The Dutch Four go for gold (or at least loads of pike...): Suuri hauki (Going for gold).

3.00 AM, the alarm goes off. Damn that stupid phone…. But hey, hang in there dude, it is the last day and what a day it is. Instead of relaxing and packing bags. Waiting for the clock to tick away and our ride to the airport to get us on the road. Instead of all that crap, we got Simon crazy enough to go out for an early morning chance.
Nobody knows how it will be. Maybe it’ll be dead? No action at all. Or just the other way around? In the Netherlands I favor the early and late sessions. But in the Netherlands we favor cloudy rainy days above the sunny days we had the past three days. It seemed like in Finland you never have a clue, just think about home, and than do the opposite.

When we came downstairs Simon was up already. Time to throw the stuff in the car and get our asses going. We put the trailer behind the car and drove off. Just half a mile away we had to make a u-turn. It looked like Simon was just like us. He forgot his rod…. So we sniggered about it and drove back to get his rod. Yesterday evening we made up the master plan, we would pass turns and all three of us would fish. This way giving Simon a good chance to fish as well.
The boat went in quickly and I did not need to tear down the borrowed car of François this time for the battery (as I did with Simon earlier this week when the battery of the boat went down). We went onto the water and into the Delta, just 2 and half an hour before we needed to turn back, breakfast at 8. Where to go? I had just one place in mind…. Big Mama’s. Can you imagine that? Sunrise on Big mama’s with good company and on a total different time?

While we were cruising towards it we already saw swirls of bigger fish subsurface. Probably ide, but you never know. And when we got close to Big Mama’s I think we saw several pike predate before we even reached the exact place. We would be putting out an anchor as there was some wind and the boat to big to manage with a small paddle. When Simon slowed down to get to the spot I jumped up on the front deck and Hajee took his rod to the rear. We saw another pike just jump airborn, chasing some fish. This was insane! I took of line and made a cast, strip strip, twitch… we were joking. Instantly a good take. A very hard strike and I strip-striked in return. Fish on! Wow, and it was a strong one… it just went nuts in the water so I asked Hajee if he could assist me. He was about to make his first cast, he finished it somewhere half way and said: “oh yes dude, I get back my streamer and I am there…” “Wow!” I heard behind me and Hajee had a fish on too. A good one too, maybe even better! This just rocked, starting the day with two big pike.
I landed mine and Simon assisted Hajee, not much later both of us sat on the front deck, smiling happily with two nice fish, what a double… just makes you shut up your f%$#ng mouth and appreciate the moment.

Simon’s turn… He started fishing, I took a break and Hajee went up the front. One of them got into a fish, but lost it, then another one came to the boat. Swapped turns, Simon got another good hit and drilled it for some time. Lost it right in front of the boat. Hajee recorded it on video, but unfortunately he was smart enough to loose his camera on the trip back to the Netherlands. Simon ended the drill just a little bit to early and ended it with a nice comment about the barbless hooks we favor.
Then it was up to me again, but I don’t even remember it so well. It was just insane, every couple of minutes or so there would be a strike, a missing fish or just a fish boasting through the air (not on the streamer) obviously chasing something. A complete insanity and we enjoyed.

I remember Hajee getting a fish on the old backwards cap trick. And showing it to the sun who also came out to see us.

And then there was this huge charge on Simon’s fly. Really massive. He was groaning and moaning like Ali G’s great grandmother having a little reserved retirement orgasm… The moaning turned into howling and the guy just was tired of drilling a fish. A fish?, come on, this is not Tuna or Tarpon, just some pike we are talking about. And still I don’t think it was just all Simon’s condition that made it take so long to get that fish close to the boat. He did work hard for it and when we finally got it to hand, a very nice fish was to be observed in the hands of the organizer himself.

master of the Baltic?

just a marvelous fish!!

We took numerous shots of it, awesome fish dude!
After the release it was time… not yet to leave, but I brought a bottle of rum to give Simon as a mere token of appreciation at the end of this morning. But hey… this fish needed to be poured on. So we gave him the bottle right after the marvelous fish. And he opened it up and we celebrated.

fat pig(s)? ;-)

We continued and still had some good action, taking fish, missing fish, loosing fish and sipping rum. One good go on doing that for ages I guess. The end result of this morning was one jack-pike on the backwards-cap-trick and 7 or 8 good fish. Not just good fish, really good fish I mean.
These fish were Suuri Hauki!