Not fishing much

I didn't spend too much time fishing lately, only few sessions, once a week maybe. Only three fish worth mentioning below, 70-80 cm. It's getting colder now, time to move on to street fishing again, I will try to fly fish for as much as possible this year.

 

Street fishing again

Oh it was blowing a gale today... I wanted to go fishing in the polders near Gouda but the weather was not encouraging for a longer trip. I went instead to fish in my nearby city waters. I started fishing with one of my favorites - SPRO Triple Devil. At some point I saw a pike swimming slowly along the bank. I threw the lure way away from him and retrieved it just past his nose couple of times, but he didn't react at all. Then he disappeared. I changed the lure to Firetiger color with a loud rattle. I had immediate strike in the first cast and landed 63cm jackie. To be honest I don't get good results with this color, at least in Holland.

Then I switched back to Triple Devil and lost one pike. Later on I switched to Fatso Crank in TT color. I caught 73cm pike with it and that was the end of the day.

Best catch of the season (so far)

Yesterday I've set up the alarm on my phone to wake me up at 4:30AM. Hm... apparently I switched it off because I woke up at 8AM. I quickly packed my stuff and drove 30km to Reeuwijk. All the canals in the polder were full of weeds, so I decided to explore further part of the Vlist instead. The part I have chosen was not as wide as the one yesterday and it was also full of weeds. Again I decided to move somewhere else.  It was already a bit late for fishing but I decided that I will visit the near polder, where I landed four pikes last week. I noticed a nice crossing of two canals, where shoal of small whitefish gathered. I observed for a moment and saw a couple of pike strikes. I started fishing with a 12cm ripper on a wide offset hook with some additional weight below the belly.

This is a good weedless rig, nothing gets stuck on the lure. The disadvantage is that the hooking is very poor. I had two strikes but no luck. I switched to Salmo Skinner 12cm and later on to Salmo Fatso Crank and some topwater lures. Also a couple of strikes but not a single fish. I moved to the deeper part of the watercourse and started to fish with SPRO BBZ-1 swimbait. Second cats and bam - a nice strike. I'm fishing with a light tackle in the polders, so it took some time to land this fish as I had to be extra careful. Few pictures, measuring (80cm) and fish gets back to the water. Some reanimation had to be done as it was very tired after the fight, but it happily swam away in few minutes. I'm starting my vacation next week, so I will have some break from fishing. I'm back in the September and hopefully the canals will clear out from the weeds, so the fishing will be easier.

Closing the 2010/2011 season

I think this one is the last one in this season. I fished only for 2 hours on Saturday, it was just pouring rain. I was on a sick leave at the beginning of the week and didn't want to risk it again, so I head back home. Anyway – 2 hours of fishing resulted in 78cm pike, caught on Salmo Fatso Crank in my favorite TT color. In Holland the season closes with the end of the March (this Thursday), but I don't think I'll find the time to go out fishing again. The next time I'll be fishing it will be in Poland, in my hometown Kazimierza Wielka. I'm going for a short 1,5 week vacation to fish with my dad. I hope the flood will not ruin the plans to fish in Nida river (like it did in 2010 Spring). Nida river holds the polish pike (24.10 kg, 128cm) and zander(15.60kg,109cm) records, unbeaten since the 70's. Although the times of that big fish are gone I'm afraid, I still have high hopes for that river.

Next weekend I'm going to Rotterdam to visit the Visma, the biggest fishing trade show in Europe. I'll post some pictures as I already promised to write an article for www.jerkbait.pl.

Wydaje mi się że to ostatni szczupak w tym sezonie. Byłem na rybach tylko dwie godziny w sobotę bo lało jak z cebra. Na początku tygodnia byłem chory i nie chcąc ryzykować wróciłem do domu. Rezultat dwóch godziny łowienia to 78cm szczupak, złowiony na Salmo Fatso Crank w moim ulubionym kolorze TT. Sezon w Holandii kończy się z marcem (ten czwartek), ale wydaje mi się że nie znajdę czasu by jeszcze raz pójść na ryby. Następnym razem gdy będę łowił będzie to w Polsce, w moim rodzinnym mieście Kazimierza Wielka. Spędzę tam krótkie 1,5 tygodniowe wakacje łowiąc z moim tatą. Mam nadzieje, że powódź nie zrujnuje planów łowienia w rzece Nida (tak jak to się stało na wiosnę w 2010). Z Nidy pochodzą polskie rekordy szczupaka (24.10kg, 128cm) i sandacza (15.60kg, 109cm), nie pobite od lat 70-tych. Obawiam się, że czasy tak dużych ryb w tej rzece już minęły, niemniej jednak nadzieje mam duże.

W następny weekend jadę na targi Visma, największą imprezę wędkarska w całej Europie. Wystawię kilka fotek, i tak obiecałem fotoreportaż dla www.jerkbait.pl.