Tournament day 2 (part 1)

We wake up at 6.30 (the day would start early, at eight). After the sauna last night we felt relaxed and fell asleep right away. So we were as fresh as one can be on a good trip. At breakfast some jokes were made about Henk-Jan and Sander always being just a little bit later then the rest. But hey, what the heck… nobody knew this was all part of the tactics (just kidding). But as I walked out of the lodge with Henk-Jan at 7.30 all of the others were gone already. Teddy (the cook) saw us picking up the last lunch packets and a can of coffee and immediately phoned Simon. “there are still two guys here!”- he said. Fortunately (or was it indeed well over thought tactics?) The Finnish team was just driving away and they stopped 200 meters from the lodge so we could fetch a ride with them.
In the car we had a small chance to overhear Tuomas and Saku and that just gave a little bit more insight on the fishing they were doing. And they did very well that first day, so the inside information of Team Vision was a nice one.
Day 2, it had to be done on the spawning areas according to most of the fisherman. I had a look at my buddy and we smiled. For us we would start out at Big Mama’s place, ‘cause we were still stoked about the blast we had yesterday.
When we arrived at the boats most people were geared up and ready. Kari stood there waiting for us…. Same boat and guide, third day in a row. But we did not mind, this guy had showed to have a good learning curve and yesterday some pointing with the rod and hand communication combined with some “nomoto’s” was good enough to drift the deeper waters (let’s say 3-4ft) of Big Mama’s place.
Harmen-Jan and Erik picked up a nice boat for this day, a skiff type with oars and a guide who resulted to be in a good physical shape to just row and drift. Nomoto’s all day, those guys were lucky! As the competition was quite close between England one and both Dutch teams we all were very eager and we wanted to give good sport to each other. We geared up and boarded Kari’s boat. It was time to get started and when Simon gave the signals the boats ran out. The English went to the left, Netherlands 1 (Harmen-Jan and Erik) to the right and we went straight out, to the passage to get into the Delta and on towards the islands a bit closer to the river mouth. Big Mama’s place on our minds.

This little friend used one of Harmen-Jan's wire traces for his housing ;-)

As we were going through a canal we saw numerous turns in the water, the bigger whitefish were active just underneath the surface. That should be a good sign! So passed the rock with the seagull we went, towards the reedbeds we had in mind.


picture taken on a later moment, but there's the seagull and Big Mama's is just a bit more to the right

The wind was still slow and same as yesterday, just perfect for the same type of drifts we made before. As we arrived there we saw one big swirl of a hunting pike. That would be just another good sign. And with just some pointing with my rod Kari understood the masterplan. Drifting the same drifts as yesterday. The first drift was just stunning. I missed a good fish and Hajee even managed to get two good sized pike on and unluckily he gave them both a so called long distance release. I guess we missed the catching part of the “catch and release”-spirit.


without words Kari would understand the pointing of a rod

The second drift it was already getting warmer and we could not see whitefish activity anymore. Hajee had one fish swirling right behind his streamer and that was about it. The third drift there was nothing to be seen anymore… So it was time to go searching for other places. We saw Erik and Harmen-Jan going into a bay a bit more Southwards so we decided to go over to them and have a small exchange of thoughts and experiences. They were indeed in that bay, close to the reedbeds and making long casts right at the edge of the reed. While we were observing them Erik took a nice bream falsely hooked, but they caught a jack-pike as well. The Netherlands 1 looked like a mean fishing machine. Both guys making long casts and stripping in. Very effective and they were making the guide doing the right drift they had in mind.
When we tried to get closer we got stuck in the mud. That’s the disadvantage of a slightly heavier boat with a longtail engine that can not be lifted up. We had some talk with the other guys, it was all happening in the shallow and they had two sized fish on the board already.


Our teamcaptain had a good sized one already

That was indeed very good news, as it was still early and as we considered ourselves one team defending the Dutch pride Hajee and I both were happy at least the others did so well. The advised us to do the same thing as they did, get into the shallows and make casts towards the dead reedbeds that protruded out of the water. We got our boat free from the mudbank and did another serious attempt, but whatever we tried, we could not get close enough without getting stuck in the mud and reedbeds that were still underneath the surface.
Time for another plan and we let the boat drift across the bay to get crashed into a bigger subsurface reedbed on the other side of the bay. Hajee and I both got of the boat and waded out. At first a bit cautious, as we did not know how it would be, but it seemed like the reedbeds would hold us quite well. The only funny (and a bit scary) thing was that you could feel the beds sway underneath you. It reminded me of the time when I was a little boy and one of my friends parents had a waterbed. Those things also sway that much when you walk on them. All of a sudden there was a hole in the bed and I almost fell into it (at 2ft the water was to dark to see any structure). Oops… scary shit and Hajee who also found a couple of steep and deep edges agreed this was not such a good plan. So we waded back to the boat, a bit more careful this time. As it was almost noon we stood next to the boat and had our lunch. Going over numerous plans on what to do and where to go.
The other Dutch team was out of sight by now and we were the only ones in this bay. We went up to and made another unsuccessful drift on Big Mama’s , but there was no action there. And still I had the feeling this was the place to be for the bigger ones.
Simon came along with some updates of the field.


Simon was making miles and miles to keep in touch with the entire field

As we heard from him, his most recent information told us that the Finnish were having a hard time getting fish as well. One of the Canadians did get a nice one, around 90cm’s. The English had some fish but Simon could not recall if they had sized ones and our Dutch buddies did very well having at least 3 or 4 sized fish, one being a big one. “At least not all Dutch were as crappy as we are” we grinned. If the other teams were not catching that much either we had to come up with some idea on how to get sized fish.