Emerald water, marble trout, grayling and huchen: Slovenia is one of Europe’s finest fishing destinations, a few hours’ drive from Italy and Austria. Good news for travellers: fishing permits can be bought online in a few minutes.
How fishing permits work
In Slovenia, most waters belong to the State, which entrusts their management to local angling clubs (“ribiške družine”), grouped within the Slovenian Fishing Federation. Visiting anglers buy a permit for a specific stretch: for a day, a night or several days.
Permits are sold by the angling clubs, and also online at ribiskekarte.si, the website that lists the country’s fishing stretches. On a fishing trip to Slovenia, our team saw it for itself: you choose your river, pay, and the permit arrives on your phone. It is personal, and each club can add its own rules, so read the ones printed on the permit carefully.
Rainbow trout caught in Slovenia by the Factory France team, Dimitri Léonard and Laurent Raquet-Lapeire.
The rules to know
One rod per angler (two only if the permit says so), a single fly or lure per line, no live bait, a disgorger is compulsory, and catches must be reported to the club. In the Soča valley, only fly fishing is allowed, and marble trout are mostly fished catch-and-release, with a 60 cm minimum size where they can be kept.
Legendary fish
The Soča is the kingdom of the marble trout, a species of the Adriatic basin: the recorded record reaches 120 cm and 22.5 kg. The Sava is home to the huchen, with a record of 135 cm and 26.9 kg. Carp anglers are not left out: a 34.6 kg carp was caught and released in 2013 at Lake Šmartinsko.
For your customers planning a fishing trip abroad, this is good advice to pass on: check how the local permit is bought, and pack attractants suited to the target species, wherever local rules allow them.
Sources: ribiskekarte.si, Fishing in Slovenia · Soča Valley, Fishing. Photo: Niksy via Pixabay.