A Limestone Spring in Eastern Serbia and the English Chalk Streams

Left/Top: Crnica, eastern Serbia. Right/Bottom: River Itchen Channel, Itchen Stoke, Hampshire. Photograph by Peter Trimming, 22 October 2011. CC BY-SA 2.0. Wikimedia Commons.

There is something about certain limestone spring creeks that has always reminded me of the English chalk streams. Perhaps it is the exceptionally clear water, the limestone surroundings, or the quiet character of a stream whose life begins underground.

I have often wondered how closely a small spring creek in eastern Serbia, in a landscape I know intimately, might resemble celebrated English rivers such as the Test and the Itchen. The simplest place to start is pH.

Published measurements from my favourite limestone spring in eastern Serbia give pH values between 7.16 and 7.50, which means water that is close to neutral or mildly alkaline. English chalk streams generally run a little higher, often around 7.4-8.0, though seasonal fluctuations can be considerable. The ranges overlap more than I expected, and the upper end of the Serbian spring reaches the lower end of the chalk streams. pH is only one measure, but it is a revealing first one.

The similarity makes sense, because both types of water are shaped by carbonate geology. Chalk streams draw their chemistry from water moving through chalk aquifers, while Balkan karst springs emerge from extensive limestone formations. In both, dissolved calcium and bicarbonate give the water its mineral-rich character.

Of course, a karst spring creek is not a chalk stream in the geological sense. The aquifers, landscapes, and hydrology are different.

Both kinds of stream also begin underground. Rain soaks into carbonate rock and returns to the surface as spring water. Chalk is itself a soft, porous form of limestone, so the two rocks are close relatives, although a karst aquifer, with its fissures and channels, tends to react to rain more quickly than chalk does. On this stream, the rise does not come at once. There is a lag after the rain, and how long it lasts and how high the water climbs depend on how much has fallen. Still, this groundwater origin gives both streams their clarity and a temperature that stays cooler in summer and milder in winter than that of rain-fed rivers.

I find this comparison particularly appealing. In a remote corner of the Balkans, surrounded by forests and limestone mountains, one can find some of the same fundamental qualities that make the English chalk streams so distinctive. Perhaps we should look beyond geographical labels when thinking about rivers, since two very different landscapes can produce waters with surprisingly similar character.

For a fisherman who has spent much of his life beside limestone spring creeks, the Crnica among them, discovering these connections is another reminder of how much there is still to learn from the waters we know best.

Absinthe Sally and the Chartreuse Stoneflies of Resava

Insect photo: Siphonoperla torrentium. Photograph by Hectonichus, Val Noci (Genoa), Italy, May 27, 2021. Used under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

In the summer of 1991, a few months before I left for the United States, several friends and I spent a week camping at the entrance to the Resava River canyon. We pitched our tents beside the river, watched birds, talked, and enjoyed the long summer days in the beautiful surroundings of Mount Beljanica in eastern Serbia.

I was the only angler in the group, so each afternoon I would fish near our campsite in the Resava canyon. I was greeted each time by an extraordinary hatch of tiny stoneflies.

They were an almost luminous yellow-green, closer to chartreuse than yellow. Small insects, perhaps size 16 or 18, they drifted and fluttered above the water in remarkable numbers. Their colour was unmistakable. Even after all these years, I can still picture that brilliant green against the darker landscape of the river canyon.

One thing I remember particularly well is the sheer abundance of the hatch. These were not occasional insects drifting over the water. At times, the stoneflies appeared in such numbers that it was difficult to imagine I was witnessing some exceptionally rare species. Surely, I thought, this must be one of the more established members of the local stonefly fauna. But then again, who knows? A species can be locally abundant and still have a rather limited distribution, and the taxonomy and distribution of Balkan Chloroperlidae leave room for questions.

I have always believed that the insect was Siphonoperla torrentium, known in older literature as Chloroperla torrentium. Its remarkably vivid yellow-green colour and relatively small size seem consistent with that identification. Yet I cannot be entirely certain.

Serbia is home to several members of the family Chloroperlidae, including Siphonoperla neglecta, S. transsylvanica and Chloroperla tripunctata. More recent research has added Chloroperla kosarovi and C. russevi to the Serbian fauna. Could one of these have been the insect I watched emerging over the Resava that June?

I have no specimen, photograph or field notes from that summer of 1991. I have not fished the Resava in June for decades, either. Most of my later visits were in May or August, so the opportunity to encounter that particular hatch again has never presented itself.

Perhaps one day I will return to the Resava in mid-June, armed with a small fly box containing a few chartreuse imitations. I would love to see those little stoneflies again, and perhaps finally put a name to the insect that made such an impression on a young fly fisherman more than three decades ago.

For now, the mystery remains. And perhaps that is part of its charm.

Inspired by that memory, I tied a simple fore-and-aft pattern and called it Absinthe Sally. Its design owes something to several classic patterns that have influenced my thinking:

• Renegade

• Sierra Bright Dot

• Double Badger

• Suvodolka (classic Serbian pattern by Jovan "Jovča" Petrović)

• Knotted Midge

Each has its own character, but they share the appealing simplicity and versatility of the fore-and-aft approach. Absinthe Sally is my own small addition to that tradition, inspired by a stonefly hatch I have never forgotten.

Sisevac Caddis in Orange-Brown

I dyed a few emu feathers cognac brown, which gave a warm burnt-orange shade, and used them to tie a couple of Sisevac Caddis dries [with the emu as wing/body/hackle]. Alongside my regular pattern, these warmer versions should be a closer match for the orange tones of the naturals: Stenophylax, Potamophylax, Halesus, and other caddisflies found on the Crnica.

I hope to give them a proper test there next May.

Three ginger-brown Sisevac Caddis, ready for October. Each one a little different.

Old Books and Youthful Moments

The other evening I was paging through Schwiebert’s Nymphs, admiring his hand-drawn color plates of natural insects, when the book carried me back to the Crnica, in Serbia’s Kučaj Mountains, and my early years of fly fishing.

Back then I was trying to become a better angler by reading everything I could find: books, magazines, anything that might help. Most of my catches were rainbow trout that had escaped from the local hatchery. I did catch some native browns, but the smaller rainbows were much easier targets for a young angler.

It was a beautiful spring day. The blues and greens were almost impossibly intense: a spotless sky, bright water, and tunnels of willows and hawthorns hanging over the stream. Rainbows held beneath the drooping branches on both sides of the main flow, and their eager, splashy rises were easy to spot.

On my leader was a brown Voljč-style sedge tied by Andrija Urban. My rod was rather crude for this lovely limestone stream: a dinosaur of a Silstar Composite, 8½ feet long and rated for a six-weight line. It threw a line well enough, though.

I cast the sedge just above the nearest rise, and my tippet caught on an overhanging branch. I tried to free it from a distance, afraid of spooking the fish. The fly stayed a hand’s breadth above the water, twitching in the breeze, right over the spot where I had seen several quick splashes.

And then came a small miracle.

The trout leaped out of the water and took my fly straight out of the air. It hooked itself, the tippet pulled free of the branch, and a few minutes later I was admiring a bright little rainbow in my hand.

None of the books I had read had a chapter on this. In all the decades of fly fishing since, I have never managed to repeat that feat.

One October in the Driftless: 2010

Photographed in October 2010 in Iowa's Driftless Area. These images have been revisited and edited in 2026, with the aim of preserving the character of the original photographs.

Twisted Caddis Larvae

Twisted, speckled wool creates a segmented body with little protrusions suggesting abdominal gills. A spiky blend of squirrel and dark olive-brown Angora goat finishes the thorax. 

Blue Dubbing

Fun tying with home-blended blue dubbing. Two Quasimodo PT nymphs, with a little color of their own.

Pilsners and Flies

Golden pilsners and a warm afternoon at the vise. All-around caddis larvae and summer spinners in colors for favorite streams, along with small streamers for landlocked salmon.

Budvar, Pilsner Urquell, and a smogarsbord of flies. A pretty chill afternoon.

From the Archives: An October Albie

October 22, 2017.

One of those late-October albie days you never quite forget.

A beautiful fish, my own-built 10-weight, and my Abel Super 9. The albie took off on a blistering run through the harbor, then wrapped my fly line around a buoy rope. For a moment, I thought I’d lose both the fish and the line.

Somehow, I worked through the mess and brought the fish to hand. A little luck, a little persistence, and one unforgettable fight.

Looking back at this photograph, I can almost feel that fish pulling again. October on the New England coast has a character all its own. Some days stay with you long after the season ends—and make you hope the next one is just around the corner.

Natural Convergences: Europe ↔ New England

The October Caddis of New England, Pycnopsyche, and the great autumn limnephilids of Europe belong to different evolutionary lineages, yet occupy remarkably similar ecological worlds.

On the Crnica in Serbia, the limestone stream enters autumn beneath the same kind of seasonal rhythm that I find in New England rivers thousands of miles away.

Different continents, different genera, different species—but the same beautiful solution to the changing season.

For a fly angler, these connections make October feel almost like Christmas. You begin to look at the river not as two places, but as one enormous natural history.

Pupae illustration: E. Schweibert, from Nymphs.

Stalled Season

I fished today on a beautiful early autumn day. I picked a protected harbor where, historically, schools of peanut bunker and visible blitzing stripers have been almost a certainty at this time of year.

We had a nor’easter last weekend, but the water was very clean. I found no bait and no fish. The place was completely deserted—dead. There was no sign of life. I saw perhaps three single cormorants, spread out over acres of ocean. Even the birds were gone.

It has been the most difficult striper season I have experienced since I started fly fishing for them in the early 1990s. It feels as though all my usual spots have been more or less dead throughout the entire summer. The hardtail season has also been disappointing for shore anglers.

October is here. I plan to make a few more trips to Rhode Island, but I have given up on the idea of saving the season in any meaningful way.

For now, it is simply a stalled season.

Ghosts of Summer

The season is changing.

A dram for the farewell to summer, with my trusty Pezon-inspired travel glass rod.

Scarabus seems to belong with the ghosts of past summers.

Sisevac — September

I returned to Sisevac on Sunday, a brief visit before leaving Serbia. This was not a fishing trip. My cousin Đorđe and I drove from Jagodina after the family wedding. Along the way, we stopped at an old soda shop and had an early-morning burek in Ćuprija.

The Crnica greeted us with its lazy autumn murmur, already carrying the quiet, nostalgic character of an early fall day. Notonecta swimmers were all over the slower sections, moving busily around. There were no obvious hatches, and I saw little trout activity. Some of the surrounding trees had already begun to turn brown, not from the cold as they would in a New England autumn, but from the prolonged drought. Others were simply becoming darker green or yellow, with that withered look. It was not the sort of day that invited much fishing.

But the low water offered something else: a different view of the river.

Sections that had been too deep, fast, or awkward to approach in May were now accessible. New pockets, seams and small runs appeared between the exposed rocks, and the reduced current made it possible to see much more clearly how the stream divided around the bed structure. Wading and casting positions that simply did not exist at higher water were now possible

Some of these newly revealed sections looked surprisingly fishable. I found myself studying the river rather than looking for rising trout—trying to understand where the current would hold fish when the water returned.

The tradeoff is obvious. There is much less water, potentially warmer conditions, and considerably less visible trout activity. Yet the low autumn flow also exposes another side of the Crnica. The river becomes almost a map of itself, revealing its structure and showing possibilities that remain hidden beneath the higher spring water.

For a short visit, that may have been the most interesting thing I brought home from Sisevac: not a fish, but a better understanding of the river.

Bamboo Love

Very Slow Fishing

Caribou Zuddler

Idylle — La Vie Mobile

I arrived in Belgrade this May. Same time, more or less, as always. The air was smelling of dust and ozone. Acacia fragrance and heavy blooms were teasing my eyes and nostrils.

The forecast showed steady rain. Not the best time to go to Sisevac—to my beloved Kučaj Mountains—yet. We decided to watch the weather and spend a few days in Belgrade.

The following day we went to the Museum of Contemporary Art, one of my favorite hangs in Belgrade. It is one of those places where I utterly feel at home, always surprised with something new, something I possibly never saw before.

We reveled in great, well-known paintings of modern artists of former Yugoslavia. Konjović, Lubarda, Šejka, Barilli, Vučo… And then we arrived at the one which just made me lose my breath.

Idylle – La vie mobile

The brilliant collage of Marko Ristić, a father of Serbian Surrealism. Sonja and I both sighed, and looked at each other. Immediate resonance. The work just blew my mind. Maybe because I saw the subtle irony in it.

The Mobile Life.

Yes, that is my life.

It has been mobile for the past 35 years. Yes, three and a half decades of utmost mobility in every sense. Unsettled. Unexplainable. Idyllic? Beautiful! Romanesque?

We continued walking and looking at paintings, enjoying every step, every floor, every room of the museum.

The rain stopped just when we exited. Belgrade looked both fresh from spring rain, green grass glowing in diffused light, and also tired and worn from the current zeitgeist.

It is a time for change.

Now!

Curved-Hook Spinners and Poodle Para-Ants

A couple of recent experiments from the vise. Think: late-season ant swarms and early-autumn Heptageniid spinners.

August Ants

I met Goran at my acquaintance Peđa’s place. I had come over to show him some camera lenses that I no longer needed. Peđa, a professional photographer himself and a painter, was dealing in photo equipment, and Goran arrived just as I was about to leave.

He introduced himself as a cameraman and photographer. I learned soon enough that he was also a great painter, sailor, and writer—we just kept talking. He was older than me, but we became friends immediately.

Goran’s curiosity about fly fishing quickly became another connection between us, and his musical taste was extraordinary. I would spend time at his place listening to Egberto Gismonti while he showed me outstanding color slides he had taken with his own hand-constructed camera.

I have never seen images like that.

Although I was preparing to leave for Boston to study at Berklee, our friendship did not end with my departure. During my visits home from Berklee, we continued sharing many experiences together. We talked, biked, hiked the nearby hills, filmed the long-eared owl population that wintered around Aračlijski potok near Jagodina, and discussed art, music, poetry, photography, and biology.

The summer of 1993 was a difficult one because of the Balkan wars. I was home from Berklee that summer, and Goran and I decided to go fly fishing in Resava Canyon. It was August 10—just a few days before my birthday, so I remember it well.

We knew the water was low and that our chances of catching fish were not great. My father was our driver, and he never abandoned his role as a silent witness to my fly-fishing experiments.

Goran brought his 7’6” Germina fiberglass rod for a #6 line.

“The weight does not bother me,” he would say.

And I knew that. He loved to exercise, was always in great shape, and never took the elevator to my apartment. He always ran up the stairs. I lived on the tenth floor of a high-rise building!

We followed the dusty road into the canyon. We fished different spots, separated from each other, probing the deep karst pools with our flies.

I was lucky and caught a small trout near the large rosehip bush, where trout would often rise.

Later, we met again.

“Did you get any?” Goran asked.

“Only one small fish. You?”

“I had one attack my wet ant,” he said, showing me his large thread-body ant with a lacquered finish. “But I struck too soon.”

The day was getting late.

In those years, Resava looked different at the entrance to the canyon, below the ramp. There was a series of pools created by several smaller dams. Those quiet stretches provided tremendous hatches of caddisflies, E. danica, and other insects.

We decided to try one particularly interesting pool farther downstream. I had done well there earlier that summer, and I remembered the bottom of the pool covered with large cases of limnephilid caddisflies.

All three of us spread out along the pool. Goran was making upstream casts with his Germina. I was slightly upstream from him with my little Diamondback Carbonite 6’6” 3-weight.

Before making my first cast, I looked up.

Huge swarms of ants were twirling in the air above us, like a tornado between the treetops and the side of the road where we had parked our Peugeot.

We continued casting, with the sun already far behind the canyon walls and the shadows growing longer.

Slowly, fish started rising.

I could not believe it.

I tied on my winged ant fly, and a beautiful trout, close to 40cm, took it with confidence. The little Diamondback bent almost in half, and Goran helped me land the fish.

He dropped his rod. Both he and my father were standing beside me, watching quietly.

It was already completely dark.

The ants were everywhere.

I put on a larger Light Cahill dry fly. I could no longer see my ant, so I decided to use the last remaining light to tie something larger and more visible onto my leader.

Against the last traces of light in the sky, without a flashlight, I tied that knot.

By then the pool was boiling with rising trout. Huge splashes appeared everywhere.

I kept casting.

Another trout came—this one slightly larger. Goran gave me instructions, although I could no longer see him. He was crouching low on the bank while I played the fish from the asphalt road above.

After that fish, I landed one more, about the same size. Goran expertly guided that last trout into his hand.

I was shocked.

I had never caught such beautiful trout on dry flies in Resava before—not just one, but three good fish in one evening. In the dog days of August!

And then, just like a light switch, everything stopped.

The ants disappeared.

The trout went back into their hiding places.

All of us realized the same thing:

We had witnessed another one of nature’s miracles.

We broke down our rods in complete darkness and drove back toward Jagodina, excited and puzzled.

My father was driving.

Goran turned toward me and smiled gently. There was no excitement, no dramatic celebration. He simply placed his hand on my shoulder.

“You are a heck of a fisherman,” he said.

That moment stayed with me.

I realized that sometimes the most disappointing day can suddenly turn around and surprise you with something enormous.

Unfortunately, I did not realize then that my time with Goran was limited.

In those years, he told me many things about life that I was not ready to understand.

Today, I know he was right.

Some people appear at exactly the right moment in our lives to teach us lessons that last forever.

Goran was one of those rare people.

Sword Beetle

August beetle fever!

Peacock beetle variation with elytra made from sword feathers and parachute hackle.

Steampunk Pump

Built in the 1920s and renewed in the 1950s, this old water pump still supplies Sisevac with drinking water. It stands beside the Crnica, the little limestone stream that runs through the village. The man who keeps it running is my childhood friend, Toplica.

Karst Mystery Stream

Somewhere in the limestone country of eastern Serbia, I found a little stream that disappears into the earth. I looked around its Ranunculus beds and saw no trout. But the water goes underground, and somewhere downstream a remarkable karst spring emerges with an exceptional wild, native trout population.

Is there a connection?

Perhaps. One day I'll find out.

Summertime Reading — Limestone Legends

Searching for Silver Sedge

(Photo: Odontocerum albicorne, Trawscoed, North Wales, August 2015. Photo by Janet Graham, via Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under CC BY 2.0.)

Two days ago I spent almost four hours on the phone with my friend Dave Skok. We talked about trout and striped bass fishing, sight casting, dry flies, spring creeks, hatches, and fly rods. That conversation somehow sent me looking for a particular insect I thought I might have seen on my trout water, the Moesian karst stream Crnica in eastern Serbia.

I have spent countless hours reading its currents, turning over its river stones, and trying to fool its trout. Yet even after all these years, the river still manages to keep secrets from me. It concerns a magnificent, heavily structured caddisfly that I suspect may be hiding right under our noses: Odontocerum albicorne, famously known to fly anglers as the Silver Sedge.

If you look at European entomology maps, the Silver Sedge is a documented resident of the region. It has been recently documented in Montenegro and is present in Bulgaria. It is also included in published lists of the Trichoptera fauna of Serbia. However, I have a confession to make: I don't believe I have ever personally seen one on the Crnica.

But before you call me crazy for speculating on its existence, consider the timeline. Odontocerum albicorne is a summer specialist. Its peak emergence occurs from June through July and stretches into August. For many years, my calendar has kept me away from the river during those exact sweltering summer months.

Could this beautiful insect be hatching in the warm summer twilights while I am wading the flats around Boston, looking for striped bass, far away from the Crnica? I think it is entirely possible.

I have, over the years, observed an enormous biodiversity of aquatic insects on the Crnica. I have also found that another almost identical species is documented in the Balkans, Odontocerum hellenicum. Based on the current data, it seems that O. hellenicum would be more likely to occur farther south, in the Stara Planina region.

To understand why the Crnica is a prime candidate for the Silver Sedge, you have to look at how these insects live. The larvae are master underwater stonemasons, constructing incredibly strong, curved defensive cases entirely out of tightly bound grains of sand. They don't just live anywhere—they require clean, permanent, moderate-to-fast flowing water with a rich substrate of gravel and boulders.

The pristine, well-oxygenated upper stretches of the Crnica fit this ecological profile perfectly.

When they do emerge, they are not small caddisflies. The adults boast a substantial forewing length of 13–18 mm, easily identified by their distinctively long, aggressively toothed antennae and striking silver-grey appearance when resting on riparian foliage. For a trout, an adult Silver Sedge or its swimming pupa represents a high-calorie steak dinner.

I am hoping that next June I will dedicate some time to setting UV light traps and doing more sampling of insects along the banks of the Crnica. I hope this ghost story will eventually be solved!

A Few Things I Found Down the Rabbit Hole

While I was a biology student in Belgrade in the late 1980s, one of my dearest professors was Miloje Brajković. I told him way back then about my interest in fly fishing and angling entomology. He smiled and gave me some tips and encouragement as I began collecting specimens, along with resources for identification.

So I am listing his work on top…

Živić, I., Marković, Z. & Brajković, M. (2006). Contribution to the faunistical list of Trichoptera (Insecta) of Serbia.Acta Entomologica Slovenica 14(1): 55–68.
— A very useful general Serbian caddisfly reference; the revised list increased the known Serbian Trichoptera fauna from 173 to 186 species.

Novaković, B., Stojanović, K., Marković, V., Radojević, A., Božanić, M. & Živić, I. (2017). A Valorization of Benthic Invertebrate Fauna of the Mlava River (Eastern Serbia).
— The Mlava survey: 197 benthic taxa recorded during 2009–2014.

Stojanović et al. (2018). Odontocerum hellenicum (Malicky, 1972) (Trichoptera: Odontoceridae) as a host of Agriotypus armatus (Curtis, 1832) (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) — the first finding for Serbia.
— Particularly relevant to the southeastern-Serbia angle.

Klima, F. & Hodges, J. C. (1987). Description of the Larva and Female of Odontocerum hellenicum Malicky, 1972, as Compared to O. albicorne Scopoli, 1763 (Trichoptera: Odontoceridae). Aquatic Insects 9(3): 177–183.
— The really useful hellenicum/albicorne comparison.

Kiss, O. & Pfliegler, W. P. (2011). The biology and life cycle of Odontocerum albicorne (Scopoli, 1763) (Trichoptera).
— Excellent general natural-history source; also discusses the Balkan Odontocerum species and the Bulgarian O. hellenicum records.

Kumanski, K. (1981). Faunistic investigations on Bulgarian Trichoptera to June, 1980 — with a revised check-list. In: Moretti, G. P. (ed.), Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium on Trichoptera, Series Entomologica 20: 139–147.
— The older Bulgarian source behind the O. hellenicum connection.

Malicky, H. (1972). Weitere neue Arten und Fundorte von Westpaläarktischen Köcherfliegen (Trichoptera), von allem aus dem östlichen Mediterrangebiet. Mitteilungen der Entomologischen Gesellschaft Basel 22: 25–68.
— The original description of Odontocerum hellenicum.

Bozdoğan, H., Bilalli, A. & Ibrahimi, H. (2025). New caddisfly records (Insecta, Trichoptera) for Montenegro and Ecoregion 5, Dinaric Western Balkans: distributional and ecological insights. Biodiversity Data Journal 13: e146076.
— O. albicorne was documented on the Zeta River in Montenegro using a UV light trap on July 22, 2024; five males and nine females were recorded.

Looking for the Right River to Call Home

Every fly angler meets many rivers along his or her life path. Rivers are like romantic relationships. Some enter our lives quietly and change us forever. Some become part of us. Some are like the most passionate romances—they can sweep us away in a single rendezvous, yet they don’t necessarily hold the highest places in our memories. Others become lifelong partners, and very often they are found along paths less traveled, hidden from the mainstream fly-fishing world.

I inherited my first river from my grandfather. The Crnica became my first love, rising from its karst spring in Sisevac, a former mining village in eastern Serbia. My grandfather was a schoolteacher living on its banks well before World War II, when the village was much larger and its life was deeply tied to the mines. He fished it with flies, along with his best man, Luka Vraneš, who hailed from Bosnia and tied his own flies. I caught my first trout there as a boy, and wrote about it in my primary-school writing exam. My grandfather was a wonderful storyteller who survived two world wars and lived long enough to write about his life. I fly fish because of him. The Crnica is a river that will follow me throughout my entire life. I will always return to it.

Later, through my early college years, I started fishing the nearby Resava and Mlava more. They were cut from the same karst landscape. I was discovering rivers on my own at this point in my life, and wandering along their canyons connected me to my father, perhaps during the period of our lives when we were closest. He began coming with me on my trips and quietly became a witness to my fishing explorations. He was not a fisherman, yet he always patiently stood by my side on those journeys.

Soon after that I moved to the United States. I fished some wonderful and famous streams, like the Ausable in New York and Silver Creek in Idaho. During my years in the Twin Cities, I probably fished the Rush River more than any other American stream. Yet none of them became a part of me.

I discovered the Driftless streams before I knew I would one day live not far from the Driftless Area. My reconnection with them came during the summer after my graduate studies in Iowa. I fished the small Spring Branch Creek with almost unlimited devotion that summer. I had been separated from trout fishing for several years, partly by graduate school and partly by everything happening in the Balkans. Spring Branch brought me back to something I had almost forgotten I needed. It was intimate, manicured like a miniature English chalkstream, and full of puzzling twists and trout lies, but that summer I fished it with the intensity of someone returning to an old language.

The first river that felt like a chosen love was Waterloo Creek. This was the first stream where I completely felt: this is where I could imagine staying. While living in the Cities, I would make the long drive to Waterloo fairly often, sometimes simply to spend a few hours beside it. Looking back, I realize I was courting that stream. Its marshy valley always hid numerous surprises—from unexpected wisps of snipe in the fall and the tail slaps of beavers to a large brown trout sipping beetles along Waterloo’s quiet banks. It presented a unique world where I could disappear, where imagination and reality were completely intertwined, and every departure felt like a sudden awakening.

Waterloo’s neighbors—French Creek and North Bear—became different rooms of the same trout palace. I used to call French Creek my “Magic Carpet Stream.” Its abundant mats of vegetation would present a wonderful challenge whenever a sizeable trout dove into them. And North Bear is where I met Sid Neff, that wonderful limestone fisherman from Pennsylvania. We spent hours talking about Charles Ritz, Ernie Schwiebert, Vince Marinaro, and other limestone legends beside his camper van one morning, drinking tea and eating toast with English marmalade. We continued fishing terrestrials later that day with our glass and cane rods. It was an unexpected connection to a long-lost world.

What does it actually mean to call a river home?

Is it the place you spend the most time? The stream with the biggest fish? The most beautiful landscape? Is it a river other people think you should love?

Or is it simply the place where, after enough years, you stop looking around and realize:

I don’t want to be anywhere else.

The Shepherd Woman from the Mlava

Back in 1993, I was home in Serbia for the entire summer. I had just bought a new Sage rod at Stoddard's in Boston and wanted to try it on some larger trout. So I decided to go with my father to the Mlava River in eastern Serbia, camp on its banks, and fish it for a couple of days.

We reached it by traveling along an old road full of incredible potholes, as so many village roads were back then. Our Peugeot wrestled with them valiantly. We arrived at Trška Crkva, an ancient church whose history reaches back to the early Christian era. Near the bridge, at the edge of a large meadow beneath a magnificent tree, we pitched our tent. As soon as everything was set up, we headed straight for the river.

I entered Mlava's magical tunnels.

The Mlava is a legendary karst river in eastern Serbia. Known for its picturesque meanders and gentle flow in its upper reaches, it also holds deep pools that have long been famous for producing trophy brown trout.

I started with a large caddis pupa and caught a trout almost immediately. I watched it attack my fly beneath the surface. Then I switched to a silver-beaded Pheasant Tail nymph. That fly proved deadly. Trout after trout came to hand as I nymphed with my 9-foot Sage rod.

I was so happy. It felt as though everything had come together at exactly the right moment.

My father walked along the bank while I fished, although I could rarely see him because I was enclosed within a tunnel of overhanging trees. Every now and then I would call out, holding up another beautiful brown trout. He would peek through an opening in the branches, smile, and make his way over to photograph the fish before I released it.

Later, after a quick snack, we moved to a majestic wide pool. Towering willows shaded one bank while the river divided around a tiny island. I carefully climbed down the steep bank, where several kingfisher nesting holes were clearly visible in the exposed earth. Crossing the smaller channel, I stepped onto the little island, which gave me a perfect casting position to fish both currents.

The trout were rising everywhere.

March Browns filled the air, mixed with smaller Pale Watery duns and a scattering of caddisflies. It was a wonderfully complex hatch.

I began with a Thorax March Brown, and the trout took it eagerly. As darkness settled over the valley, I switched to a wine-colored Comparadun, which the fish accepted as an Ecdyonurus spinner. My final trout of the evening came almost in complete darkness.

We returned to our tent tired, happy, and ready to crawl into our sleeping bags.

The next morning I was on the river early, although the fishing started slowly. Once the sun climbed above the hills, I landed several smaller trout on a Goddard Caddis in the well-known Horseshoe Pool.

Later I walked back to the tent to pick up my lighter rod.

My father was talking with an elderly shepherd woman whose cows grazed in the meadow not far from our campsite.

Before joining them, I stopped beside a fallen tree where a single trout was rising—tiny, steady dimples. I cast a CDC Caddis Pupa, and the fish took it immediately. Unfortunately, I lost it almost at once when it dove straight into the submerged roots.

Disappointed, I walked toward my father and the old woman.

She wore heavy traditional wool clothing, a scarf tied over her hair, and carried a shepherd's staff.

My father introduced us.

"She is from the nearby village," he said. "We were just talking about her daughter. She fell in love with a young man, married in another village, and rarely comes to visit."

Then he turned to her.

"This is my son. Can you imagine how his mother feels knowing that he lives in America now? He may never come back to live with us. He's a musician, finishing university there. He may stay in America for good. Across the world. And you're sad because your daughter rarely visits, even though she lives only a few kilometers away. Imagine how his mother feels, with her only son living on the other side of the world."

The old woman looked at me with deep sadness in her eyes.

"My son," she said quietly, "aren't you sorry for your old mother? How can you leave her and go to America? Her heart will break in two. Why are you doing this, dear boy?"

I was stunned.

I knew she was right in many ways, yet I had never truly allowed myself to think about it. It was not her words alone that affected me, but the sorrow in her voice as it echoed across the river valley.

I felt uncomfortable, confused, and deeply sad.

I knew my life was about to change forever.

In Serbian culture, the bond between parents and children runs very deep. I honestly cannot remember what I answered her. During our conversation, my father quietly picked up his video camera and recorded part of it.

Many years later, after the COVID pandemic had nearly ended, my father and I returned to that same place.

It had changed a great deal. The beautiful old tree was gone, and we barely recognized the meadow.

As I stood beside the bridge putting on my waders, my father looked toward the meadow and said softly,

"The old woman is gone now... many years already."

After a pause he added,

"I wish I could find her daughter and give her the video recording of her mother."