Hi
Some weeks back I went out to find some pike with a friend of mine. So I taught to share some of the feelings and pics of the day, with you.
The day started heavily overcast and windy (wind speeds around 10-12m/s). the sea level was +60cm in the morning and due to climb still higher in the day so, the plan was to fish in areas that I had had successes in high water condition before.
The first spot we tried was a bay located in a strait between two islands, a place that quite often hold some better sized fish. Here the wind was so hard that I, being in charge of maneuvering the boat choose to fish whit a jerk bait as my friend chose the fly. we fished the bay without much success as the only contact was a bite from a small pike to my red and black Pig Jerk. so after this we decided that we would try out a couple of a bit more sheltered bays closer to the mainland so that I too could fish with the fly.
So after a short drive we were at another bay that is located in between two points of the mainland stretching deep into the mainland itself. we started fishing deep in the bay in an area that on normal water conditions only has around 0.1-1m of water, but as the sea level was high the place seemed as a decent place to try out. we fished in the shallows with my friend getting a smaller pike and a heavy take myself having no contacts, until just as we were about to switch into another location my friend had another heavy take some 10m from the boat. he realized immediately that it was a decent fish, and after some minutes of fighting it the beast showed itself for the first time, and we saw that it was better than descent, it was big. a short while later he managed to get the fish beside the boat so that I could land it on the drier side of the rail.
A quick unhooking and measurement later the 105cm long beast was released into its own element.
After this we continued to fish the same bay for some time more, but without further success so we decided to move on to the next bay on the other side of one of the points.
At the next bay we decided to start by fishing the outer edge of the reeds, a place we had a good time on an earlier trip to the same area. though we combed the area thoroughly we didn't have any luck on the area (only one take, which I managed to screw up as I was in the middle of untangling my running line) and decided to go deeper into the bay, right into the small "canals" in the reeds. after fishing sometime in the more narrow canals we came to a wider section of free water with around 1 meter of water. from the beginning we had a good feeling of the palace and combed it thoroughly until my friend had yet another heavy take, resulting in an short fight during which the fish tried several time to swim under the boat. even so my friend kept the fish hooked until it was ready to bee landed. after unhooking, measurements and a quick pic the 98cm land beautifully colored (seemed as she had had some sort of infection which had cured) lady was released back to her own domain.
So a short while later we arrived to the last bay of that day and started to fish, we decided to ignore the deeper waters on the outer rim of the reeds and went straight into the shallow canals in the reeds, as this tactic had given us the best result so far in the day. we both decided to fish whit flies and so the hunt for yet another water wolf began. we arrived to a wider part of the canals whit around the same depth as the places where we had caught the earlier fishes, and I decided to change one of my favorite flies (the "Shiny Roach") into the game. some 10 or so casts later I had a violent take as the pike hit the white fly just a couple of strips after it had landed. The fight was short and brutal as the pike tried to swim under the boat on four different occasions and in the surrounding reed for just as many times. but after a short while I was able to get the beast beside the boat so my friend could safely land it to bee unhooked and measured. The tape showed a length of 104 cm which was a new fly-fishing record for me.
After the unhooking, measurement and a quick pic the mean eyed beast was returned into its own element without further delay
As the fish was released the light started to fade more and more and we decided to fish for a while more in the shallows before returning to the harbor. my friend caught one more pike around 70-80cm which managed to snag the line in the bow mount engine, but still staying hooked, and I lost one smaller one which managed to get into the reeds and unhook itself.
As the light kept fading we decided that 5 pikes with the combined length of +4 meters ought to be enough for one short December day of fishing, and returned to the harbor.
