Back to seasons's start, part 2

After that first session with Hajé in october I was totally hooked again. How could it be that I did not fish for pike for so long? It is always amazing how quickly one can (temporarily) forget about the passion and obsessions in a type of fishing by successfully practicing another type of fly fishing.

Trout and grayling both are forgotten. Well, not that heavily, but at least for the moment it is the new found pike drug that we will be after all winter. Maybe when the season closes and the tournament is over… Maybe then the dry fly and nymph will get back to the brain (I am quite sure they will), probably after the bonefish and tarpon has feasted on the soul.

As we did not go to Denmark anymore we went out for another day. Let me remind you these are reflections to October, at the moment we are having one of the best snowy seasons in decades!

But the fact was there, the first day of our intended trip to Denmark we were piking in Holland and both Hajé and me got hooked so much we had to go out one more day. That became a Tuesday (the supposed to be last day of the trip to Denmark), girlfriends were told there was no “but”. We already sacrificed by staying in the Netherlands, so 2 of the 4 days quality time sounded like a good compromise.

As on Tuesdays a good friend of ours, Brian, also has his fishing day, we decided to go out with the three of us. Knowing it could be harder, because most fishermen go out in the weekend and as the country is small most waters get heavily fished upon in the weekend. My theory would be to recommend Friday as the best day and Monday as worst. So let’s hope for a bit of luck.

The first canal was a nice one next to a road, somewhere in the so called Green Heart of the Netherlands. Traffic can be a bit frustrating when they pass by behind you, but as most farms are situated on the other side of the canal there is a small bridge from the road to the farm every 50 yards or so. And bridges just make lovely obstacles for pike to hide underneath. Or well, “hide” is not a good definition… It’s underneath those bridges hungry pike could lay down in perfect ambush, awaiting an unsuspecting streamer that carelessly passes by.

I think somewhere between the 4th and 5th bridge we finally managed to make my streamer look innocent enough. As it fluttered through the water after a nice cast that went deep under the bridge it looked so pretty. Lovely pink in total harmony and just unsuspectingly gliding through the water. All of a sudden there was a flash. The flank of a greenish thing was there instead of the streamer. It was a fast attack and way not so gentle and innocent as the movement of the streamer that still was at that spot about 1/100 of a second ago. A nice strip-strike got me in contact with the predator who now turned into prey. Yeah, such things happen in a blink of an eye. Heavily headshaking it did not take too long before I got the fish to hand. Brian came running along and shot some pictures before I put this nice fish back into her element. “go get your granny!” is my favorite message to them and one day I hope they’ll do so.

As our journey continued we agreed it was I nice “new canal” we discovered, but the traffic was getting a bit more as schools had their lunch break and as we felt disturbed by all the young cyclists (they give nice sport on a fly rod, but every time we get beat up just before the release) we decided to move to another canal. Not before Hajé also got his hands smelly on a pike that thought he could have a streamer for lunch. We had a beer to celebrate it and decided to go back to the old well known spots we’ve been fishing in other years.

At the other canal sweet memories came back to all three of us. This water is known by hand by the three of us and that gives for good conversation and bragging about the nice fish we caught here in the past. Not far from the car the first pike made her announcement and hit my streamer. I missed it completely and tried to remain calm about it. It is always difficult to keep stripping instead of going ballistic, but I managed to do so. And luck was on my side, right in front of me the pike struck the streamer again, this time without discussion. I think it was an aspiring pikey-top-model that really wanted to get her picture on the internet. Once again it proved to be the best thing, stay calm and continue stripping when a fish misses completely. As I got her on the line we discussed about the size. I thought it would be about 65 centimeters, but Hajé told me that was a bit underestimated. When I landed her I measured her along the rod, to measure with a tape after the release. It turned out to be at least 75 centimeters, not a bad one for the polders.

Next in the row was Brian, he too managed to catch a fish and that made our day even better then before. Time for another beer, as there was no hurry. We still had a couple of nice bridges and crossings to fish ahead of us.

We continued after the beer and saw some more fish. It was good to be out there with the mates.

There’s just that one last fish I want to close this update with. I was casting my streamer to a tree that hung over the water. The streamer came in the water right in front of it. Stripped it back in, nothing. I tried it once more. Again a failure of my casting abilities, the streamer did not go as deep underneath the tree as I wanted (it could go in for about half a meter, the branch was about 25 centimeters above the waterline). Again I stripped the streamer back in. next cast was even worse, The streamer hit the branch and I twitched it out and stripped it back in. By that time both Hajé and Brian were standing next to me. “It must be possible to get it all the way in that hole” I told them. And once more I tried. But the branch was not willing to just move away for a second and once more the streamer landed just in the bush. I pulled it out, made another cast. And one more and one more. Brian commented that if there would have been any fish at all it should have taken the streamer on one of the earlier casts. And if it did not, it definitely would have been spooked by now. But stubborn as I am I tried it once more. Finally! The streamer skipped on top of the water and bounced right into that hole underneath the branch.

I think one strip was about it. Immediately the water came to life and a pike squashed my streamer in a furious attack. I walked back three steps to get tension and then made a good strip-strike to set the hook. Not much later the pike was landed. Not a big one, but yet so satisfying! I think the streamer only landed about 30 or 40cm’s further then al those casts before, but it was close enough to annoy the fish. A good lesson to all three of us: sometimes just a couple of centimeters deeper underneath that bridge, or just closer to the cane can make the difference between nothing and a fish.

Walking back to the car Brian tried for a bigger mama he missed two times on the outward journey. Hajé and me watched. His cast was accurate and again this monster showed no mercy for the streamer. Or did she? At least she managed to let the streamer escape for the third time this day.

Sander