Just wrapped up 3.5 days in the Soca Valley fishing for marble trout with my wife. We fished with Laurens Bubendorfer set up by Lesly Janssen over at slo-fly.com. I can not recommend these guys enough, I learned so much in the short time I was there. The fishing we did was more related to hunting in my opinion. 100% sight fishing and coming up with the best approach to land the fish on the first cast if possible. We would stalk the fish, wait a few minutes until we saw if he was taking nymphs/dries, feeding or resting, then would position ourselves in the most awkward atypical positions to get the best drift and presentation possible. It amazed me with how well Laurens was able to spot fish while we moved upstream. I started getting better towards the end but you really need a lot of time on the water to sight fish these trout and to catch more than one a day. Marble trout are a very unique species and your success is totally driven by your ability to sight fish upstream and not spook the fish.
Day 1…
We fished an upper section of the Soca near Triglav National Park and got familiar with what our next few days were going to look like. We spotted about 7-8 marble trout this day and ended up each landing one each, losing two, and the others were either spooked or not interested in eating. There are lots of rainbows around as well but we deliberately avoided fishing for them.
My first chance at a marble trout spotted upstream holding in the slower riffles behind a stone. My wife casted a nymph twice and was rejected. I casted a little foam beetle and we quickly had our first marble trout of the trip.
Emerald Paradise as Laurens calls it. He made a film about the area and the marble trout of your interested as well. https://www.emeraldparadise.at/
Day 2…
Fished a few different rivers closer to the Tolmin area. The Tolminka and the Baca. We stopped by the Idrijca but didn’t end up fishing there. This was a tough day. I had the sole opportunity at a marble trout that day and it ended up going for my wool indicator instead of the nymph and then high tailed it out of there. We did catch a ton of rainbows as a consolation prize for the day.
The scenery, food, and company made up for the lousy fishing.
Day 3…
We wanted a more wild spot after seeing other anglers the past few days so we went up a tributary of the Soca and did a bit of easy canyoning. This day was awesome, we both landed quite a few fish, I lost a ton, and didn’t see any other anglers. We also encountered a few marble/brown hybrids.
Landing a smaller marble at the start of the day.
Day 4…
We went proper canyoning in the morning and I went solo fishing with Laurens on a different portion of the Soca for a half day. Things were lights out from the start. We caught a crazy hatch and got side tracked with the rainbows for the first hour and caught a dozen or so. We moved on and started hunting for marble trout. As we moved upstream, the catches just kept getting bigger. I lost two good ones but I couldn’t have asked for a better day of fishing.
This one, not a hybrid, had red horizontal spots which was interesting to see. There’s a lot of variation in the patterns. There’s 8-9 different pure genetic strains of marble in the soca area and the biggest ones are a combination of multiple genetic variations.
Little larger…
Last cast of the trip yielding the biggest fish.
We also tried for the native Adriatic Grayling but there’s not many of them and the few we saw weren’t interested.
We stayed at Nebesa Chalets which I would highly recommend. On the upper end price wise but I wanted to treat my wife for our honeymoon!
Bike ride to a portion of the Walk of Peace
We took hundreds of photos and it was quite tough to pick them out but these were a few nice ones!
Day 1…
We fished an upper section of the Soca near Triglav National Park and got familiar with what our next few days were going to look like. We spotted about 7-8 marble trout this day and ended up each landing one each, losing two, and the others were either spooked or not interested in eating. There are lots of rainbows around as well but we deliberately avoided fishing for them.
My first chance at a marble trout spotted upstream holding in the slower riffles behind a stone. My wife casted a nymph twice and was rejected. I casted a little foam beetle and we quickly had our first marble trout of the trip.
Emerald Paradise as Laurens calls it. He made a film about the area and the marble trout of your interested as well. https://www.emeraldparadise.at/
Day 2…
Fished a few different rivers closer to the Tolmin area. The Tolminka and the Baca. We stopped by the Idrijca but didn’t end up fishing there. This was a tough day. I had the sole opportunity at a marble trout that day and it ended up going for my wool indicator instead of the nymph and then high tailed it out of there. We did catch a ton of rainbows as a consolation prize for the day.
The scenery, food, and company made up for the lousy fishing.
Day 3…
We wanted a more wild spot after seeing other anglers the past few days so we went up a tributary of the Soca and did a bit of easy canyoning. This day was awesome, we both landed quite a few fish, I lost a ton, and didn’t see any other anglers. We also encountered a few marble/brown hybrids.
Landing a smaller marble at the start of the day.
Day 4…
We went proper canyoning in the morning and I went solo fishing with Laurens on a different portion of the Soca for a half day. Things were lights out from the start. We caught a crazy hatch and got side tracked with the rainbows for the first hour and caught a dozen or so. We moved on and started hunting for marble trout. As we moved upstream, the catches just kept getting bigger. I lost two good ones but I couldn’t have asked for a better day of fishing.
This one, not a hybrid, had red horizontal spots which was interesting to see. There’s a lot of variation in the patterns. There’s 8-9 different pure genetic strains of marble in the soca area and the biggest ones are a combination of multiple genetic variations.
Little larger…
Last cast of the trip yielding the biggest fish.
We also tried for the native Adriatic Grayling but there’s not many of them and the few we saw weren’t interested.
We stayed at Nebesa Chalets which I would highly recommend. On the upper end price wise but I wanted to treat my wife for our honeymoon!
Bike ride to a portion of the Walk of Peace
We took hundreds of photos and it was quite tough to pick them out but these were a few nice ones!
