SP1: How I Met the Marble Trout

I should have been born in Nemški Rut, like my five brothers and sisters, but it seems my mother was worried. The war was raging, my mother was in her 48th year, my father was on the prison island of Ustica, one brother was in the Italian army, and my grandfather didn't want to wait for me and simply died. When my mother felt the contractions begin, she called her sister and together they walked to the two-hours distant train station at Grahovo. When they arrived in Gorica, I was ready to be born. They nonetheless managed to find a taxi of some sort and finally I was born at the hospital.

Nemški Rut under the ridge from Rodica to Črna prst. (public domain, source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:%C5%BDiga)

Nemški Rut used to be called Deutsch Koritnica, as in the middle ages Koritnica was the last village in the Bača Valley (Baška grapa)*. Further up the Bača there were no Slovenian villages, so in the 13th century the Patriarch of Aquileia** brought Tyrolean settlers from Innichen to build new villages and originally Nemški Rut (Deutsch Gereuth) was the name for the whole region. To start the Tyroleans built four villages, the largest of which was the aforementioned Deutsch Koritnica. This was also the last to slovenicize, and thus finally came to bear the name Nemški Rut. It is the most suitable for farming of all these villages and stands under a ridge which stretches through the Julian Alps from mount Rodica to mount Črna prst ('Black Soil').

From my earliest memories, I knew fish. In books, of course, but also in nature. Two men often brought brown trout. One from Grahovo, who had the Koritnica river concession before the war. I don't know about the Bača, but after the 'liberation' of 1945, when a capitalist could no long exploit his fellow fish, sorry, his fellow man, he probably shouldn't have been catching these fish. But, of course, we had not been re-educated yet, so he simply caught them illegally and sold them. Before the war we had a restaurant and shop, so he had probably regularly brought and sold us these fish for many years already.

The other man was a smith and his house was right next to the Koritnica stream. He would catch them with bombs, and always brought around twenty fish. My mother would give him two big loaves of bread for them.

My mother was a good cook. Normally, I never wanted to eat and I was never hungry. But there were a few things I liked. I always loved to eat fish, and my favourite food were sardines. Sadly, my parents never wanted to buy them for me, so I had to make do with brown trout. When my mother prepared these trout, I studied them closely. I found her cook book from the fallen Austria-Hungary and it had colour pictures of fish. The brown trout in her book were too brown, but their spots were red and I realized that these were actually brown trout***. Ever since I learned English, the word 'brown trout' always reminds me of that cook book and my first studies of the trout from the local streams.

Our village is further up the slopes and it takes a solid twenty minutes to walk to the Koritnica. In the summers we children would sometimes take a Sunday afternoon to go and swim. Why only Sunday afternoons? If the grown-ups let us go down to the stream, we had to be big enough, at least eight or nine, for younger children could drown. But at that age, we had to work during the week and on Sunday mornings we had to go to mass. I also had the special role of altar boy, or as we said in Rut, 'konfiterle'. Well, one day while swimming the bigger children had the idea of catching fish. I tried, too, and incredibly I caught a fish! I didn't let it escape from its hole and a two-years older boy helped me catch it. I was boundlessly happy!

*For the etymologically minded, 'korito' in Slovenian means basin, sink or a narrow canyon, and Koritnica in this case refers to both the stream and the village at its mouth. Thus, they could be refered to as "The Canyon Stream" and "The Canyon Village". 'Grapa' refers to a specifically narrow and steeply-cut valley. This gives a good idea of the topography of the region. (Luka)

**From 1077 to 1433, this part of the world was governed as an ecclesiastical state by the Patriarch of Aquileia. More about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patria_del_Friuli (Luka)

***In Slovenian, the brown trout is called 'potočna postrv', which literally means 'stream trout' ('potok' = stream). (Luka)

SP1: Kako sem se spoznal s soško postrvijo

Moral bi se roditi v Nemškem Rutu, kot se je drugih petih mojih bratov in sester, pa kaže, da je mojo mamo skrbelo. Bila je vojna, moja mama je bila v 48-tem letu, oče je bil na zaporniškem otoku Ustici, en brat v italijanski vojski, stari oče pa ni hotel počakati mene in je kar umrl. Ko je mama začutila, da so se pričeli popadki, je prosila svojo sestro in sta odšli peš dve uri daleč na železniško postajo na Grahovem. Ko sta prišli v Gorico, sem se hotel že kar roditi. Kljub temu sta uspeli dobiti nek taxi in sem se končno rodil v bolnici.

Nemški Rut pod grebenom od Rodice do Črne prsti. (public domain, source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:%C5%BDiga)

Nemški Rut se je včasih imenoval Deutsch Koritnica, kajti Kotitnica je bila v srednjem veku zadnja slovenska vas v Baški grapi. Po Bači navzgor ni bilo slovenskih vasi, zato je v 13. stoletju Oglejski patriarh pripeljal Tirolce iz Inichenna v zgornji del Baške grape in Nemški Rut (Deutsch Gereuth ) se je imenovalo vse to območje. Na začetku so Tirolci uredili štiri vasi, glavna vas pa je bila Deutsch Koritnica. Ta se je zadnja slovenizirala in je postala Nemški Rut. Za kmetovanje je bila najbolj primerna od vseh teh vasi. Stoji pod grebenom, ki poteka v Julijskih Alpah od Rodice do Črne prsti.

Takoj, ko sem se zavedal, sem že poznal ribe. V knjigah seveda že, a spoznal sem jih v naravi. Dva moža sta večkrat prinesla potočne postrvi. Eden iz Grahovega je bil pred vojno zakupnik Koritnice, za Bačo pa ne vem, ampak po svobodi, ko kapitalist ne sme izkoriščati soribe, oprostite sočloveka, te ribe ne bi smel loviti. Seveda pa takrat še nismo bili prevzgojeni in jih je kar ilegalno lovil in prodajal. Mi smo imeli pred vojno gostilno in trgovino in zato je verjetno prej te ribe prinašal in nam jih je prodajal. Drugi mož je bil kovač, hišo pa je imel tik ob potoku Koritnici. On jih je ulovil kar z bombami in je vedno prinesel k nam okrog dvajset rib. Moja mama mu je dala za to dva velika hleba kruha.

Moja mama je bila dobra kuharica. Normalno nisem hotel jesti in nikoli nisem bil lačen. Nekaj stvari pa sem imel rad. Tako sem vedno rad jedel ribe, moja najboljša jed pa so bile sardine. Na žalost mi teh niso hoteli kupiti, zato sem se moral zadovoljiti s potočnimi postrvmi. Ko jih je mama pripravljala sem te postrvi preučeval, dobil sem mamino kuharsko knjigo iz rajne Avstro-Ogrske in tam so bile barvne slike o ribah. Potočne postrvi so bile v knjigi sicer preveč rjave, ampak pike so bile rdeče in sem ugotovil, da so to res potočne postrvi. Odkar sem se naučil angleško se pri besedi brown trout (potočna postrv- dobesedno: rjava postrv) vedno spomnil mojega prvega proučevanja potočne postrvi.

Naša vas je bolj visoko in doli do Koritnice rabiš okrog 20 minut. Poleti smo šli otroci včasih v nedeljo popoldne v potok in smo se kopali. Zakaj samo ob nedeljah popoldne? Če so nas pustili dol, smo morali biti že veliki, osem do devet let, saj bi se mlajši lahko utopili. Ampak tako veliki so morali med tednom normalno delati, v nedeljo dopoldne pa so morali iti k maši. In jaz sem imel posebno funkcijo, saj sem sem bil ministrant, kot se po rutarsko reče "konfiterle". No, enkrat so se večji otroci med kopanjem spomnili, da bi lovili ribe. Poskušal sem tudi jaz in neverjetno, dobil sem ribo. Nisem je pustil iz luknje in pomagal mi jo je ujeti dve leti starejši deček. In jaz sem bil neskončno srečen!

Towards My Blog (1)

I found my passion for fish and fishing long ago. It’s been well over half a century now. Seventeen years ago, as it happened, I also became the president of the Angler’s Association of Tolmin. That was when fish also became my job. I had to learn about many things that I had never thought about before. Our association has over 400 members and thousands of tourist fly-fishermen who visit from all over the world to try their luck on our rivers.

Our crystal Soča. Photo by MihaV (http://flickr.com/photos/34454085@N00/14417374130) cc-by-2.0

Our rivers and our fish are not ordinary. The crystal clear Soča (pronounced Só-cha) with its exceptional colour is — well, there’s no other way to put it — an exceptional river! Almost everyone who comes to visit keeps asking, how can a river have such a wonderful colour?!

The marble trout (which we call the soča trout, or soška postrv — sorry about the tongue twister!) is also a gem. Many years ago this wonderful trout only survived in a tiny region and human ignorance nearly caused its extinction. Many enthusiastic local fishermen and equally enthusiastic scientists managed to research this fish and protect it for future centuries. The marvelous marble trout, seemingly carved from the white rocks of the Julian Alps, is now the pride of the Soča.

I've already prepared my plan for a book on the marble trout. Perhaps its title will be The Marvelous Tale of the Marble Trout, but I'm not certain yet. I'll let the title grow through subsequent posts and let it happen naturally at the end. In between I will also write a few other things. I've experienced too much to avoid a digression here and there. If something beyond fly-fishing and fish catches my pen, so be it.

Finally, I must add; if you write a blog, you also hope for readers. I hope some people will find this reading interesting. Many fly-fishermen come to the Soča from many lands. So that more people can learn of the happenings and mishaps in our land of the Soča I will write in both Slovenian and English (with some translation help from my son).

Mojemu blogu na pot (1)

Z ribami in ribolovom sem se navdušil že daleč nazaj. Minilo je precej več kot pol stoletja. Pred sedemnajstimi leti pa sem slučajno postal tudi predsednik Ribiške družine Tolmin in moje ukvarjanje z ribami je postalo celo profesionalno. Moral sem se naučiti o mnogih stvareh, o katerih prej nisem razmišljal. V naši družini je več kot 400 članov in na tisoče turističnih ribičev, ki prihajajo iz vsega sveta, da lahko preizkusijo ribiško srečo na naših rekah.

Our crystal Soča. Photo by MihaV (http://flickr.com/photos/34454085@N00/14417374130) cc-by-2.0

Naše reke in naše ribe pa niso kar običajne. Kristalno čista Soča z izjemno barvo je – kaj lahko drugega rečem – je izjemna reka! Skoraj vsak, ki pride od drugod, me sprašuje, kako ima lahko reka tako čudovito barvo!

Enak dragulj je tudi soška postrv. Ta čudovita postrv je pred davnimi leti stanovala na zelo majhnem območju in zaradi neznanja ljudi je skoraj izumrla. Veliko navdušenih domačih ribičev in enako navdušenih raziskovalcev je uspelo to izjemno ribo raziskati in zaščititi za naprej. Čudovita soška postrv, ki je bila izbrušena iz belih skal Julijskih Alp, je danes soški ponos.

Napravil sem že svoj načrt za pripravo knjige o soški postrvi. Morda bo njen naslov Čudovita zgodba o soški postrvi, nisem pa še gotov. Med nadaljevanjem v mojem blogu in predvsem na koncu naj se to čisto naravno zgodi. Vmes bom napisal kaj drugega tudi. Preveč dogodkov se mi je zgodilo, da ne bi marsikaj tudi napisal. Če me bo žulilo tudi kaj izven ribištva, bom pač napisal.

Čisto na koncu moram reči še to; če pišeš blog, si želiš, da ga kdo tudi bere. Upam, da bo komu to branje zanimivo. Veliko ribičev prihaja na Sočo iz mnogih dežel, zato bom istočasno pisal v slovenščini in angleščini. Naj tudi oni vidijo, kaj se je dogajalo zgod in nezgod v naši soški deželi.