Fly Fishing on Plav’s Lake (Plavsko jezero) in Montenegro

Ivan Randjelovic — Wed, 11 Jan 2023 11:04:42 +0000

The unique lake trout from Plav, called “blatnjača.”

If you visit the famous fly fishing region of Plav in Northern Montenegro (119km from Podgorica Airport, 196km from Tirana Airport), don’t forget to try your luck at the beautiful natural lake, besides the 4 fly fishing zones on the nearby rivers. When you get enough nice grayling, trout, and maybe even river huchen, it’s time for the Stillwater.

Lake Plav’s Trout or “blatnjača” is the queen of this lake. Very rare fly fishers caught this fish and it is absolutely wild and undisturbed with dries, nymphs, or streamers. His name is sometimes confused with “mud trout” because the wrong translation of the old word for the lake was “blato”, which today means “mud”. So, the truth is that once upon a time, the name of the lake was “Plavsko blato”, and that’s what gave the name of its trout “blatnjača”. That really means “jezerska”, or just “lake trout”. Also, there is a theory that Plav’s Lake Trout is a species that you can find in Asia, but I’m not sure about it. I would rather claim it is just a special form of Salmo trutta lacustris.

My guests ( and I too) caught most of Plav’s Lake Trout on small streamers and larger nymphs, using fly rods and lines #6-7 and tippets 0.16-0.20mm.

Lake huchen are much thicker than the river ones

Plav’s Lake is home to the largest huchen in the world. Specimens over 41kg were caught on the hook, and old fishers tell stories about fish over 70kg, caught in a net many decades ago.

Although many fishers prefer using a boat, fly fishing from the bank is very good

Besides lake trout and huchen, the Lake of Plav is populated with nice grayling, especially near the mouth of the tributary Ljucha, and outflow of the river Lim.

Rich Stillwater offers a good chance to catch a trophy grayling

Of course, there are more species to catch on a fly in this lake. Pike, chub, nase, cactus roach, and even burbot. My guests sometimes enjoy that coarse fish – fly fishing, when we make a strategy-pause, waiting for the better activity of Salmonids.

Pike 90-100cm are not rare, although the average size is 60cm

Chub are big here, and most of them you can catch on a dry fly.

Skilled nymphers, and sometimes dry fly fishers can catch a really large base (Chondrostoma nasus) on the lake

Look online or ask for recommendations for an experienced fly fishing in-field instructor who specializes in Plav’s Lake fishing.

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Fly Fishing in Montenegro

Ivan Randjelovic — Fri, 11 Nov 2022 18:03:29 +0000

Montenegro is one of Europe’s newest and less explored fly fishing destinations. Although a beautiful mountainous country, with many gin-clear rivers, Montenegro started fly fishing tourism just a decade ago. Their rivers are home to the popular Salmonids, brown trout, huchen, and grayling. Some are highly protected by FLY ONLY NO KILL regulations and are full of trophy wild fish. That’s why the European Fly Fishing Competition 2019 was held in Montenegro, where competitors caught fish over 60cm, and up to 100cm.

River Lim in Plav (119km from Podgorica Airport, 196km from Tirana Airport)

River Lim in Plav is the #1 fly fishing zone in Montenegro, and one of the most popular in the entire Balkans. It’s the best part of the river for GRAYLING and HUCHEN. Lim springs from the natural trout lake, so it runs through a plateau, and meadows, and it’s easily approachable to every fly fishing spot. The lower part of this fly fishing zone is different because Lim becomes rocky and fast.

River Lim in Plav is a very comfortable natural tailwater. It runs through the meadows with an easy approach to every fishing spot.

River Luca in Plav

River Luca (or Ljuča) is a natural spring creek, with ice-cold water during the entire season. It’s famous for trophy graylings that can be seen in every pool. Luca runs through a plateau, and it is a quiet river, with gin-clear water.

Luca is almost a wild river, without many people around, although there are 2 fly only stretches full of nice fish.

Although Luca is famous by large graylings, there are some nice brown trout

The Plav’s Lake

This beautiful natural river lake is home to endemic lake trout and fat lake huchen

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Fly Fishing on Plav’s Lake (Plavsko jezero) in Montenegro

Fly Fishing in Montenegro