Getting Warner’s syndrome while fishing on holiday

I RECENTLY went on a short holiday to Croatia, the first time I’ve visited this rather wonderful country, writes Dick Warner.

Late one afternoon I booked into a country hotel on the banks of the River Gacka (this is pronounced “gatchka”, There seems to be a very loose relationship between spelling and pronunciation in the Croatian language.) I was in karst limestone country — a bit like the Burren with trees — and most of the Gacka flows underground. However, here it was behaving like a normal river and its crystal clear limestone water has a reputation for providing some of the best trout fishing in Europe, which was what had brought me to this rather obscure part of the country.

The hotel had obviously started life as a large water mill and stood at the confluence of the Gacka and a small tributary. I went to check things out as soon as I had dumped my luggage in the room. A pair of pied wagtails were nesting in a sluice house and a dipper whirred away up the tributary. In the main river a group of dab-chicks were busily diving after food. I went for a short walk and heard two birds making very strange sounds but, however hard I tried, I couldn’t spot them.