The ticking clock

Time for an update of the ice conditions in Vaasa. Here´s the situation at 29 march:

Still 40-60 cm. of ice. Mmm.....I guess the good news is that the ice cover didn't grow during the last week. But still no worries, because the averega ice cover for this time of year seems to be 48 cm.:

Also, temperatures in Vaasa for the next week will be around average for this time of year:

Still, for us Dutchmen it's quite hard to imagine that such an amount of ice can melt away that fast, especially when night temperatures remain below zero. Here we're happy with 6-10 cm. skating ice (which we had an awful lot of this winter).

Hopefully next week the update will show a nice decline in ice cover.

The downside of fishing solo, part 2: impressionism

Fishing alone can be nice every once in a while. You can do what you want, go where you want, fish the way you want and quit when you want. Also, there's no buddy that annoyingly catches all the fish right in front of you, spooks all the fish or - even worse - frustrates, just by being there, the possibility to brag about your catches the way you would normally do.

But there are downsides too. There's no one to talk to, no one to share the excitement with, no one who will share his sandwiches with you and no walking fly shop to provide you with the stuff you once again forgot to bring yourself. And what about pictures? Who's there to prove it when you actually do catch something? Or even worse, a nice fish?

In Erik's case, the answer was: no one. Well there was someone around, but as it turned out, that person regrettably proved to take a rather unique, impressionistic approach to photography.




I'm sure Erik and his pike are in there somewhere, because he told me so on the phone. And being a lawyer, I really think we should sue mr. Monet Photographer for not paying attention to the Vosseler cap that Erik was wearing so thoughtfully to please one of our main sponsors.

Featuring: Pike Master Lures (PML)

We're very proud and pleased to present to you our clothing sponsor: Evert Oostdam from Pike Master Lures in Lisse. He will provide us with very slick outdoor clothing from the Swedish fishing brand BROMANoDELL. Evert is distributor of lure-fishing products and runs lure-fishing trips under the name PML Travel in Europe and Canada. Also, Evert is the main man behind the international lure-fishing tournament Predator Tour, which is held on a yearly basis in Europe.




About 3 weeks ago we visited Pike Master Lures to have a chat and check some sizes for the clothing. While sitting down and sipping coffee at his very cool table, Evert was kind enough to share his endless knowledge of piking with us and provided us with some very valuable tips for the tournament as well.




And of course, a group photo had to be made of The Dutch Four in their BROMANoDELL windstopper Fleece:



We thank Evert for his kind coöperation and we'll come back on this blog to present the BROMANoDELL Pro Guide jacket, pants and waders we'll be using during the tournament.

If you don't expect anything.....

....everything's a bonus. Regrettably, we did exactly the opposite about 3 weeks ago when we planned another full day of fishing after the 3 hours on the previous day. Lured by the abundance of (at last!) ice-free polder waters near Utrecht and the promising stories of Sander and Hajé about their home-waters, Harmen-Jan and Erik once again made it all the way over from the east to treat themselves to some hungry/angry pike.

How different things went. During the morning, only Sander managed to get a small pike.




In the afternoon, Hajé joined the unlucky group at one of his favourite spots he already recommended beforehand. Being sort of a 'host' at this water, he modestly started fishing at a spot that already extensively had been fished by his mates. This turned out to be a bad decision, because at the very first cast Hajé hooked and landed a nice pike.



And then you have to tell your mates that you didn't do that on purpose....


Luckily, not much more than a few minutes later, Erik was in business. Another fat-bellied winter pike showed itself.




Erik then showed us a neat and very cool-looking trick to release the pike with a fast flick of his hands, so that the fish swims away immediately. You may take the swirl as the proof of a happy, healthy pike swimming away in sheer gratitude:



Well, those two catches within a couple of minutes were rather promising for the rest of the afternoon. Aaaahhhh, stupid, stupid, stupid! More expectations! And indeed: no more pike that day, game over. Why don't we ever learn that you can't manage expectations? It just don't work. Even if you decide not to expect too much in order to feel really lucky when you do succeed, that decision alone already creates enough implied expectation to ensure instant failure.

Don't expect, just be surprised. Sounds like a great motto to win the tournament. So we better not follow that rule, because then we would expect to be surprised. Etc...........

The clock is ticking....

Well look at the weather here in Holland right now! After an unusual cold and icy winter, now spring is everywhere. The coming week temperatures will even hit 19 Celsius, where 10 Celsius is normal for this time of year!

Weather Amsterdam

© MeteoConsult

Nice contrast between death and new life



How different are things in Finland right now, the place where we're supposed to celebrate our glorious victory at the Kvarken Pike Fly Fishing Tournament:

And check out the amount of ice that is still there:

That's 40-60 cm. thick ice, which all needs to melt away within no more than 7 weeks! Mmmmm......disturbing stuff. But here comes the reassuring part: as you can see below, 50 cm of ice in Vaasa seems to be quite normal for this time of year.

It seems that, like almost every reality show on TV right now, we also have the exciting element of time pressure. So from now on we'll frequently update the current ice conditions on this blog. It's our very own ticking clock in our very own reality show: will we need rods or an ice breaker?

Spring is in the air!

The other day at the office, after the second cup of coffee, I thought I smelled something through the always darkened windows. It kinda felt like life itself. Mmm.....weird. In here? And although the environment I was in did its very best to cover even the smallest sign of it, there was no denying that suddenly spring was happening all over the place.

A few minutes later I was already in the train back home, pulled myself from the suit that never suits me into something more suitable, and off I was to a nearby polder. Ducks and geese were flying everywhere in huge flocks, hare were playing hide and seek with me and buzzards were meowing overhead.








Time to rig the rod and get me some pike!



Well, that part turned out to be rather tough. After an hour or two I still hadn't seen any pike. So I decided to take the best out of this beautiful day at this beautiful place and practice some casting at a nice spot out of the wind. After at least 50 or 60 casts and fast retrieves in the top 10 cm. of murky water in exactly the same spot I suddenly felt some resistance while stripping in. And to my own surprise the first thing I did was set the hook with a firm strip strike. This is rather promising for the tournament: even when my mind isn't fishing at all, I still seem to react when I feel something at the other end of the line.

And the pike? Well, let's call it my pity pike, for I didn't deserve it at all but it saved me from going home with a skunk. And it left me with some questions too. I mean, how can you explain the pike striking after 50 or more casts in exactly the same place? Was it more or less asleep and did I wake it up with my repeatedly disturbance of the water? Did my neverending casting finally annoy the fish to the point that it snapped and charged the streamer? Or was the pike just passing by and did it take my streamer the first time he saw it?


You know what? I don't really care. Answers may be nice every once in a while, but not without new questions. That's what keeps us fishing.

Real porn?

Well, almost. The fly reel is without a doubt the ultimate boys toy of fly fishing. Why? I don't know. May have something to do with the the shape of it, makes it kinda look like a wheel of a car. And boy, do men love cars....

Anyway, it goes without saying that we're (more than) very happy with our reel sponsor, Vosseler Pro-Flyfishing. The first shipment of these bomb-proof yet stylish all-German pieces of machinery hit the small Dutch town De Lutte a while ago, and the rest (with some other cool colors) is due next week. Here's a first impression (although faithful followers of this blog already saw them coming by twice here):










Check here again to see how they look on a rod. Sssssaweeeeettt! Of course an in-depth article on these great fly fishing tools will follow soon on this blog. And when it comes to testing: if we don't get a meter+ pike on it before the tournament (just two weeks of season left here in Holland) we'll test the drag by playing Harmen-Jan's car through the streets of De Lutte. And after that we'll see if it will also be able to stop Sander and Hajé's Volvo's....

Get a grip!

While surfing at Youtube for some juicy pike-porn one can't help but stumble upon exactly the opposite every now and then. It's truly amazing how much horrible stuff you'll find out there. Take this one for example:



This really, really hurts, and not just for the pike. What on earth was this guy thinking when he decided to try and catch a pike anyway? That the pike would unhook itself (even with all those barbed hooks) and then jump out of the boat again? "Oh my god, I caught a pike, now what?" While for all kinds of fishing some skills and sanity wouldn't hurt, this is even more true for piking. The relative vulnerability of the pike in combination with the sharp teeth provide its catcher with a serious challenge to keep himself and the fish unharmed during the catching and releasing process.

Apart from being a nice argument for using barbless hooks, this video shows once again how important it is to master a secure grip. Sure, there's the neck-grip (see above), but that's only for relatively small pike and it also lacks some of the advantages of the gill-to-jaw grip.

Here's the grip in action:



As shown here, one of the advantages is that there's no need for a net. Because a net, even properly used, will harm the pike to some degree no matter what.




Another big plus of the gill-to-jaw grip is that there's no need to put the pike on the ground while unhooking it. There is a however however, because big pike do need to be supported with the other hand while in the gill-to-jaw grip. This would require either a fishing mate to unhook the pike or putting it partly and gently on the ground (grass or softer) anyway. But even with the pike (partly) on the ground the gill-to-jaw grip has a great function, because it prevents the pike from crawling all over the place and damaging itself along the way.

But we're not done yet with the praise for this technique. Usually the pike will automatically open its mouth while in the gill-to-jaw grip. Excellent! And if it doesn't, it only takes a little help:




Here's how the grip looks from inside:



The bigger the pike, the more space there is in its mouth and hence the easier the grip. With a small pike, there may be only room for one finger. At that point, one might consider the neck grip instead.

In Holland there has been some research about this, concluding that in most circumstances the gill-to-jaw grip is the preferred way to handle and unhook a pike while practicing catch and release. So get a grip yourself!

Boat training

Last tuesday Sander and I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and treat ourselves to an afternoon on a small boat at one of the prettiest places we know of to fish from a boat. We knew that at this water in wintertime we would have to be happy with a pike our maybe two, and we knew the wind was coming from the east (bad piking wind in our book), so we just enjoyed our day out there and had lot's of fun pretending we were already in Finland.



We payed a lot of attention to drifting, the location of the boat during casting, line handling and other stuff specific for fishing from a boat. Since we're supposed to be in a boat with 3 people (guide and two fishermen) and we don't know yet what kind of boat we'll be fishing in, it's pretty clear we can't be sloppy when it comes to logistics. For some of us a challenge, since not all of us have that organized, systematic approach in our normal fly fishing life.



Anyway, we didn't catch our see a pike. Too bad, but we'll try again with the four of us within one and a half week. We have to get as much fishing (and boating) time as possible right now, because march is the last month we're allowed to fish with streamers here in Holland. The next fly bigger than 2,5 cm will be cast in Finland. We just can't wait!

Tournament Tactics, part 1

Now that the tournament is no more than 2 months away, we're starting to notice some changes in our fishing behaviour lately. Very slowly, a subtle difference in approach and decision-making is creeping in. Where normally we would just enjoy a day out at the water, take in the scenery and make an occasional cast every now and then, recently we're gradually putting more and more emphasis on the amount of time the fly is actually in the water. Granted, that's not quite what we consider fly fishing to be about, but hey, we've got a tournament to win here (there, in Finland, I mean).

The first time I noticed this change was about 10 days ago. At the end of a tough fishing day, while I was desperately trying to lure a pike from under a shrub on the other shore, I caught the shrub instead. Since my streamer was totally stuck, I was already considering a pull-off when I remembered the bridge we passed a couple of hundred meters back. So I put my rod down, walked all the way back to the bridge and then back again to my streamer on the other shore.

Normally I would release the streamer and walk all the way back to my rod on the other side, but Sander proved himself a real team mate and ready for the tournament. Being a true beta (and on the other shore), he smartly attached his streamer to my fly reel and told me to strip in my fly line, thus slowly pulling my fly rod over the canal towards me without it submerging at all. Great thinking, because this way I could start fishing immediately again! So when my rod arrived safely and dry on my side of the canal, I only had to detach Sander's streamer from my reel, steal his streamer and start fishing again with one competitor less. Yessss, I'm ready for the tournament too....

To combine the useful with the pleasant, part 2.

In our penultimate post we left our report with Erik's long distance release of a nice pike. Here's one taken just before the smart fish decided to stay out of Erik's hands altogether:




Harmen-Jan did what he could to get himself a pike too, but his furious efforts didn't bring him the well-deserved fish that morning.




Sander however decided to fish the same spot over and over again, because he "knew" there had to be a pike at such a promising spot and he just had to wake it up from whatever was causing it not to strike at one of the previous 40 casts. This may not be the right strategy to win the tournament in Finland, but it did get him another nice pike.




In total these 3 morning hours only got us 4 landed pike and some more moved or lost. No blank at all, but definitely not what we hoped and even expected after the long period of ice. So off we went to our clothing sponsor (who will be featured here soon) and after that to Tom from Hot Spot Fishing. The next day we also had some piking time together, so find out if we did any better that day in one of the upcoming posts on this blog.

Featuring: Hotspot Fishing

Last Friday was one of those days. A day on which the four of us had the feeling we were kids again. But this time it was even more than being just kids. We felt like “Charlie and the chocolate factory” and that’s a fact. Now I don’t want to go down way out of line on the funny side about the Roald Dahl edition, but in the Dutch edition Charlie is called Sjakie and that happens to be one of the favorite names I call friends, especially Hajé. Okay, I got to admit, sometimes out of respect I call him Mister Sjakie, but that is only when he really deserves it.

Back to last Friday. At around 8 o’clock in the morning Hajé and I met the two eastern brothers (HJ and Erik) somewhere along a true poldercanal in the middle of our country. The ice was partly gone and finally we could do what we do best… fly fishing for pike. We rocked the canals and some fish got to hand; reports on this will of course appear on this blog too. After that the four of us went to the first sponsor appointment of the day, where we got to fit some nice heavy weather outfits to keep us warm. More on that visit will follow here on another occasion.

Round 14.00 we parted ways and HJ and Erik turned back east. Hajé and me were going on part two of the sponsor mission and that is when the metaphor with Charlie and the chocolate factory turned reality. In this blog report it will be about that last sponsor visit, a true joy for every fly fisherman.

We drove up to Zoeterwoude to visit Hot Spot Fishing, a shop that’s owned by Tom. He specializes in predators. When you enter the shop it feels like you enter some sacred basement. The shop is loaded with everything one might need for targeting pike, perch, pike-perch and other hunters. And it's full of lures: jerkbaits, spinnerbaits, softbaits, you name it. All big well-known brands are there, but he also has a lot of extraordinary things. From big (and I mean HUGE) to small, Tom has it all. On top of that, Tom takes great pride in building his very own spinner baits, bucktail spinners and other creations to fool friend Esox.



You wander in and there’s the table, we sat down and had a cup of coffee, the way it should be in any shop. Talking to Tom is like opening a book on theory and philosophy about fishing for Pike. The man has good knowledge and definitely knows what he’s talking about. Of course, like most men in the scene he has his own vision, but I think he has enough experience for all of us to learn from.

At the other end of the table is his tying bench. A vise is set up and flash is hanging around everywhere. Tom started tying to make his very own bucktail spinners and spinnerbaits, but after a while he also discovered his materials were the same stuff most fly fishermen search for and now he has a very nice well assorted tying corner. In this corner he has everything you will need to tie yourself some really nice streamers or get the things you need for a nice tropical mission.





After talking to Tom for a while (and looking at his book with truly amazing pike porn) it is time to get to business. Both Hajé and me are a bit shy to ask for it, Tom senses this perfectly and breaks the ice. “Go on and get your stuff” he encourages us. And there we stand in front of the racks. Lots and lots of nice tying materials are smiling to us and we would love to get our hands on it. The urge to tie flies starts running through our veins and we definitely want to get some nice materials.

Tom suggests we start with the bucktails. Just to break the ice a bit more he says: “you guys were talking about 20 bucktails…. I don’t care whether it is 15 or 25, just grab what you need!!!!” Oh yes, we feel a lot like Charlie in the chocolate factory right now. That would make Tom the true Willy Wonka for our team…wonder where the humpa lumpa’s went in this story ;-)



As I look at those bucktails I take out the whites. Good white bucktails have turned out to be a true proof of good shopkeepers in my opinion. When your local dealer is sold out halfway or at the end of the pike-season you know the last tails were shitty and he did not make the effort well enough to please his customers… then you know the true spirit of your local hero. Because wouldn’t every fly tyer get a bit frustrated when one of the most important colors of bucktail is not available? The white bucktails…there are just three of them hanging on the wall and as usual the last one is not to be marked as the perfect one. It’s just like the gals in the bar… the worst ones stay longest awaiting the mystery bus to pass by. So I turn towards tom and ask him if he cares if we get his white bucktails down to zero. He starts laughing at me. Pulls out a crate of underneath a shelf and says he won’t be the type of guy that runs out of bucktails. The crate….. it is loaded, white bucktails up until the edge of it! And then for the heck of it he pulls out more crates… What color you want sir?



Okay, so the bucktails were no problem at all, I pulled out some of them from the package. I like to really feel the fibers and judge them with my hands to see if they are good. And surprisingly there were barely any bucktails you would not like to have.

Next up, some tying hooks. All four of us are excited about the extreme pike hooks, so Tom was not a bit greedy and generously donated like a 100 pieces to us. Furs, flash… it all past the revue and HJ and me felt more and more embarrassed to pick out things. Oh boy, this is really the dream come true of two kids in a candyshop.

We stopped our plundering at the flash department. Oh my… Tom imports most of his products directly from the USA and he had real flashabou, saltwater flash in very long strips. Just amazing how one can get happy about some glimmering packages stuffed with modified plastic. At some moment we decided it was enough for the day. Tom never pulled the brake or told us it was too much, can you imagine that?





We sat back again and continued our talking. Tom showed us one of his multipack marabou spinnerbaits (multipack being the number of packs he used for that one thing) and I can assure everyone of you that your mother in law would be sure to confuse it with the latest type of static duster they sell on the tele. After some more conversations on tying and fishing it was time to go home. This day was just amazing…

P.S. Regrettably the camera of Rianne turned out to have an error while photographing Tom with his incredible static dusters, so this is the only one we have right now. But we'll be back for sure to resolve the other half of this friendly walking pike fishing book.....



Thanks Tom!