After much anticipation on the 27th May I flew into Trieste airport, fortunately “Trieste airport” is not actually in Trieste, it’s well to the North, in the direction of Slovenia. About an hour and a half drive later, much of which was along the Soca Valley I arrived in the village of Idrija pri Bači, crossed narrow bridge and into the Hotel Zlata Ribica. Matej, the proprietor was there to welcome me and poured me a glass of Bulls Blood, some local brew.
View from the bridge to the hotel
Day 1
The following morning before breakfast I went outside to fish the stretch of the Idrija directly in front of the hotel shown above, nothing obvious on the surface so I tied on a sz 14 Bead head PTN and within 20 minutes had a 18’’ rainbow in the net – nice start. Following breakfast I got a run down of the various rivers in the area from Matej and on his recommendation proceeded to the Baca (maybe 8 kms from the confluence, a tributary of the Idrija (itself a tributary of the Soca). The fishing here was tough for someone who uses dry fly 90% of the time, there was relatively little fly activity evident and no rises to be seen. Again I fished using a BH PTN under an indicator, but felt I wasn’t getting deep enough. Managed to pick up 3 rainbows between 14-16’’. One amazing feature of the water here is it’s clarity, you can clearly see, from some distance, fish lying in pools 8’ deep. Following the first day I decided I needed much heavier nymphs to reach the fish.
That evening Matej produced his fly boxes and the nymph box was full of nymphs up to size 4 with huge beads and lead wire, I armed myself with some of these for the following day.
Upper Baca
Rainbow from upper Baca
Day 2
Next morning after breakfast I returned to the Baca to fish the C&R section (which is at the confluence with the Idrija). This is a wide, fast flowing, shallow section with some undercut banks, small pools, and short deeper riffles. The big nymphs paid off here as I caught a succession of rainbows in the 16-18’’ range along with a 22'' monster which took a good 5 minutes to land. Unfortunately this fish wasn't in great condition. There was one interesting pool here, very deep and slow flowing, at the bottom of which were a lot of rainbows and some huge marble trout which slowly cruised the bottom scattering the rainbows. Fished this pool with woolly buggers and nymphs for an hour without success. After dinner I fished a pool on the Idrija close to the hotel (thanks to Debbie for this tip) with streamers and and caught a 16’ rainbow and lost 4 others.
Baca C&R zone
22'' Rainbow
Day 3
Although Matej told me the Soca was not fishing well due to snowmelt, which colours the water a milky blue and turns it into a torrent, I wanted to have a crack off it. The locally used flies for fishing the Soca range from 1’’ long streamers with a large lead head to full sized pike flies with an enormous lead head. Matej supplied me with a selection. I fished the C&R section at Volarje (where my permit was inspected and the warden checked my flies were barbless). This is a wide, deep, very fast flowing river and I had only my 5# rod to cast streamers (having been advised pre-trip by a number of posters on here that 10-12#’s are the appropriate tool for marble fishing). Casting was basically swinging these lead weights behind me and then swinging them out into the river, this resulted in a number of seriously painful bangs on the back, arm and head though fortunately I wasn’t actually hooked). It could hardly be described as fly-fishing but the results were impressive. First to the net was a 14’’ marble, then a 17'' rainbow and another marble and then my line shrieked off my reel with about 10 yards of backing past the rod (which had the drag clamped down pretty heavily). I got back most of the line and saw a huge fish for an instant before it flew upstream again and again took all of my line and a lot of backing with it. Eventually I landed it ( my net was completely useless for a fish this size, took out my camera and the battery was dead F***, F***, F***. Quickly marked on my rod the fishes length and let him off. The fish was in absolutely perfect condition, not an ounce of flab, big teeth, immaculate fins and its tail was much bigger than my outstretched little finger and thumb. Because of it’s condition I thought I had just caught the biggest wild trout I’m ever likely to catch and didn’t get a photo. I still don’t know if it was wild obviously but if it wasn’t it had been in the river a very long time. I left it at that for the morning and went off to have lunch – shaking. After lunch I returned to the same spot and picked up another two rainbows (around 16-18’’) and lost something very big which broke my 7lb tippet after a short fight, again all on heavy streamers.
In the bar that night I was telling all present about this trout (and the marble) and most people asked Matej to get out the streamers, planning to hit the Soca the next morning.
Soca from Bridge at Volarje (note the milky blue colour - snowmelt)
Streamers for Soca (for scale the black streamer is about 4'' long)
First Marble of the trip
Day 4
I hadn’t yet fished the Trebusca, a small tributary of the Idrija, upstream of the hotel. In the morning I headed off and started fishing close to the confluence. This is a small stream, with crystal clear water. I picked up a few rainbows on nymphs early in the morning and as the morning went on fly activity picked up and fish started to rise. This was the first consistent rising i had seen on the trip. I spent the rest of the day fishing dries to trout (rainbows) you could see from a mile off catching a mixture of 6’’ parr (presumably wild) and 12-14’’ fish. I saw a lot of grayling here but wasn’t able to tempt any with the dry flies, they tended to be much deeper in pools. The fishing here was relatively difficult and the fish somewhat spooky but it was hugely enjoyable being able to fish dries after so much nymphing and streamer fishing. After lunch I explored another part of the Trebusca, with similar results.
Trebusca
Small but perfectly formed
Trebusca flies
Another Trebusca rainbow
Day 5
The only significant river I had yet to fish was the Tolminka, which joins the Soca in the village of Tolmin. This was heavily affected by snowmelt and apparently not fishing well but wanting to taste everything available I went here on my penultimate morning. I should have listened to Matej’s advice, not only did I blank during my 4 hours here but I got a good dunking in the freezing snowmelt water for my troubles. After lunch I went back to the C&R section of the Soca, half thinking I could catch the monster again but this time get a photo. I didn’t catch the monster but I caught a few nice grayling, (a bright yellow colour, very strange) and a couple of (what I was by now calling ) “medium sized” rainbows (16-18’’). On the way back to the hotel I went back to the C&R section of the Baca for a few hours. I wanted to try a few heavy streamers in the deep pool with the rainbows and marbles. The big, heavy streamers got an immediate reaction (woolly buggers had been completely ignored previously). The rainbows chased the streamers through the pool and pretty soon I had a decent fish on he bolted for cover but out the the cover an enormous marble appeared that chased the rainbow (which was about 15’’) and towards me, i could see down its mouth as it closed in on the rainbow but just as it saw me it turned and disappeared back into the depths. The rainbow actually beached itself trying to escape the marble. Back to the hotel for dinner and drinks.
First Grayling of the trip
Day 6
On my last day I had a few options, since I had been fishing on a 5 day permit, I could renew this for one day, fish the Unec a chalkstream about an hours drive away or fish another section of the Idrija, about half an hours drive upstream. I was keen to fish dry flies but the Unec was low so decided to fish upstream on the Idrija (the next club up). Off I went and fished for the morning in the C&R section of this clubs stretch. I didn’t see any fish rising all morning and couldn’t connect with anything with nymphs or streamers, by lunch time I was ready to give up. I had lunch and was mulling over whether I should pack it in and head back to the hotel of try another part of the river for a few hours I decided on the latter. By this time it was 6.30 so I wouldn’t have more than a few hours fishing left anyway. I tackled up at a different part of the C&R section and was putting on a streamer leader when I saw a few rises, quickly changed over to a dry fly and started catching, as I worked my way up this stretch the rises became more frequent and the fish bigger – one of which was a decent sized hybrid (marble & brown trout). At dusk I rounded a bend and was faced with a huge flat with thousands of mayfly in the air and the trout going absolutely crazy. I could see trout with their snout out of the water gulping down one fly after another. I changed to a big mayfly pattern and after a few casts had a fish on for a few seconds but was broken off, I changed my tippet strength and for the next hour caught rainbow after rainbow, all 18’’+ on dries. Probably the best hours fishing I’ve ever had. I left when it was dark enough to just make it back to the car.
Idrija C&R section
Hybrid
One of the mayfly caught rainbows
Overall the trip was fantastic. The weather was perfect, 20-25 degrees, light winds. I may have been 2-3 weeks early for the peak of the fishing, dry fly activity was definitely increasing as the week went on. The season was delayed due to a cold spring and heavy snowmelt. Thanks to everyone who gave me invaluable tips before I went. I will be returning.
A few tips for anyone going over.
Bring heavy nymphs, lead shot and indicators. If you’re fishing nymphs they need to be heavy.
If you plan on fishing streamers bring a heavy rod, everyone at the hotel was lamenting the fact that they only brought 5/6 # rods. Frankly I didn’t believe posters on here when they said 11/12#s are used for the Soca. I do now.
I’d thouroghly recommend the Hotel Zlata Ribica, excellent service, great location, good company and totally geared towards fishermen. (its always good when the bar tab is a fraction of what you expect it to be).
If anyones going over and wants to know more, ask away.
Slovenia, May 27th - June 03. Trip Report
SKB tackle supporter. I love Furled Leaders.
- past its best but who cares! and hopefully in Jan to tackle the huchen again (the marble's bigger cousin 
) with a 10/11 Switch (12-13 single hand!!) and monster streamers and jigs which make yours look like 22s!
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