The charm of the little ones, Pomeranian rivers, winding, bushy, picturesquely cutting through wooded hills or slowing down in impenetrable swamps, it's something that captures the imagination of every trout angler, that it even forced him to come back as often as possible. For many years, they could satisfy even the most demanding connoisseurs of spinning and flies. Loner anglers with strong legs and low needs, disregarding hardships and inconveniences, the irresistible desire to meet with a great angling adventure rushed into this charming place – brown trout. When privacy, even the property of the stream was brutally trampled under the too frequent footsteps of alien waders, they moved further, still unspoiled areas abandoned and forgotten by people, whose presence was evidenced by the ruins of houses overgrowing with weeds, mills, power plants and bridges. Some departed from the wilderness attracted by the vision of a comfortable and easier life in the world of dynamically developing industry, the others are tired of the everyday bustle of big cities, they found happiness in this abandoned one, primitive world.
The reward for the hardships was not only the trout – prince of clean waters, bright and cool, but also unforgettable, because unusual events in direct contact with living and wild nature. How much satisfaction from remembered meetings with a wild boar, present, a hawk or even a black stork, from podpatrywania marten, musk, cowards or even otters. All you have to do is close your eyes on a quiet and calm winter evening and come back to experience it again. Unfortunately, more and more often we use this form of restoring events, which somehow do not want or rather cannot return.
When at the end of the seventies rational water management became not only a fashionable slogan but also an imperative, a vision of developed small trout streams (the so-called. little retention), she had many followers – anglers, activists, scientists. More has happened, maybe even too much. The tool was given into the hands of thoughtless people, which was supposed to dam up the water also for the benefit of the fish – me.
I admit, that I also saw with the eyes of my soul backwaters and backwaters full of water, giving trout shelter in times of drought. The blindness is all the more reprehensible, because the sight of comprehensive melioration combined with total felling of the stand should warn me, take away the illusions of good intentions of a man benefiting from this water. These works were to restore to agriculture for cultivation the land called wastelands and turned into a desert many hectares of higher and sandy areas here. The meanders declined in direct proportion to the number of stakes arriving in the rivers, water and trout. Extremely dry years resulted, that the river water was completely seized for energy purposes, irrigation, breeding and often for the simple capture of fish from the water-free trough.
This year I had the opportunity to visit many places, with which are my fondest memories. First, it was the Mątawa river. The section below Borowy Młyn from 1981 r. still fishless, not counting roaches taken by the rapid discharge of water from the reservoir and thrown onto the meadow. Below the dam renovated in Rozgytach, I was forced to give up fishing more than once because all the water was stored in the reservoir. The river Sabina was black in the estuary each time, foul-smelling silt. In the upper reaches of the Ryszka River, the local worms kill the fry of trout with a stubbornness worthy of a better cause. Łupawa breaks records in this respect. During six trips in September-November on holidays, I met only once two fly fishermen and a whole ranks of spinning and wormer groups organized in groups, often with dogs. The Łeba River, with little traffic this year, attracted many local poachers – both children and old people. Melioration works, complete cutting of trees and construction of the right-bank part of the farm above the tracks in Boż Pole will effectively eliminate the grayling nursery. The Reda River below the mill in Strzebielin, after thorough drainage, it will never be a spawning ground for the unique form of brown trout,
some of which retain a dose of ancestral genes, she undertook a journey to the sea, coming back with sawdust. I will add, that it was the only episode, which, even during the thaw of the winter of the century, it carried clean water, located peacefully in the bed.
The Bolszewka River, regularly drained of water, it chokes on the foul-smelling sewage from farming so numerous as on no other river. The view of the angler does not prevent the owner from further cleaning the pond from mud and rotting fish, consisting in direct discharge into the river. Add to this picture the numerous unemployed and wandering teenagers, who, for lack of a better job, try by all possible means to catch something for dinner. In order for the picture of the mentality of these people to be complete, I would like to quote a remark addressed to me in the village of Łęczyce on the Łeba River.. "Tera, sir, little water, what to look for here, come to the lock in October or November. We got enough of them here ". I had a relatively positive impression from the rivers of Prusina, Brdy, Tenement house, Bychowska Struga, because at least there aren't many trouts there, at least visually they remained relatively unchanged. At the end of my complaints, I have left an extraordinary case, shining like a beautiful diamond in the ashes. It was a well-organized anti-poaching action on the Reda River near Wejherowo. And how can we not regain hope again.