In the summer of 1987 Stane, then president of the
Angler’s Club of Tolmin (Ribiška družina Tolmin), gave me a call. He told me
that in the middle of August two special fly-fishermen would visit the
Tolminska (the Tolmin region). Men who had written books about fly-fishing from
all over the world and reports in the biggest angler magazines. They were to
fish in the waters of Tolmin for a whole week as they wanted to see the fabled
marble trout for the first time. Stane was keen to find a good fishing guide
that could lead them along the Soča and its tributaries. Many members of the
club were good fishermen, but the problem was language. Besides Slovenian, most
of the older members spoke only Italian, while students in the post-war schools
had not learned many foreign languages. But Stane knew that my work took me to
many countries and that I also spoke English. I immediately agreed to help when
he asked me.
I had been a passionate fisherman since my youth, but
by 1987 I had been working in Nova Gorica for several years and had little time
for fishing. I also lived in Nova Gorica during the week and only came home to
Tolmin on Saturday mornings. I could only fish on the weekends, so I keenly
accepted Stane's invitation as it meant I would be able to fish all week. I
quickly arranged my vacation and was set.
With Stane we arranged for me to come to penzion Šterk
at Most na Soči directly after work on Friday evening. There I would meet these
two famous fishermen and we could make a plan for the rest of the week. I came
indeed, but saw that there was another gentlemen present whom I had not met
before. This was Mr Marjan Fratnik, born in Most na Soči but a resident of
Milan since the end of the Second World War. I greeted Mr Fratnik and both
famous fishermen, but Mr Fratnik immediately began questioning me. Where was I
from? I quickly saw that he was asking because he had noticed my surname and
when I told him, he revealed that in Gorica he had been a classmate of my
eldest brother. He was thrilled. He told me how well my brother Vladimir had
done at school and how during the holidays he would visit our house in Nemški
Rut. Vladimir liked to hunt dormice and my Grandmother cooked them for the two
of them and they both enjoyed eating them. I was very surprised by this news,
as no one had ever told me much about my eldest brother. He had been born 24
years before me and died young, long before I was even born. Later Mr Fratnik
would tell me tales of him many more times.
Mr Fratnik was the first to bring well-known fishermen
from the developed Western countries to the Soča. Slovenia was then part of the
communist Yugoslavia and Western tourist fishermen did not like to visit. The
exceptions were the Italians, for they were our neighbors, and their fishermen
had begun coming across already in the 1960s — but they were not very numerous.
But Mr Fratnik always came and was also a member of our Angler's Club. Before
the Second World War his father had had a lease on the river Bača and there Mr
Fratnik had already caught his first trout when he was 16 years old. He was
already a fly-fisherman and there were few of them in those days. Later, while
living in Milan, he fished around the world, met many famous fly-fishermen and
himself became famous. He created the well-known F-Fly, which helps when no
fish would take the bait anymore.
That evening I also became well acquainted with Mr
Price and Mr Martin. We spent most of the evening talking of the marble trout
and both gentlemen could hardly wait to meet this famous trout. Mr Fratnik was
very sorry that he would not be able to fly-fish with us, for he had to return
to Milan, but promised us that he would be back at the end of the next week to
hear about our experiences on the rivers.
The next morning I took the Englishman and the
American to the Soča. We caught greylings and trout, but none of the trout were
marbles. I felt quite upset that we could not catch them. I did catch a
smallish trout that had something of a marbled pattern, but she was a hybrid
like most of the others. Even more of the fish we caught were brown and rainbow
trout. The next day we headed to the Soča canyon and the Bovec area. Again, we
caught many beautiful fish, but no marble trout. Mr Martin and Mr Price both
enjoyed the river and the nature, but I could tell that they were becoming more
and more disappointed at not seeing any of the elusive marbles. To distract
them from their disappointment, I constantly talked of local particularities
and quite a lot about the history of the Tolminska. When we stood atop the
Italian charnel house in Kobarid I pointed out the Soča and the First World War
Soča front (Isonzo front). I mentioned that Ernest Hemingway had been on the
Italian side and that the experience had inspired him to write his book,
"A Farewell to Arms". Mr Martin enthusiastically told me that he
would write his own book about fly-fishing on the Soča and title it, "On
the Trail of Hemingway."
Every evening we would dine late into the night at
Šterk's in always president Stane would join us, as well as often the fishing
rangers Mr Fischione and Mr Gorjan. Both rangers were also excellent fishermen
and gave me recommendations where we should go to try and catch some marble
trout. I spent all my time translating from Slovenian to English and back. In
this way Darrel Martin and Taff Price learned of many fishing adventures, but
we had the loveliest time when Fischione and Gorjan started to sing. They sang
well, and both Slovenian and Italian songs. I felt rather embarrassed that I
was quite tone deaf. In the middle of the week another Italian fisherman from
Firenze joined us and proved pleasant company.
After that we fly-fished on the Idrijca, Trebuščica,
Bača and Tolminka rivers. The Italian fisherman joined us on the Tolminka. I do
not remember his name, but at the end of this fishing holiday, he gave me his
fly rod, which I liked very much and use to this very day. I took them into the
Tolminka gorges, for I was sure that at least in that deep canyon we would be
able to catch some marble trout. The gorges are very deep and it is impossible
to proceed upstream by simply following the river; sometimes it is too deep,
other times rocks do not permit passage. One has to return to the road over and
over, walk a ways and then return down to the river. First I would take one
fisherman down, then return to lead the second, and then the third, one after
another. I explained to each that he must climb up to the road when he could go
no further upstream. I would collect them all on the roadside at the end. The
Tolminka demands a lot of caution, for the trout are very beautiful and large,
but also very shy, and when they spot a person they immediately hide. One
always has to fly-fish against the current and, if possible, while kneeling or
crouching to break up one's silhouette. Because of the refraction of light when
it hits the water, fish cannot spot a fisherman at an acute angle downstream,
for they always swim facing upstream.
Once I had arranged all the fishermen along the
Tolminka, I calculated that they would be able to fly fish at least two or
three hours. So I drove ahead and stopped just before Polog and went down to
the river myself. I caught many trout, but released them all. Until then I had
been in the habit of taking every fish that was large enough, and once I had
caught the three permitted, I would stop fishing. All the fishermen I knew did
the same. But on this fishing holiday I noticed that Darrel and Taff released
all the fish they caught. So I also released all my fish, which I had never
done before. Since I had been a child, the catch had been important to me and I
liked eating the fish I caught. This had been the reason to even begin fishing!
Well, now I saw that in the West even fishing could be simple sport and the
catch no longer crucial.
After about two hours, however, I caught a large
trout, more than 50 cm long. It was beautiful, but it was a hybrid. I spent a
long time thinking about whether to release it, but in the end I killed it. I
wanted the foreign fishermen to see such a beautiful trout and I also wanted to
eat it at home. I returned to the road and as I drove back I picked up the
other three fishermen. Already there they let me know that they had had an
excellent sport, but alas none of them had caught a marble trout. I showed them
my trout and they agreed it looked beautiful, but I could feel that the
Englishman and the American look at me as though I was a bit of a barbarian. I
did not get the same feeling from the Italian.
Before the last fishing day we spent the evening at
Šterk's in deep discussion about what to do. True, both Mr Martin and Mr Price
had enjoyed a week of fine fishing, but they were disappointed that they had
not found the famous marble trout. Even I was desperate. I don't know who came
up with the idea, probably it was Stane, that I take the two fishermen to the
Zadlaščica. It must have been the first time I had heard that the Zadlaščica
stream had only pure marble trout! They had been discovered in 1985 when Mr
Fischione, on his initiative and with the permission of president Stane, took
Dr. Ocvirk, Director of the Fisheries Research Institute in Ljubljana, to that
stream.. This institute had by then already spent three years carrying out the
first serious research project on the marble trout in its Kobarid fish farm.
Broodstock marble trout were caught by electrofishing in the Soča, Koritnica
and Tolminka rivers, brought to the fish farm and stripped of their roe. In
1985 these young marble trout were already big enough for Dr. Ocvirk to
understand how they even looked and how marble trout grew. When Mr Fischione
brought Dr. Ocvirk and his team to the Zadlaščica they caught around 80 trout
and when the Doctor checked them, they realized that all were pure marble
trout! By then they had already checked all the rivers in the Littoral
(Primorska) and everywhere they had found plenty of hybrids but no marble
trout. Fishermen had almost annihilated the marble trout by stocking brown
trout in these rivers over the last century.
At that time, in 1987, when I was guiding Mr Taff
Price and Mr Darrel Martin around our rivers, we could still fish in the
Zadlaščica. I was excited to take the two famous anglers to the Zadlaščica and
there was plenty to see. We caught marble trout, one after another, each more
beautiful than the last. They were not large, but they were perfect and, most
importantly, all of them were real, pure marble trout!
I was exceptionally satisfied to have saved the pride
of the marble trout, the Angler's Club of Tolmin, and not least my own. That
last evening Mr Fratnik also came to Šterk's from Milan and we celebrated our
marble trout late into the night.