Fly Fishing

Marcel_Karssies · Location: Enschede - The Netherlands

February is the last month here to fish legally for pike. Season closes until opening day in July. This left us only one month to hold another match in our annual Flyfishing club’s pike fishing contest. Early morning I was in the advance party to scout the little stream where we would fish. While "test fishing" we noticed that temps. where below freezing. The fly-line and rod rings iced up pretty quick. It would be a cloudless day so temps. would rise quickly once the sun moved higher in the sky.

Later in the morning at our LZ club members gathered for instructions and moved out on various locations along the little river. We fished the stream thoroughly but saw no signs of fish anywhere. Several hours later the contest ended and we assembled for lunch provided by our clubs own caterer. Only one guy had caught a pike, the rest had blanked.
Yet another day where I got skunked. I still had not caught a fish in this new year.
We where about to head home when Hans mentioned if it would be a good plan to continue fishing elsewhere. Stupid question off course (I always ask back “do cows eat grass?”).

So off we went in search of a body of water where fellow members had done battle (and lost it) with a monster pike a week before. Problem was we had no exact location where we had to go so we gambled on the route to our venue. We gambled wrong and after a long detour we arrived at the outskirts of a larger city. We had arrived at the right canal but the scenery
bothered me. Several huge apartment towers dotted the border the stream. We would make a few probing casts first before moving into the countryside. Hans fished parallel to the bank and before I knew it something was lunging at his streamer.
A little pike had no problems with the large streamer, I took a quick (and bad) picture and tried to repeat his actions.

Lucky guy.

Hans pointed out to me that I should try to fish under the nearby bridge. Pike loved to lie
under bridges and other forms of structure. I followed his advice and soon I was into something. Unfortunately it was an old bike and not a fish.
The bike resulted in a broken leader and a lost streamer, which I had loaned from Hans btw.
It was time to move out of the ghetto…

We finally arrived in the quit and tranquil countryside and fished every culvert, weir or other structure we could find in search of the elusive pike. Hans got another chance to show me how a pike looked out of the water. He hooked a very nice one nearby a farm house next to the canal we where fishing at. In the shade of the farmhouse was the pike was ambushing bait that moved about in the sunny parts of the canal. Unfortunately the pike threw the barbless hook when Hans wanted to lift the pike out of the water for a picture. We looked at some other locations at the canal before we called it quits and headed home. We had to visit these places again later in the season. In fact we had lots of places we had to visit again and we both pondered that we needed other jobs to have more time for fishing (better yet fishing as a job).

I was still fishless. As we drove on the highway into our hometown Enschede we passed the Grolsh brewery and the adjacent industrial park. That park had a lake and Hans thought it would be wise to try the lake for a last ditch effort. The sun was already about to set but we
where still busy fishing. The cars raced by at the nearby highway while we where probing the waters. As soon as the sun went down the temperatures plummeted to freezing level again. No sunset fish for us, skunked again.

But there is still hope, at the end of the week temperatures will rise again and pike should be
more eager to eat streamers. To be continued ……

jeremy · Location: Portland, Maine

when does the trout fly fishing start heating up over there?

Marcel_Karssies · Location: Enschede - The Netherlands

March 15th is opening day and eager awaited by my fellow fisherman who joined the German club. It really starts around the month of May when we go on our grand trip to former Eastern Germany.