It was the 5th of January and i didn’t thought about fishing that day. But i got a call from a friend that told me that there is a new section to fish in a water that I have discovered pretty late last year. The new water has not been fished for a long time and is now available to fish for all license holders. It was not hard to convince. By the motto, the early fisherman catches the biggest fish, I was at 8 on the water with my belly boat. The water seemed on the first glance like a paradise. Even without fish I would have been very happy about that day.
It didn’t take long and the first small pike took my fly
And shortly after the next and it seemed that I really found the pike heaven.
The third pike on that day took the fly directly at the boat maybe just 1 meter away from me. Its quite common that the pikes take the fly so close. You can move the fly pretty fine, very slow. Especially for followers this is the attraction. This follower I haven’t seen and he took the fly with a aggression and I lifted the rod too radical so the rod snapped in six pieces. The pike was also lost.
I grabbed my backup rod a continued fishing. There was only 1 hour over so I would gave up this day. Who knows what surprise the day would offer. On a spot that looked like the home of the big grand mother I got a nice strike of a descent pike that gave me even more nice fight. A 90cm was landed.
Somehow there was still a green leader looking out of his mouth. Some old fishermen still practise to let the pike swallow the bait before setting the hook. And this one got away. I freed him from the leader, fixed the jaws and released him
Two more casts on the same spot and I got the next strike. Incredible. And this time it was also a keeper. A few centimeters shorter but with 88 a nice pike for Austrian waters.
Could this be the day of the day? Yes it was. Only half an hour later I landed a 83cm pike and some times later a short 64cm. My fly looked pretty used and the day was close to sunset so I decided to finish for today.
A broken rod, 6 landed and 1 lost pike is good balance. OK the broken rod I would have preferred to be not broken.
