Fly fishing in Romania.. and Romania per se.. they both sound interesting, but you’re a bit unsure of what to expect there? Here are some of the reasons, why the visit to Romania is worth it:
One particularly interesting thing to find out about Romania, especially when talking to fly fishers, is that Romania has 66.000 km of rivers, whereas almost 20.000 km are mountain ones and over 16.600 km are rivers, where wild salmonides are masters of disguise. Beautiful mountain rivers! Rivers that cut their way through massive limestone formations, through hard granite, or dark tuff; rivers that are crystal clear, or milky, tempting fans of either gin or cognac water colours to try them out and catch some brownies, or their other gorgeous relatives, the brook trout, the rainbow trout, the huchen and the grayling. There are also 162 lakes, with a total surface of more than 9.600 km² where the brown trout and the lake trout challenge the hunter in you. There are also almost twice as many cyprinid waters, with more than 28.300 km of rivers and 1.710 km² of lakes. The fish which follow your lures in these waters are mainly chub, perch, barbel and carp, competing with the rapid, eager pikes.
So all in all there’s a huge potential for practicing sports fishing all over the country and you can imagine that we ourselves still have years ahead to discover and promote all of them as they deserve.
For now we wanna take you though to some of the best salmonid waters in the country. Where exactly? Check it out in the “Tours” section.
And if you’re a nature lover, Romania is indeed a great travel destination for you! Regarding nature in general, Romania is a blessed country, being nowadays a well-known European destination for ecotourists. First of all, Romania can “offer” pretty much the whole spectrum of relief diversity: from plains, to mountains, with altitudes that range from 0 m altitude at the Black Sea side to 2.544 m altitude in the Central Carpathians. Then, the Romanian biological diversity is one of the highest and best preserved in whole Europe, being thanks to Prince Charles, now internationally recognized. For example, Romania is also home to a total of 400 unique species of mammals and some 1.350 floral species. Besides, the Romanian Carpathians are known for the largest undisturbed forest areas in Europe, covering over 350.000 hectares. Moreover Romania is, except for Russia, the country with by far the highest number of bears, wolves and lynxes in Europe, whereas more than half of the European brown bear population lives in Romania (~7000 brown bears!) (that’s why we’ve granted a whole article about this in our Fly Fishing Medicine section). There are thus 13 national parks and over 550 Natura 2000 sites in the country to help protect this spectacular biodiversity.
It would be also very interesting for you to see, that if you’re coming to Romania, you’ll experience another way of European life. Our countries (if you’re coming from Central or Eastern Europe) have many things in common – from the architecture, to some of the phrases – but at the same time they’re also very different. Romania is a pretty big country and thanks to its geographical position it could develop a pretty colourful culture. It has for instance some of the Balkan flair, of the Ottoman bargaining and of the Slavic hospitality. You should definitely make your own impression about it stay open-minded.
You should browse our webpage for pictures and stories (tours and blog buttons) and you’ll discover a little bit of the wilderness and beauty of some parts of Romania. If you still have some questions that haven’t been answered in this article, don’t hesitate to contact us, we’d gladly help you with an answer if we can. After that, if you’re still not convinced that you should come and fly fish with us and/or plan a longer visit in Romania, we can only say one thing: leave the prejudices at a side, take pot luck and just pack your bags, come with us on tours and enjoy the adventure and our personal assistance so that we can Welcome you Home!
Source of statistical data:
Guvernul României, Departamentul pentru Ape, Păduri și Piscicultură: Strategia națională a domeniului pescăresc 2014 / 2020. URL: http://apepaduri.gov.ro/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Strategia-Na%C8%9Bional%C4%83-a-Domeniului-Pesc%C4%83resc.pdf (Nov. 2015)
http://romaniatourism.com/did-you-know.html
Picture credits: Fly Fishing Romania & Györfi Zsolt