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 on Plav’s Lake (Plavsko jezero) in Montenegro