End of the dutch season

This day has finally come - end of the predator season in Holland. And it was a very good season for me. I think this was a season with most of fish landed in my life. Unfortunately I wasn't lucky enough to land the magical meter, although I was close couple of times. Anyway, last day I was trying to catch a zander on a jig lure, but got bored and the fly rod was in a trunk of my car... I moved to shallower waters and landed three pikes, not very big, all 70-80 cm. I unhooked them in the water and took a picture of just one.

During the closed season I will try to chase carp on the fly, let's see how that goes. I have to say I'm really hooked on fly fishing right now, it just works very well on my shallow waters and tying flies is something that has consumed my evenings :-)

Dikke dame!

Today I was hesitant to go out fishing, having in mind yesterdays experience. I got up late in the morning, had a coffee and tied a streamer made just with flash material for the extra murky waters. I added a glass rattle to this one. It really paid off! After 1 hours of fishing I came to the small bridge, where I remembered I had a nice take a month ago, but lost the fish. In the third cast, while stripping, the fly became heavier, a lot heavier. The fight was on, after 5-6 minutes I had a beautiful pike with a really broad back in the reach of my hand. I had to sat on a high bank to grab her, while she decided it was not yet her time and swam away again. Another 2-3 minutes and this time I grabbed her by the gill cover. Oh my god, it was no the biggest pike in my life, but certainly the fattest! I didn't have a sling with the weight scale with me, just the measuring tape, but with 94cm she was much, much over 10kg. Quick picture and she swam away. The Dutch call these pikes "dikke dames", fat ladies.

Fishing is slow...

Difficult day today, I visited all my hotspots, no sign of any fish. Looks like they are still glued to the bottom, water is still cold. I managed to take one pike on the fly, 73cm. My casting skills are improving, I'm starting to enjoy fishing rather then focusing on making that good cats. The line with the pike WF taper casts really great. I may buy intermediate one in addition to the floating - I have a feeling I should be fishing closer to the bottom.

Ice is melting...

Finally a warm period after two weeks of -10 degrees. Ice is melting and I couldn't stay at home with that thought, so went fishing. Today I have caught one 71 cm pike on the fly. Fight was short as the water is still cold and the fish are letargic. Quick picture and jack goes happily back to the water. During the freezing cold period I bought a new line - Airflo Sixth Sense WF 7/8 with a pike taper. I'm a merely a beginner trying to grasp the aspects of fly fishing, but this line has changed my way of thinking about fly casting. It loads the rod  very quickly, which is very important for me when fishing on small canals, very often between the trees. I also picked up a tip from one of the pike fishing blogs and started to make furled leaders - this is really helping turning the fly over. So all together I had a good day: fly casting goes better and caught a fish!