Types of fishing licences:

Daily carp fishing licence for lake Blade
PRICE: 57 EUR

3 day in a row carp fishing licence for lake Bled
PRICE: 140 EUR

Fishing possible from dawn till 11 pm

Carpfishing equipment rental per day (2 rods, 2 reels, 2 alarms, 2 bite indicators, chair and carp fishing accessories without end tackle)
PRICE 50 EUR

Bait: 1kg boilies
PRICE: 10 EUR

PEARL IN THE ALPS

Carp anglers often choose waters, which are wild and urban non distrubed. But sometimes fishing lakes in urban environment can be even more exciting then wild lakes and rivers. One of these lakes is definatelly Lake Bled, which lies in the middle of slovenian Alps in city of Bled. It has glacial origin and is one of the biggest natural lakes in Slovenia. With length of 2120 metres, width of 1380 metres is covers  1,45 square kilometres. Deepest point of the lake is 30 metres and with average year temperature of 12 degrees Celsius is very appropriate for aquatic fauna. In the middle of the lake there is only natural lake island in Slovenia, with a beautiful medieval church and monastery. The lake is also famous for its rowing boats named Pletna. With those, rowers carry turists to the island and back.

  

Despite lack of natural food Lake Bled is rich with many fish species. It provides home for carps, catfish, pike, zander, lake trout, perch and many other smaller species. But let us focus on carps. The bottom of the lake is divided into two types. First, closer to the shore, where bottom descends fast, is rocky bottom, and second, where bottom is allready leveled or descending slower is covered with silt. Aquatic flora is not developed well, on some parts you can find some water lilies, but in general there are not a lot of plants, which grow in water. Population of carps is relatively big and that`s why this lake is considered to be one of best carp fishing lakes in Slovenia. Due to quite low average temperature of water, spawning is not very successful, so you can rarely see smaller carp then 6 kilograms. Biggest fish so far in the lake weighted 30,7 kilograms and it was a perfect common carp. But main attraction of this lake are mirrors. They inhabitat this water in substantial numbers and have very distinct shape. Short but fat with big bellies. Really something you do not see in other lakes. Grass carp is also present, but catch reports are so rare that catching one grass carp is close to science fiction.

  

In general, there are three types of carp fishing on this lake. First option is to try to catch carp in  »normal« way, so with prebaiting from 20-100 metres from the shore. There you are fishing in depth between 10 and 16 metres. Second option is to go vertical fishing, it means that you are fishing from the shore straight down to the bottom. This option is possible due to large numbers of pontoons and parts of lake bank where shore basically stands on pilots, similar like it is in Venice. So carps have a lot of hidding places where they can enjoy their peace, but eventually they need to come out to feed. Fishing range here is 0 to 20 metres. Third option is to go stalking for carp, which is successful mainly in spring time, when carps come closer to the shore. In this case, you are literally fishing on view, because water is so clear, that you can see ten metres deep with your own eyes from the shore.

  

But behind this spectacular scenery and fat and hungry carps, there is also dark side of carpfishing in Bled. It is called regulations. On Lake Bled you can go carp fishing from April 1st till December 31st,  you are allowed to use 2 rods, no need for barbless hook, you need to have unhooking matt and landing net with at least 90 cm side. No prebaiting is allowed unless you do it the same day you start fishing, you can use only 5 kilograms of bait per day, no boats are allowed to use for fishing and especially no bait boats are allowed. In case of rain you can use umbrella, but without sidewalls. No brollies or bivies are allowed. There is also no night fishing, as far as we carp anglers understand night fishing. You can start your fishing day 1 hour before sunrise and finish 1 hour after sunset. Only on specially marked parts of lake you can fish up to 11 o`clock in the evening. After this hour, you need to clear your spot and leave Since you are not allowed to spend the night on your spot. All this information you can also find on the back side fishing licence when you buy it. But buying fishing licence for carp in Lake Bled is a dramatic experience for your wallet. 1 day pass costs you 57€, but you can buy 3 days pass for 140€ with limitation, that it has to be used in 3 sequential days. Trying to cheat on this regulations can be very costly for an agler, because fishery guardians and city bouncers are taking their job very seriously so playing with regulations is not exactly a thing, I would recomend here. Another distracting element of carp fishing in Lake Bled are turists. Since majority of turists have never seen modern carp fishing gear, you must often answer to questions such as what fish are you after, why you have this and why you use that. But »best« part is, when you hook a carp. Sometimes crowd even up to 100 people gather around you when you try to land a fish and when you land it, can be difficult to find unhooking matt in that crowd.

But despite this dark side, lake is very popular especially among austrian and italian carp anglers and despite high prices of licences, also domestic anglers. When night falls, there are less turists, fish is more active and scenery around the lake is fenomenal. A lot of lights from casinos, churches and castle give you really magic feeling and if alarm starts to beep, tha magic is complete. I would definatelly recommend every carp angler to go to Lake Bled at least once in a lifetime and enjoy fishing there because it is really unique experience.