The misery continues!

The wind speed increased even more. It was absolutely impossible to fish without any windbreak. I spent every free minute with google earth to find spots sheltered from wind and offer wading possibilities.

Day 4 That was by far the most horrible day. I went out fishing but I spent more time driving around looking for a spot rather than really fishing and trying to catch a fish. It was not very relaxed fishing, Luckily I caught a fish but that wasn’t a big success. I was frustrated. Clearly not my day. In the end I can only claim myself not having a successful day.

I hoped that the next days become better but a outlook of the weather forecast eliminated my hopes. It seems that I had to accept the uncomfortable truth. 3 more days to fish. I forced myself to drawn bad energy and start looking forward and chasing pikes. I believe in my capabilities and instinct for selecting productive spots.

Day 5+6 I ended up on a spot that weren’t my first choice if the wind would haven’t been that strong. Sad that we didn’t knew this spot already last year. Damn that would have been an outstanding fishing. An endless flat, not too deep and not too shallow, with a weedy ground. The perfect habitat for Rügen pikes. I caught on that day not the most pikes but the day gave me confidence. The kind of confidence you need with to motivate you for the next day with such circumstances.

I have to say that I never fished all that spots before. All I did was selecting two possible spots by google earth and started in the morning with good hopes. That’s like a blind date. You never know where you end and what you catch. Not every flat is easy to wade. Actually this can be quite dangerous. Some areas are soft and muddy. It seem to be knee deep but you sink in a second waist deep. And then you are stuck. This happened to me already once and it was everything else than funny. Also omnipresent are wild boars. They are everywhere in the reeds. Normally you don’t recognize them and you wouldn’t know them if there weren’t their tracks visible trough the reeds. You never can walk silent trough the reed but sometimes, maybe the sleep, they don’t recognize you. And then it happens that a wild boar escapes just a few feet next to you. Who knows what happens when they decide to attack instead of escaping? I did it like you would do in Alaska. When walking through the reeds I was talking to them. That apparently didn’t helped all the time but better than nothing.

The last day It is always good to have from something more than enough. I would like to say that I kept the best for the end but to be honest I just checked out another spot that google earth proposed to me. Surprisingly the wind was not that strong from the beginning onwards. It was an inlet into a lake just 50 yards wide. I cast far into the deep channel stripping the fly back. Immediately I had a take on a silver-red flash fly. The classic. I didn’t manage to hook the pike. The same happened also on the third cast. DAMN!! On the fourth cast suddenly a pike was on. This pike gave me a strong but not long fight. This is normal for pikes. The measure tape revealed that this pike would have to grow a little more to exceed the magic 40 inch boarder but not for very long. A wonderful animal. I can’t understand what people motivates to kill it. I released it and it disappeared in the murky depths.

In the next hours I caught more and more pikes. Before I switched further to another spot I had 9 pikes released. Luckily I changed the spot because what happened next I will remember for a very long time. I fished the by far most mystery spot I have every fished. Imagine a forest that shelters entirely from the wind. You hear it but you can’t feel it. A small shallow bay with a reed belt between you and the forest. You are completely alone. The ground was sandy covered with weed. To make the scene perfect I got a bite on the first strip. Two or three strips later another one and bang a good sized fish was on. Absolutely marvelous! I was really lucky to have the opportunity to fish there. I caught many more fish there before the weather changed from bad to very bad. From one minute to the other a storm with monsum like rain started. I ran for my life. Trees lost their branches. The rain came horizontally and was so heavy that I didn’t saw where I was running. Luckily I made it out of the forest unscathed.

With this experience, already late in the afternoon, I finished fishing having caught 19 pikes on that day. My personal best so far. In the end I’m pretty happy that I had such a bad weather because it widened my horizon and that’s what make us from good to better fisherman. I experienced an uncomfortable fishery and I learned to deal with it. And for the next year I know a couple of spots I would have not found under better conditions. I’m happy with this experience.

Until next year.

Philipp