Fly Fishing

Marcel_Karssies · Location: Enschede - The Netherlands

Fishing Netherlands March 11th 2007-03-11

We had for a chance nice weather this weekend, instead of grey skies and rain the sun came out in full force for the first beautiful spring day.
Due to the heavy rains of the previous week and the time of year it made no sense to go river fishing so we went to the campus of the local university.
The shallow ponds on the campus grounds would be warming up pretty quick on a sunny day and fish would most likely be very active.

Signs of spring.

At the first pond where we fished the first lilies emerged on the surface and flower on the shore where in bloom
My goal for the day was to catch some perch before their season closed at the end of the month.
I probed the shallow pond with a small black zonker lure that had proven to be a fish catcher on many of my fishing sessions.
The reputation of the black zonker was confirmed when a huge perch took the lure.
I was surprised at the size of the fish; it was my best perch since a long time.
Too bad the perch slipped of the hook as I tried to grab it.

Where there was one perch there would be probably more so I continued fishing the same spot and it did not take long for another strike.
It was not a small fish I had hooked and from a distance the red fins on the fish looked like
the tell tale signs of perch.
It turned out to be a different species though, this was the first time I had ever caught a rudd on a lure.

rudd

I knew that another relative of the Rudd, the Ide was known for its predatory behaviour during spring but I never knew the Rudd could be so aggressive.
To my surprise this was not a one-time incident as I caught another Rudd on the lure a few minutes later.

Nr. 2

The action died down when a pike charged at the schools of Rudd in the section of the pond where I fished.
The pike signalled that it was time to visit one of the other ponds on the campus.
Some ponds where we expected loads of action where virtually dead while others where fully alive.
At one small pond we caught dozens of small roach on the nymph, whenever the nymph reached the water the roach would go for the nymph or hit the strike indicator.

Roach and small perch on the bead head PT nymph.

In the afternoon it was time to go home.
On this sunny afternoon we had fished the nymph for the first time this season and it paid off.
The fish where smallish but at least we had caught fish continuously throughout the day and we had sharpened our nymphing skills in the process.
It was a great day to be outdoors.