The biggest pike

Okay, so we met up with Erik and Harmen-Jan right before the ending of the final day.
And I asked Erik to write down a bit of that experience. But before you start reading underneath I would recommend to just cranck up the speakers of your personal computers entertainment system. Because I think this song was on Erik’s mind for the rest of the week (at least I heard him whistling it several times after that moment of the day where he absolutely rocked!)


this song rocks, just like our erik did...

The tournament was supposed to be a friendly but nevertheless serious clash between four man teams from different countries. But as time progressed and the tournament came ever nearer, it became clear that not all teams would be at full strength: the Finnish as well as the Canadian team consisted of only two. So, flyfishermen as we all are, we bent the rules a little so that everybody was going to have a fair shot at piking glory. We simply reduced the size of all teams to two persons.
But apart from the competition between the teams there was a nice prize to be won by whoever would catch the biggest pike; Baltic Pike Flies threw in a free 4 day Kvarken pike fly trip for the contestant who was going to bag the biggest pike of the tournament. No small prize by any standard.
When during the third day of the tournament Erik hooked up with a big pike, he knew this might be it. He had put his streamer very close to a beautiful reed bed at a considerable distance from the boat, in order to not spook any fish, and it was brutally attacked as soon as he started retrieving it. The Dutch Four had practiced stripstriking thoroughly enough to make it second nature. So Erik, who was already pointing his rod at the fish the moment it took the streamer, instinctively knew what to do: step back and strip hard at the same time. The next moment the Baltic Sea exploded! Fish on! A fierce battle went on for at least a minute and then it was over as suddenly as it had begun: the fish had somehow managed to get rid of the barbless hook. PERKELE! If you do not know what this means, look it up in a Finnish dictionary. Then again, it may not be in it.
It took some time to recover from this disappointment, but in the end we're all flyfishermen and we all lose fish every now and then. Shit happens. It does. Don't be a pussy about it, get over it and start fishing again. And for some reason it took only 15 minutes for Erik to get a second chance. Another vicious attack right after the streamer hit the water. And as they say, everything is well that ends well. The beautiful pike, 105 centimeters long, didn't stand a chance against the strong yet very smooth drag of the Vosseler S3. The Dutch Four secured the biggest pike of the tournament.


Erik does know how to admire Finnish beauty


It ain't much if it ain't Dutch... is what this lady must have thought

Outside the tournament Tuomas, a real good flyfisherman fishing for the Finnish team and a great guy, even managed to bag a 112 cm fish. Congratulations Tuomas!


Voodoo child