Idrija Fly Fishing Festival is organized by Fishing Association.

FLY FISHING FAIR Over 2 days, the visitors will be able to watch professional fly tiers from and Europe as they demonstrate their skills and knowledge in live. Visitors will have chance to check out exhibitor area for new gear, guiding services, travels and more. And the best of all, the entrance to all this will be free.

FILM FESTIVAL Featuring for the first time in Europe, we are proud to host and screen world’s best selection of fly fishing films of the International Fly Fishing Film Festival ™. Carefully selected long and short movies on the topics of fly fishing, water, and nature will be screened on the evening of the first day.

LOCATION Country: Slovenia, Europe I Town: Idrija Date of the event: 6-8 May 2016 Date of screening IF4: 7 May 2016, 18:00 in Idrija Town Cinema

Idrija The city of Idrija in a basin between undulating hills where the natural environments of the subalpine and karst worlds meet. A half millennium of mining mercury in Idrija and its surroundings left an exceptionally rich heritage of technical, cultural, and historical monuments and points of interest available to visitors as museum displays. Among the ethnological attractions, Idrija bobbin lace is particularly outstanding and ranks Idrija among the most eminent European centers of this valuable folk art. There gin clear river and its tributaries, Wild Lake (deep underwater cave system), Klavže (large man-built dams used for fast transport of wood from deep canyons to the city center. The city and its natural surroundings are just trapped into history of more than millennia.

UNESCO World Heritage List Inscription 2012 The industrial heritage of two world famous mercury mines – Almadén in Spain and Idrija in Slovenia were classified on the prestigious list of world heritage for being the two largest mines for the extraction of this amazing and only liquid metal; moreover, they were historically connected by preserving the diverse and unique heritage associated with the extraction of mercury. Mercury extracted from these two mines was used in South-American mines of silver and gold in the amalgamation process for the extraction of these precious metals that returned to Europe as riches and enabled the development of economy, science and art.

WHY FLY FISHING FESTIVAL IN IDRIJA? The crystal-clear Idrijca River with its numerous tributaries offer an ideal natural habitat for fish, which is why the Idrija and Cerkno region boasts a long, rich fishing tradition, especially famous for Marble Trout. The oldest records on fishing in these parts appeared in medieval land registers around 1300, and the first written fishing rules were laid down in the Mining Rules of the Idrija Mercury Mine as early as in 1580. For several centuries fishing was the privilege of feudal lords, in Idrija of the mine administration, and from the mid 19th century to the Second World War fishing was under the authority of the forest administration. The fish population in this area was often a victim of the harmful consequences of mining activities, timber floating and severe floods. In order to ensure continued reproduction, the first fish farms were established before the First World War. Fishing is not only an obsession of the association’s members, but is becoming an increasingly more desirable sport attracting numerous domestic and foreign visitors, primarily from neighbouring countries. The Idrija Fishing Association sells around 1500 fishing licences each year to visitors from abroad. Our fishermen are devoting tireless endeavours to preserving the breath-taking natural environment and the marble trout, which is the signature of this environment, rivers, nature, and also people. We are fighting a constant battle against negligent littering, depositing of wastes and water pollution, regularly organize cleaning campaigns along river banks, and strive to arouse ecological awareness. Thanks to these efforts as well, this part of Slovenia, reputed for its rich natural and cultural heritage, is becoming an increasing more attractive destination for numerous visitors from other parts of Europe and around the globe.

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SCREENING VENUE Films of the International Fly Fishing Film Festival ™ will be screened in town’s Movie Theater, which is a former theater of the Idrija Mercury Mine and is the oldest constructed theater house in Slovenia. Constructed around year 1769 using the material left from the mining activities. The building, designed in baroque oval shape with the classicist lobby, was at the time furnished with luxury backdrop scenery and theater wardrobe. The interior was made of wood had a total of 36 private loggias (dressed in red velvet), next to the parterre and stands in the back. The hall could host a total of 300 visitors. Around year 1842 the theater was neglected and the wooden roof started leaking. Theater was renovated in 1844 and again in 1869, when new management under Mercury mine took over. Until the middle of 19th century theater hosted only travelling German and Italian speaking acting performances, but after 1850 it started gaining more and more explicit Slovenian character (Kavčič, 2002). First performance in Slovenian language was the act “Tat v mlinu” (Thief in the mill) or “Slovenec in Nemec” (Slovenian guy and German guy), (Leskovec, Peljhan, 2009). After 1889 the theatre became completely Slovenian and Vinko Lapajne founded the Idrija Dramaturgical Society, which is still performing today. Last shows were in 1903, due to bad maintenance the management didn’t allow anymore shows. In 1905 decision was made to demolish the interior and use the building for as storage facility for mining equipment (Zazula, 1905). From 2001 the building is a historical monument of national importance.

MARBLE TROUT The marble trout body is marbled in two basic colours: bright – yellow to grey and darker – brown to olive. Throughout the body above the lateral line from the beginning of the tail fin to the head greyish brown spots that combine the meandering lines, interrupted by bright, silver-grey winding lines. This interweaving gives typical marble pattern, like no other trout species. The marble trout is one of the biggest if not the biggest trout in the world, depending on its habitat and food. In the upper parts of the river’s system it can barely grow to a length of 30 cm or perhaps slightly higher, while in the lower parts of rivers with lots of deep pools and plenty of food, reaches a length of well over one meter and above 20 kilograms.

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The marble trout spawns in late autumn or winter. In our waters, spawning begins in late November and December. I prefer to spawn at night near his environment, but the ball in the tributaries. In good conditions marble trout reaches sexual maturity at the age of three. Fertility marble trout is a relatively small number of eggs ranging from 1100 to 2200 per kilogram of body weight. Marble trout (Salmo marmoratus), characterized by distinctive marbled colour pattern and high growth capacity, inhabits some rivers and streams flowing into the , i.e. in Italy the Rivers Adige, Brenta, Piave, Livenza, Tagliamento, and the upper reaches of the Po river system, in Slovenia the Soča river system and the Rivers Rižana and , in Bosnia - Herzegovina and Croatia the Neretva river system, and in Montenegro the Skadar river system. Marble trout used to live in the River in Croatia and in some Adriatic Rivers in Albania, where it is apparently extinct. Most of the existing marble trout populations naturally coexist with native Adriatic brown trout: Salmo cenerinus in Italian rivers and S. farioides and S. obtusirostris in the Neretva and Skadar river systems. It is believed that in Slovenia, marble trout used to be the only naturally present trout until the introduction of non-native brown trout. However, some genetic traces of the Adriatic lineage of brown trout were found in the rivers Rižana and Učja (a direct tributary to the Soča River), which contradicts this notion.

Marble trout is one of the most endangered freshwater species. The main threat to marble trout has been hybridization with introduced brown trout. The first recorded stocking in the Soča River was performed in 1906 using brown trout from Bosnia-Herzegovina. Contrary to the popular believe of critical devastation of marble trout during the WWl, marble trout was still abundant in the Soča after the war (Gridelli, 1936; Razpet et al., 2007), however the stocking with brown trout, presumably originating from the Atlantic river basin, continued and reached its peak in the time of Yugoslavia. In late eighties of the previous century, non-native brown trout of the Atlantic origin and its hybrids with the native marble trout dominated almost the entire Adriatic part of Slovenian river system (Povž et al., 1996). The most important milestone in marble trout investigation was a discovery of eight genetically pure marble trout populations, confined to the very upper reaches of small tributaries, and isolated with high waterfalls from downstream hybridization area. As revealed later, all of these populations had a very small effective population size and extremely low genetic diversity and exhibited a very high inter-population genetic polymorphism (Fumagalli et al., 2002). Nevertheless, these populations represented the first basis for marble trout restoration. The main idea was to create genitor stocks based on the eight genetically pure populations of marble trout, and use their progeny for stocking the Soča river system in order to eventually replace brown trout non-native genes with the marble trout ones and slowly regain the situation characteristic of the Soča river system before brown trout introduction. Simultaneously, brown trout stocking has been ceased making rehabilitation of marble trout a realistic goal in the next decades (Povž et al., 1996; Berrebi et al., 2000; Crivelli et al., 2000).

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CONTACT DETAILS

Idrija Fly Fishing Festival Ribiška družina Idrija Sr. Kanomlja 34a 5281 Sp. Idrija, Slovenia

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Idrija Fly Fishing Festival Sponsors

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