Fishing in Greece on the Acheloos River. Expedition from Pindus to the Ionian Sea I Rivers of Stories

I told you the beginning of how I ended up fishing in Greece on the Acheloos River in the previous article, “In Search of the White River”, but I didn't go into detail. After I told him Catalina that I really want to get to this river, I remembered the stories of Bogdan Doncea aka Cox about fishing parties on a river in Greece where, surprise, you catch sea bass, whitefish and barbel. I had heard of whitefish and sea bass in Greece, but barbel? Yes. Barbel. You read that right.

Fishing in Greece for barbel?

For about five years, Bogdan has been fishing the Danube and the Danube Delta in Greece. He is joking, or not, saying that this is all he can afford financially. Every time he returned from Greece, we would meet for a beer, if not a salad, and he would show me photos and videos from his fishing trips on the river, but also at sea. I'm not saying that I wasn't impressed by all the exotic fish he caught over the years at sea, because, well, I told you, I have sea trout, sour grapes, but when I saw the chubs and barbels, I told him that one sunny day I wanted to go there too. Especially for barbel, having been irrevocably sucked in for several years in “The Grave of the Seahorses”.

“"Boss, barbels and big chubs are a thing, sea bass fishing is what you need on this river and if you get there it's a shame not to go out to sea for two or three days. How bad can the river get for you?"”

In short, we tried to coordinate, it didn't work out for about two years, until I sent him the video frames from the drone from Cătălin, with the message "Look, I really want to go fishing on this river". Bogdan's answer wasn't too long delayed: "Where is it? Give me a pin". I gave him the pin from Google Maps, to which Bogdan replied: "Guys, I think it's the river where I fish at the mouth of the Ionian Sea, the one with chub, barbel and sea bass. How cool does it look up in the mountains. I want to go fishing in Greece next week, what do you say, do you want to join?". Hmmm.

From the movie River to fishing in Greece

“In 2022, when I first played the Australian film River I found myself caught up in an experience that moved me more than I expected. It wasn't just a documentary, it was an ode to rivers, told through images, music and narration. The emotions created, hard to describe in words, answered a question that had been haunting me for a long time: What do I want to do in the coming years? Well, yes, I want to go fishing on as many rivers as possible, to get to know them, to listen to them, to feel them, to understand them, to tell stories about them, from their sources to their mouths, whether they are lost in a river, in a sea or directly in the ocean.”

That's what I wrote in the article about the movie River and I was starting the Rivers of Story series. And you already got what I was going to ask Bodgan, right?

“"Listen, what do you say if we go on a fishing expedition in Greece on the Acheloos River from the sources of Pindus to the Ionian Sea? We camp with a tent in the mountains, go down the river in search of trout, stop along the way for chub and barbel, attack the sea bass at the mouth and I promise to last a day or two of sea fishing."”

And I started.

Trout fishing in Greece?

Well, yes. I thought it was strange about the barbels too. I knew something about the clons from the past, but, no, I never thought that I would go fishing in Greece for trout and barbel. For most of us, Greece rhymes with going to the sea, sunbathing and maximum saltwater fishing. Now, if we go to the mountains, how do we find trout? I searched all the corners of the internet and found a fly fishing club where did I get the first information about trout fishing in Greece, thanks Vagelis Stylus. So they are trout, where can we find out more information?

Good fly fishermen

I told you in the past how I flirted with you for a long time. fly fishing and why I abandoned it, at least on Romanian territory. But I was left with a quiver full of good fly friends with whom I still exchange a few words about freckles from time to time, in memory of the old days. That's how I found out that Vlade has been fishing in Greece for many years, we contacted him, we told him our plan and thus we put the first dots on the map for our itinerary. Plus many other valuable information that was very helpful to us, thank you Vlad.

Two in a car

The other day, when I was reviewing the photos and videos I took while fishing in Greece on the Acheloos River, I got a little nostalgic and made this post on Facebook:

“Rivers flow silently, shaping valleys and stories, nourishing the lives and dreams of those who listen to them. They teach us patience, show us how to dream downstream and be good ancestors for those who come after us. In these moments, together, you discover that life has unseen courses that are worth living. And if you have a traveling partner by your side to share this silence with, without words, without explanations, you have found something worth more than all the fish in the world.”

With the plans well made in advance, with a tent on the car and a ton of luggage, Bogdan and I set off to go fishing. White River from Greece.

Trout from the Pindus springs

With only a few days to dedicate to trout fishing, we didn't stay in one place for too long, preferring to walk around and see as many areas as possible. I admit that we also deviated from the itinerary and fished a few tributaries of the Acheloos and a few lakes, we couldn't help ourselves. We caught native trout, fatter and less colorful than the ones we are used to, but also some decent landscapes that you can see in the videos of this expedition. As for the equipment, ah, it's a good thing I wrote about it in the past, the spinners were back in power on the river for trout. And some wobblers, but I will write a new article on the blog about that soon.. See you here What equipment do they use for spinning fishing? Here are some other tips.

Ancient bridges and trout streams

As we descended the Acheloos River, still in the trout area, we gradually started to encounter chubs in the mountain area. Nothing abnormal, knowing that chubs climbing mountain rivers and lakes is an increasingly common phenomenon, but the surprise was different. Next to one of the ancient bridges that guard the Acheloos River, while looking for new trout fishing spots on the Acheloos River, Bogdan shouted to me: “Turk, come quickly, there are three big trout here, but big ones, over 50-60 cm”. I approached slowly and started casting with everything I had in my kits, trying to fool the torpedoes that were standing in the strong current of the river. We didn’t catch them. In fact, they weren’t even trout, they were barbels. I only saw them after I gave up and they passed between our legs when we crossed the river. Score 0-1 for them, and it would have stayed the same even if I had stabbed them. With ultralight equipment, on a stormy river full of trees and boulders, the chances of success were zero anyway.

Three in a boat, sorry, two, Lavrakiliiiiiiiiii!

I caught sea bass for the first time. Superb fishing, great fighting partner. Not Bogdan, the sea bass. I was prepared at home with 9-11 cm minnow wobblers that I normally fish with pike in the Danube Delta (because that's what Bogdan said), but also with my panic gums mounted on offset hooks. Of course they worked, I only have international lures, ha, ha. But the best I caught was with a trout wobbler, inspiration that came at a time when I felt the need for a lure that I could cast further and play more aggressively in the current. And on the surface with Jackall Popovici, sorry, Pompadour. And the beldii? Besides my old Steez rods, which you're probably tired of hearing about all the time, on top was my most recent love, Airity.

A clade called Leuciscus sp. Evinos

Small-mouthed bream. That's what Bogdan called it after the first fishing trips. But is it a bream? It looks like something between a widow's bream, a bream and a crucian carp. Yes, it's a bream and not just any bream, it's an endemic species from Greece that only exists on the Acheloos, Evinos and Mornos rivers. Information provided to me by the greatest ichthyologist among fishermen, Adrian Ionascu, after I sent him the first photos of these gorgeous fish. Before he could do any research, upon seeing the size of the specimens and my question "What the hell is this?", he answered me word for word: "Well, am I crazy? God knows."“

As for the needles, razors and slivers, I didn't catch them with traditional clean lures, micro wobblers, spinners and small rubbers. I caught them with the above wobblers, the ones I scored with for sea bass. A different type of clean, a different kind of fun.

Mareana, my love, I won

Yes. I admit it.. The Call of the Barbels was much stronger than all the trout and sea bass on earth. River fishing, as on Chrono, with wobblers and Cheburashka. Dream. A dream worth living on any river that has barbel, if you haven't tried it yet. Oh, and my wobblers again fashion god The clean ones weren't to the taste of the barbels either, also in one of the 11 cm ones they hit the most beautiful specimens. I haven't measured or weighed the fish I catch for a long time, but I definitely recorded a new personal record here, on Acheloos. And as you well know, the biggest fish always escape, I had one that broke me without a right to reply after a run of over 30 meters. It was big. The biggest. Enooooooooorm.

“Longing for the ocean, its only purpose is to descend. For millions of years, humans have wandered the earth. It was the rivers that created fertile valleys, allowed us to settle and live. The first cities arose on the banks of great waterways. Our early destiny was shaped by the will of the rivers. We feared and revered them as forces of life and death. We worshipped them as gods. Rivers inspired us as a species, allowing us to thrive.” – River, the movie.

The old people and the sea. And the rain.

Well, I promised. With all the seasickness I have, mentally prepared and with pills, I had no choice but to fish on the last segment of the Acheloos River, in the Ionian Sea. Even if my sociopathic cloud forgave us in the first part of the trip, during the episode at sea, how can I put it more plastically, it naturally rained on us so much that we got away with it. And not anyway, from evening to noon, I swore that a hole had opened in the sky and all the water in the world was flowing through there. Poor chances of going out to sea, judging by the motionless boats in the port of Astakos. So, we rested and fished from the shore, in the port, hoping for favorable forecasts for the following days. We caught fish, small but rare, drank Alfa beer, like the sigma males that we are, we had fun again and ticked off a few more species on our list with ultralight equipment and micro erasers. And Cox took catfish. Not one, several.

All is (not) lost

But Barbosu, dear, an old relative of Achelous, the god of the waters, gave us two half days of fishing without wind, without rain, superb. And we caught, why not catch, there was a lot of fish this year in Greece: amberjack, barracuda, dentex, grouper, perch, tuna. Fishing with jigs (metal cast jigs) that I have experimented with before in Thailand and Mexico, alternating with gum fishing. Me with the jigs from Mustard Mezashi and the same sea fishing equipment, except the rods that we changed with the ones of the soul, which I was able to get this time by car, and some Strike Pro Tumbler gum that I had at mothballs. I also insisted on this finder from Live Target. Hi. Bogdan got what he wanted, he can easily open a small Japanese store with marine fishing equipment.

Did it get big and heavy?

Yes. Well, I say stop here and let the movie continue the story. But not before mentioning a few cool people, whom I thank for the information, video footage and friendship, people without whom this adventure would not have seemed like a beautiful dream either for me or for you.

Otherwise, we did what we know best: we lived a river from one end to the other, as we learned from River, letting it take us, change us, speak to us. And we came out of it richer than we went in.

We write, we read, we flow together.
Because we, the people, are libraries.
We, the people, collect and pass on stories.

I want to thank you…

Bogdan Doncea “Cox” – I have a boy.

Vlad Popescu – boss on the fly and information about Greece

Silvian Valcu – my favorite actor from Odeon who “gave” me the song “Watermark” for the video, perfect for the state induced by the drone shots of the Acheloos River. At least that’s what my brain has been obsessively humming since I first heard it.

Catalin D. Constantin – anthropologist with ancient states in Greece, see Beyond Yesterday, for all the beautiful stories about the White River, the Manakia brothers, Aromanians and the Balkans. Plus the drone footage from which this story started.

Spyros Mygdanaeleuros – a car mechanic from Greece who documents various areas of Greece with a drone, out of passion, and who made it available to me the gorgeous frames from the springs to the mouth of the Acheloos River into the Ionian Sea.

Desmond Drinkwaard – a flying Dutchman, tattoo artist, also passionate about drones and Greece, whom I met in Myticas and provided me with some spectacular footage filmed with FPV.

And last but not least, for logistics, information, guidance and boats, Kostas Antoniadis, which makes it beautiful Ionian Fishing. Can do it for you too if you want to go to fishing in Greece. And finally, I left the floor to Kostas, the man who tastes the stories of Acheloos and the Ionian Sea every day.

Personally, as a fisherman, my favorite type of fishing is undoubtedly sea bass, especially on the river. Greece has many beautiful rivers, but none compare to Achelous. It is the largest, the wildest and the most impressive, located very close to the area where I work.

I have been hunting sea bass in its waters for as long as I can remember. For me, it is the most exciting type of fishing because you can catch it with surface lures, the kind that “break” the surface of the water and create that unique sensation of excitement and adrenaline when the fish bites.

Amazingly, sea bass can be found all along the river, from the estuary to the fresh water, dozens of kilometers inland. I explored it up to 60-80 kilometers upstream, reaching every possible spot, no matter how remote or dangerous. Over the years, I came to know the river in depth: every bend, every rock, every fallen tree that could hide a sea bass.

Summer is the best season. The warmer it gets, the better the fishing. And, in addition to sea bass, the river is home to other predators, barbel, chub and other fish species that we don't yet know by name.

Fishing on the Achelous River is more than just fishing. It is adventure, it is peace, it is a deep connection with nature. There, among the water and the sounds of the river, your soul finds peace. For me, it is truly a corner of paradise and the perfect place to fish for sea bass.

As for fishing in the Ionian Sea, another paradise for any fisherman, here, three rivers flow into the sea, surrounded by countless small islands full of fish, offshore reefs and a constantly renewing ecosystem, rich in many different species.

In a single day, you can fish for sea bass and bluefish in the shallows, head up the river for more sea bass, or head out into deeper waters to hunt for amberjack and giant dentex. This variety only exists here because, geographically, this area offers the best possible fishing conditions and unlimited opportunities for every angler.

I can honestly say that this place is a paradise that will never run out. The rivers constantly bring nutrients and life to the sea, attracting fish all year round. I feel incredibly lucky to live here and, with a lot of love and dedication, I was able to build this business from scratch.

Every year, more and more people discover it and support what we do. In addition to guiding and lessons, I also provide fully equipped boats, ready to cover any fishing need. So, for any information or reservations, do not hesitate to contact me.

We operate all year round and are lucky enough to be able to fish even when the weather gets worse, thanks to the many sheltered spots between the rivers and islands. This is the magic of the Acheloos River and the Ionian Sea.

Ionion Fishing, where every cast tells a story.