Fishing at Rabac, Istria

From Italy you reach Rabac by crossing Istria inland, passing through the medieval town of Buzet and then along the splendid valley at the foot of Mount Učka. You then arrive in the centre of Labin and go down towards the sea, as far as the centre of Rabac.

Along the low rocky shores of the Rabac seafront, easily reached by car, there are short stretches of pebble beach overlooking huge expanses of sand mixed with posidonia. The average depth of the spot is around 9/13 metres, except in the channel at the entrance of the small harbour, where in some places it exceeds 20/22 metres.

From April until late December you can catch gilthead bream, white seabream, common dentex, black seabream, common pandora, weever, saddled seabream, and good-sized striped seabream are not rare. In the summer months, until late autumn, leerfish and amberjack come close to the coast and it is not hard to tempt them with live bait, both on the bottom and near the surface.

For the sea breams mentioned above, the best baits are the Rimini worm, the bibi worm and murex. In particular the Rimini worm has always given good-sized fish at this spot (gilthead bream and dentex), baiting the hardest part of the worm, that is the head. Rocks that could get in the way of fishing are rare and you don't need long distance, although it is advisable to cast beyond the first step, more than 35/40 metres from shore.

Rabac is completely open to all southern winds and fairly well protected from the bora (east-north-east) and from north-north-west winds. Storms are therefore frequent (even very strong ones) and so are the interesting fishing days after them. The spot has also proved productive in slack-tide conditions (little tidal range), especially with common pandora.

Very quiet at night, reasonably lit by the lamps of the seafront promenade; from mid-June until late September it is almost impossible to fish in the central areas of the town because of the massive presence of tourists. From Italy it takes about an hour by car (105 km).