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The Hungary Games
Dean Dibeler
There comes a time in an angler's life when he or she gets itchy feet and the urge of a fishing trip takes over. Whether it be fly fishing a pristine stream for trout in New Zealand, hurling poppers towards a section of the Great Barrier Reef in pursuit of an XL GT or chansing black bass in PNG. No doubt we have all had these dreams at one time or another... but a fishing trip to Europe?
So this trip to Hungary was planned by the missus and fishing was not on her agenda. This trip was solely to visit he family, who I hadn`t met since we had been together. Hmmm... if I`m going to fly halfway around the world the least I`m going to do is research the fishing options in that country.
Doing the research on fishing in Hungary wasn`t as easy as I though it would be. Even finding general info about tackle, guides and locations was a test, with most sites I found through the beloved Google in Hungarian or aimed at selling holiday cabins to residents of the UK. With countless hours spent Googling in circles and getting nowhere, I did a search on Facebook that got me some results. I messaged directly, just hoping that someone at the other end could understand English. A couple of days passed and I received a reply from the guys at Fishing Time Magazine, who offered to take me fishing!
There are basically two disciplines of fishing in Hungary; spinning on the river with hard bodies and soft plastics or the traditional course fishing that involves using dough as burley and corn as bait, targeting carp. I know what you're thinking 'dirty rotten stinkin carp!', but for most Hungarians this is all they have ever known and they treat the carp with as much love and respect as any hard out bream fisho treats his beloved bream.
After a week with the family, the time for fishing arrived. I boarded a bus for the three hour journey south, weaving through farmlands and stopping from town to town. The countryside, being so different to Oz, was enough to keep me entertained.
Eventually the bus arrived at my stop, where Chuba from Fishing Time mag was waiting. After the normal greetings, handshakes, etc. it was business time; gear in the car and off to the boat. I was getting pretty pumped at this stage.
After a short drive through town we arrived at the local fishing club where Chuba stored his boat. The walls of the club were covered in pictures of large zander, pike and catfish up to 50kg.
Looking down the hill I saw a long wooden pontoon lined with various timber boats, situated in the middle of a secluded bay. We strolled down the pontoon until we arrived at Chuba`s vessel, a nice little fibreglass punt powered with a 40hp 4 stroke and tiller mounted electric. It had plenty of room for the two of us, with a nice casting deck up the front. The gear was loaded and we were off. We headed into the main river and upstream to a shallow rock bar where the asp like to sit and feed on any small fish that are swept past with the fast moving water.
The technique for asp is totally different to any other freshwater fishing I've done in Australia. Small shallow diving hard bodies were cast out onto the pressure point and wound in as fast as possible, whilst twitching the rod as it was pointed to the sky. We fished several bars and shallow points along the river, concentrating most of our efforts on the shaded side. This was mainly to get out of the heat as it was the middle of summer and it was hot, really hot. The water was over 25 degrees Celcius and the air temp around 40. With the heightened temperature the fishing was a bit slower than normal.
We headed back for some dinner and rest, with the plan to start early the next day.
Our tally for the first day had Chuba landing 4 asp and me with a zero...
As the sun rose and began to glisten through the trees, we motored our way through the river to one of the rock bars we had fished the previous day. It didn't take Chuba long before he was hooked up and doing battle with a small fish... and another... and another. I studied his technique, looking for any settle differences between his retrieval and mine, adapted my technique to mimic his and finally I started to get a bump here and there.
We moved once more to a spot that looked the goods and on about the sixth cast I had a good size asp crash my minnow, with its tail breaking free of the surface as it dived back under. With the rod buckled over and line spooling from the reel the fish was putting up a great fight, utilising the current to his advantage. I was so pumped to be tight on my first European fish. Eventually the fish was boated for a couple pics and released to fight another day.
We moved back downstream and anchored close to a ledge, in a deeper section of water, to see if we could entice a zander to feed. With the current so strong a 3/8 to 1oz HeadlockZ HD?jighead was needed to get to the bottom. I let Chuba choose a plastic from my bag, seeing he's the local expert. As he riffled through my kit, like a kid on Christmas morning, he took a liking to a pack of Pearl ZMan 4" StreakZ Curly TailZ and slid one onto his jighead.
Once the bottom was felt, a couple of hops and we were both tight on zander. The zander hit hard and are regarded as the best table fish in the country. The fish must have been sitting right on the edge of the ledge and if you could land your plastic on the spot you were bound to get an aggressive hit. Cast too far and the current would take your plastic away from the hot spot and you would get nothing. It was a challenge to land your cast on the money every time. We fished into the dark and eventually made our way back to the fishing club, as I had a bus ride back up north in the morning.
I had a great time fishing in Hungary, and meeting Chuba was hands down the highlight of the trip. The hospitality I received from him was unbelievable. I mean here I was, some random dude visiting from Australia, never met before and he tells me what bus to catch, where to get off, gave me a bed, fed me, took me fishing for three days and would not even let me pay for a thing... and believe me I tried. On one occasion I ran into the servo to pay for the fuel, handed the girl on the counter the cash and next thing he calls out to her in Hungarian from across the shop and she passes me back the cash and says in English "sorry you're not allowed to pay, you're his guest". Thanks Chuba you're a legend! If you ever make it to Australia, leave your wallet at home because you`ll be my guest.