Monday, April 23, 2018

First day on the Water; 2018

Finally, after a cold, late winter the ice has finally cleared and the fishing season has begun. Eddie Bowler, Andy Shaw and myself got out over the weekend and spent the morning at a site out on the Stockholm Archipelago. A strong northwesterly wind made life very difficult however and we struggled as the steady breeze repeatedly pushed the boat out of position, making lure fishing very difficult. With just a single Perch of around a pound coming to my rod, we  were soon forced to rethink our plans for the day..
 Finally we decided to head for more sheltered water and eventually we located the Pike in the shallow waters at the top of a favoured area. The water tempature has rapidly risen to 10 degrees as this meant the Pike were preoccupied with spawning. We saw many fish splashing and rolling in the reedbed, with a few bigger females evident. As is often the case with preoccupied, spawning fish, we struggled to tempt many bites. Despite the obvious presence of a lot of fish, it seemed they had only one thing on their minds on the day. We all managed a few bites, though these were rather halfhearted and the only fish of the entire day was a single jack pike to my rod on a red/white Pigshad Jnr. Despite the tough conditions, it was great to be out on the water again and we now look forward to the 2018 fishing season and especially the post spawn fishing for Pike. Watch this space...

A short video here of the only fish of the day, the first Pike of 2018.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOPxorTdAzg