Belona

Belona.

by Kuba Chruszczewski

              Buoyancy. Very pleasantly buoyant, almost like being in grandma's rocking chair. Wind light, sea state...as sailors say? Minus1 in gusts to 0 or so. Sunshine, in front of me the shore overgrown with beautiful forest, below me the water crystal, you can see the bottom strewn with colorful gravel, emerald green seaweed. I cast, the line with a beautiful loop unfolds in the air, lays on the surface. I pull down lightly, just enough to straighten the set. And slowly I collect „ in eight”. The slight current is doing its job, carrying me toward my flies, so two light movements with the fins to reduce the resulting slack. And again a slow retrieve. And another cast. The next time there is a bite. I clipped with feeling. The taut line sows droplets of water in which the light splits beautifully. And somewhere there, at the end of the set a flash of living silver over the wave, dancing on the tail. Then off to the side, then in the other direction and out again.... Out of the corner of my eye I see that Wojtek fishing from a circle not far from me is also towing .Hubert, who in front of me is fishing wading barely up to his knees, also had , but briefly. It fell, that's nothing, he will probably have another one soon. Mine is already close, tired lies still, lets pick up in my hand. The fly is probably stuck in the scissors. Good fly, it has proven itself, I have already had several fish on it today. Toothed mouth. Asymmetrical - the upper bark a lot shorter. Amazing a bit this muzzle, some kind of from another fairy tale, I always associate it with some Caribbean or other tropics.... Plus the big eyes, iridescent, silvery selective scales. A slender, muscular, writhing body. Belona, our marlin for the poor.... We fish for belon in the Baltic Sea.

 But from the beginning. It all started when a group of friends, led by the animator of the whole enterprise, Arek, known in some circles as „Wyro”, came up with the idea to meet twice a season, in spring and autumn, at some good fishing spot and for a few days fish together, stay together, feast, and whatnot. And for a couple of seasons we have managed - once in a wider, once in a narrower, but for some time now in a relatively stable composition - to put our idea into practice. Spring meetings were held on the Raba River - first the special one, at Józek Jeleński's place, then „At friends”, i.e. on the no kill section below Dobczyce. Autumn rallies are traditionally OS San. And it was at one of the autumn rallies that two new participants -Tomek and Jarek- arrived from as far away as the Tri-City. They told about belon fishing so interestingly that the decision was made quickly. The next spring rally will be at the sea, the main goal - belon.

And off we went. We hit in such a way that the old-timers described it as a jackpot. Because to fish for beluga in the sea you need two important factors. First, there must be fish. Belon visits the coastal waters of the Baltic Sea around the end of May and the beginning of June, it can be a week-two earlier or later. It is simply possible to miss. Secondly, the weather, or rather the state of the sea. With strong waves it is simply impossible to enter the water.( This happened to us a year later, a total failure) But this time we succeeded. The state of the sea allowed us to fish „on foot”, or from a circle, as you preferred. The fish were in abundance and biting eagerly. So there was an ideal opportunity for first-timers to see what it was all about. Thanks to the invaluable advice of local, experienced guys, it went quickly. A well-chosen set - in the described conditions a rod in the 5/6 class, maximum 7, a 0.20 leader and appropriate flies - allows to catch several to a dozen fish a day. And this is despite the fact that a lot of belons fall in the haul. In this narrow , bony mouth the hook penetrates poorly, and the fish fights very bravely and to the end. So it is worthwhile to make belon flies on really good, sharp sea hooks. Effective flies are not too big, usually in size 10-6, more or less conventionally imitating small marine organisms - just such simple, shrimp-like flies, there can also be wet spider flies (the classic Red Tag, liked by the Danes, can be very effective), or pallmers similar to, for example, Soldier Pallmer or Black Zulu, and imitations of small fish. To us, at the event described above, probably the best were just such quasi-shrimp in colors ranging from orange, reddish, maroon, to dark brown. A little bit of some sort of shiny addition seems to increase the attractiveness of the fly. If one likes, there can be eyes, feelers and other bits.

 One throws as far as one can, moreover, one always has the feeling that it is too close and would be useful to go further. But it is worth watching the water closely. You can often see floats of belons, sometimes , thanks to Polaroids it is possible to spot a flock of fish passing nearby. Carefully fed on the route of their migration, the fly gives a good chance for a bite. Small flies are guided slowly, basically it comes down to picking up the slack of the line, but always under control, because the bites are sometimes quite delicate.

And that's probably all. The rest will be brought by experience. It is necessary to have some contact at the sea and in good time wait for the call - they are, they are taking, it is possible to enter the water. Then it is worth going, because the next opportunity will be only next year. I heartily recommend fly fishing for belon, because it is something very different from what ‘normal’, river, trout and grayling fly fishing can offer. And this is no forced extravagance, fly is, compared to spinning, an equal method, and sometimes it can be much more effective. While we were catching fish after fish, spinning anglers watched our exploits quite helplessly, and the spinning event held on the same days in the Puck Bay did not go very well due to very poor results.

Finally, some advice for those who want to fish from the wheel, but do not have much experience in it. First - never alone, there must always be someone else within voice range. Second - it's best to have a life jacket, especially if you are swimming on a single-chamber caster. Third - be careful at all times, even when hatching into the caster while still in shallow water near the shore. It's easy to get tangled up with your fins in the harness, and falling on the rocky bottom can be very dangerous. Well, and do not swim out too far, in the case of beluga it does not really matter much.