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.