So after our experience last week, I wanted to get on here and give you the ‘short-order’ details about Fly Fishing for Grayling in the Czech Republic, should you ever consider the opportunity for yourself.

  • Get a guide! There is no way I could have figured out how to fish and navigate the Czech without our guide. I found Jan Siman (pronounced Yawn) online (info@siman.cz) and he easily navigated us through the process. Jan works closely with Hotel Annin - www.hotelannin.cz - they provide very nice and very reasonably priced accommodations and he guides the nearby waters. Jan speaks multiple languages and was friendly and easy to talk to, both online and in person.

  • Prepare. I reserved our hotel stay online and gave Jan all of the required information ahead of time that he needed to acquire our fishing licenses. The State year license fee was about 100 czk (about $5) per person – and the day permit was about 500 czk (about $25) per person. Jan had these ready for us when we met him on the day of our trip.

  • We drove straight from the airport in Germany to the Czech. Traveling in a foreign country is not always a walk in the park and a bit stressful (at least for me) when everything is so unfamiliar. My husband speaks enough German to get us out of trouble – but as soon as we crossed into the Czech border we started sweating just a little bit more. It was getting late in the day and we had no idea where to find an ATM to get cash (see the next point).  The towns we were driving through were very small, and everything appeared to be closed. We had read online that unlike Germany, the people in the Czech don’t tend to be bi-lingual – so asking for directions, getting gas (luckily we filled up enough in Germany) etc. was out of the question. Our GPS was accurate enough to get us to Hotel Annin signs and we found our way to the hotel for the night before it got too dark. They had someone at the hotel that spoke enough English that we were able to check in and get some dinner. The food at the hotel was absolutely delicious – and again, the prices with the exchange rate made everything very affordable!

  • GET LOCAL CURRENCY CASH – The Czech have their own currency (Koruna – czk) and don’t use Euros. Apparently they will sometimes take Euros, but don’t like to because they have to pay a fee to convert it. The hotel is the only place that would take a credit card (we found out after the fact that you can usually negotiate a 5% discount if you pay in cash) – we also ate at the hotel and added our meals to our ‘tab’. You need to pay for your fishing licenses, guide, gas etc. all in cash. Luckily, our guide Jan was able to take us to an ATM in the morning before we fished (since we couldn’t find one on our own the night before) – and we were able to pull out enough cash to pay what we needed. Also make sure you know how much your daily cash limit is through your bank. We had talked to our bank ahead of time and thought we were prepared to take the cash we needed, but we still had issues :(

  • Have a blast! Jan picked us up in the morning and we fished Tepla Vltava all afternoon (it was about an hour drive from our hotel). We caught Grayling, native Brown Trout and also a few Dace (white fish). Apparently there were some Pike in that section as well – but we didn’t hook into any of those. We mostly fished dry flies on our own rods/reels, but Jan brought along a rig and showed us Czech/French Nymphing techniques and I was able to give that a successful try! I also learned a new cast, mending technique and how to tie a nifty new (very strong) knot. We were able to land a lot of fish and had an exceptional time!

    **The complete photo album and details from our trip can be seen on Facebook HERE ~ https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151197923652779.432639.659552778&type=1&l=e0d715a421 **

    If you have any unanswered questions, drop me a line and I’ll do my best to help!