Fishing In A Secret Bulgarian Lake Location

Fishing in Bulgaria is enjoyed by millions, but as a hunt for food not just sport. Many use nets and devious ways to gather fish from lakes and rivers and although a blind eye is turned to this, most decent Bulgarians, including Galia’s family and friend here look down on that as an unfair way of hunting for food. Both Galia and I love fishing, but we just never have the time to go and practice it. It must be about a year ago since we last went and that was only because her son who is a keen angler insisted we take a break from farming at the weekend.

Well this weekend her son was with us again and the plan was to go fishing early in the morning before it gets too hot. The alarm was set for 5:30 and all three for us were off by 6:00. We knew there was lots of work to do with harvesting and preparing food gathered for winter this weekend so we planned to get back by 11:00 giving us time enough to complete the chores when we got back.

Now the place we visited was not know by many people here, not even local people and I am not going to give the place away now, but only to say that it is some 3-4 kilometres off road to get there and only accessible by Lada in the dry season due to the state of the track. We found it by accident one day after getting lost and kept the location in mind. It is the most beautiful and unspoilt spot of crystal clear water and the wildlife is everywhere you look in every direction. We were the only people there and apart from a hiker who passed up remain the only anglers there all morning.

Galia’s son had boiled some wheat the evening before and this was both the ground bait and bait on the hooks on our lines, he said we were guaranteed fish with this. No sooner were our lines cast and the fish just came rolling in one after another. There was no relaxing here as we were kept active for a full three hours with fish being caught every minute or so. The fish we landed were all carp, they weren’t that big, but totally edible as the buckets we brought with us filled up. By 10:30 they were to the brim with fish.

We brought home well over 150 fish as some were given to our neighbour, some prepared for frying for this evening’s meal and the rest prepared for the freezer both here in the farmhouse and back in the town home. It took some two hours to de-scale, gut and de-head the fish, no problem with the future meals in mind when doing it.

The fish was cooked simply by dowsing the finish in flour and lightly frying in a shallow pan of oil. The flesh fell off the bone as we feasted on these fish that had such a clean pallet unlike many freshwater fish I have eaten in the UK with a muddy taste. It was a feast we all enjoyed from out labours and that made a major difference as well. Buying fish and eating it just isn’t the same. We knew where these came from and the environment was a clean as anything you can imagine and local. Food always tastes better when local in any case.

We talked now about getting me a fishing license so Galia and I can go other times when her son is not there. Before you ask, yes you do need one and Galia and I were fishing illegally, but this is what goes on in isolated areas in these parts.

The best thing of all is having a female partner (Galia) who absolutely loves fishing as well. It has always been a fight to get permission to go fishing before now and fishing with guilt has always been the case, no longer!

Bulgaria's President Georgi Breaks the Law - Allegedly!

The Bulgarians are well know for their hunting prowess, after all Bulgaria is a natural haven for many prized hunting trophies, but the trophy is only part of it, there's food to be had. So when I saw this story, it didn't surprise me in the least.

Georgi Parvanov our beloved and popular president was in Uzbekistan last month on official business. During his stay his Bulgarian instinct was obviously to strong for him as on a hunting trip organised he shot a wild mountain goat. The President had apparently been following a strict schedule with his host and reportedly had been accompanied at all times by the Uzbekistan Prime Minister. He therefore must have been witness to this.

Why is this a big story then?

The wild mountain goat that was shot was a protected and endangered species called the 'arhar'. There is an Internet news site (http://www.fergana.ru) sourced in Moscow includes within a 'Red Book’ listing all of endangered species in Russia and the former Soviet Union countries - the 'arhar' is listed there.

Normally fines are imposed to person who violent the protection treaty, in Uzbekistan a fine of 200 minimum salaries or two years of community service is imposed. This is a severe penalty which indicates the seriousness of the offence.

However, there is no photographic evidence to suggest that this incident took place; this is amazing in such a high profile gathering. The story was sourced from insider informers, but they are too scared to reveal themselves for good reason - politics and self-preservation. If names were revealed of informers there would be another hunt organised.