Featuring: Kaj's Flyfishing

One of our first sponsors ("from the first hour", we would say in Holland) is Kaj's Flyfishing, a nice and very well-stocked fly shop in Tilburg. Kaj takes great pride in maintaining a well-balanced collection of fly-fishing products along with an inspiring fly-only atmosphere in his shop.

While the current tendency in the fly fishing business is towards real shops having more and more trouble to compete with the internet, Kaj's Flyfishing appears to be remarkably less affected than other shops. When Harmen-Jan was shooting some pics there, it was quite impossible to have a serious chat with Kaj because of all the customers that were around. Especially in a time where consumers are becoming more and more critical every day, this can only mean that Kaj is doing something seriously right!


Sit back, have a chat with fellow friends of the fly and discuss the latest creations that are lined up in an innovative gallery.



Every single inch is used to keeps stocks high and diverse.



Jungle cock by the skin.



Kaj in (his) business.



Over-sized clousers for pike?



These wobble-flies (invented by the Dutchman Martie van der Brand) are very popular for targeting asp on the big Dutch rivers.




It takes a lot of surfing at numerous internet shops to match a single step into Kaj's cosy place. And of course there's the coffee, the stories and the ever-present experience....

Payday

The wind was howling, the rain was pouring and it was the last day of the piking season in Holland. An excellent combination to put the devotion for piking (and Evert's Bromanodell Jacket) to a serious test. Without any expectations whatsoever (and just enough hope to go at all), I took off for the last piking hours before Finland.

When I arrived at the first spot, the wind was blowing so hard I didn't even have to cast the streamer to get it to the desired spot (not that I could cast anyway). I just had to stick the rod in the air, let the wind catch the fly and then feed line until the streamer reached the required fishing distance. However, as nice and promising as the water looked, the only fish I saw were carp that didn't survive the extreme winter we had in Holland this year.




But for these last few piking hours, I had the itinerary with alternative spots already in my head, so off I was to a place Sander introduced me to some weeks ago. Good decision! After I moved and/or spooked two pike and caught a rather small one, I went to the place Sander described as the hot spot right there. And indeed, at the second cast in the surprisingly clear water, a pike rolled over the streamer right in front of me. Wow! Being able to follow your streamer during its journey through the clear water and then suddenly witness it being charged by a green flash out of nowhere: never ever will I get tired of strikes like these!



EP streamers are very attractive in clear water, both for pike and piker.


After a strike like that, you can either go home totally satisfied, or push your luck and go on for a couple of hours at the risk of not catching anymore and hence go home with a somewhat disappointed end-feeling after all. At this last day of the season, of course I had to take my chances and go all the way. Another good decision! Because only a few minutes later, a really nice pike was landed at almost the same spot.




After that the spot was fished out and I decided to finish the day at my initial goal: a narrow, clear canal in the middle of a small village, not quite picturesque but known for its abundance of preyfish and (be it small) pike. This place treated me with a real feast. It may have been the spot itself, or maybe just the time of day (early evening), but whatever the cause: the pike were all over the place. I must have landed at least 7 pike over there, and moved quite some more. Not big ones (50-70 cm.), but more than enough to cherish this windy and rainy day until we get to go to Finland.



Mmmm...., nice reel....I mean, pike!








So regrettably, this is the last home-made pike porn on this blog before Finland. Starting today, it's only allowed to fish with flies/lures that are smaller than 2,5 cm. here in Holland until June. It hasn't been a great season here in Holland (to say the least), but who cares if we get to extend it this May in Finland......

From now on you'll find more technical stuff on this blog: we'll present some more sponsors (rods!), write articles about their products, present some flies we intend to fish with and discuss other material stuff. And of course, there's always our ticking ice-clock and other things that try to (but will not) spoil our mission in Finland.

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....