Belopoptsi Dam - Sofia - Bulgaria

I had prebooked a fishing guide in Bulgaria before I started travelling about a month earlier. After travelling few almost 2 weeks, I was itching to catch some fish. My guide arrived at my Hostel and we drove up to a little lake outside of Sofia called Belopoptsi Dam (Язовир Белопопци).

We fished a sliding float to get the bait down to about 15ft. After about 15 minutes. The guide caught the first (and only) fish of the day. It was a Prussian or Gibel Carp. These are the same species as Goldfish but a different subspecies/form. They are very silver compared to the Brown Goldfish we get in England. They are very simiar to the Crucian Carp but have a concaved instead of convexed dorsal fin. They are also a little bulkier.



Prussian Carp - Carassius gibelio



Prussian Carp - Carassius gibelio

I wasn't catching fish, but was still enjoying the wildlife. There we frogs an tolds everywhere, storks soaring around as well.


White Stork - Ciconia ciconia



White Stork - Ciconia ciconia




Common Toad - Bufo bufo



Marsh Frog - Pelophylax ridibundus


We had some traditional food for lunch. Boza and a BBQ.



Боза

Belgrade

I'd been travelling around Eastern Europe for just under a week now, and didn't even realise that it was ANZAC day. This was the closest I'd been to Galipoli during ANZAC day. The weather had been good to us and for some reason, Belgrade felt very much like home. There were streets full of cafes selling a vast varierty of coffees and chocolate drinks, something that you don't really get in London. Just like Melbourne there was a River flanked by parks and gardens. The Serbian Open was on as well, and we were able watch a few matches free of charge.

The River here was the Sava, which flows down from Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia, through each of their capitals, and joins to Danube few hundred metres downstream.

Walking upstream towards the station, I found large shoals of Bleak swimming along the surface, and their seemed to be a few fisherman targeting them on float fishing gear. There were also a lot of anglers fishing little spinner, perhaps targeting perch, zander or pike. And their were other just ledgering.

I passed an angler reeling in his line, and he had a little fish on the end. With a little bit of gesturing and waving of arms, I mananaged to get a hold of the fish to photograph it. It was a little Round Goby. A fairly large goby which lives in the freshwaters for the Danube as well in the Black Sea. I found that he was also using these as bait. I guess it would be for one of the predatory fish mentioned above, or maybe even a Wels.



Round Goby - Neogobius melanostomus



Round Goby - Neogobius melanostomus



Bleak - Alburnus alburnus



Bleak - Alburnus alburnus



European Roe Deer - Capreolus capreolus - photographed on the train between Budapest and Belgrade