Dutch trip in search of Pike

In order to prospect better, and to avoid stepping on each other's toes given the width of the areas to be fished, we split into two groups. divided into two groups... Ed (prostaff RodHouse, aka Edlepecheur on the forum) with Thierry, a former circus performer by trade, both on lures... lures... Me with Maxime (aka Hyxam), both on flies.

First day

I propose two playgrounds that I know well, where Pike are almost systematically present, just to get the trip off to a good start. Unfortunately, we came across a day... well... a weekend, when the Pikes were rather "closed-mouthed". Ed and Thierry didn't do a thing, even though I'd sent them out on my favourite "bredouille save", in the middle of a few dwellings. The water was also very brown, due to a lot of rain in the previous days. As for Max and I, we went for a walk not far away, but in the middle of nowhere. Tinted waters too, but a little less so than for Ed and Thierry. We started off at the parking lot... nothing... although I had caught a 95 cm Pike there two weeks earlier. Continuing on, we make a 150-meter-long zone that regularly acts as a "larder" for Pike, and where I hit a fish at least nine times out of ten... nothing... We push on to the foot of a mill, where there's a junction of two polders a little wider.

There, the stations aren't too marked, it's more random than the "larder", but I know there can be some good-sized Pike. We attack this crossroads... Maxime breaks an Aliexpress rod he was testing... second time out, the rod gives way on a slight pull to unhook itself from the grass. I suggest he goes back to the car, which wasn't exactly next door either. He says, "Keep going, we've just reached the mill, so do the crossroads anyway". Fortunately, he tells me to keep going... I pull out an 88 cm, then an 89 cm... I miss another one. Then another one that tried to catch my streamer just as I was pulling it out of the water, and splashed my glasses with its edge attack! Anyway, a long way, but worth it for me... The two missed were in the same sizes as the two taken out.

We meet up again with Ed and Thierry, Max takes a MHX 967 (7 silk on paper, but takes a heavy 8 silk and big streamers without really batting an eyelid). And I decide to take everyone to another sector, which I hadn't fished yet this year, but which was quite likely to have less tinted waters.

10-minute drive, and we're there, bingo, the waters are just right! we head back one way with Max, we each hit one on the fly. A small one for me, but more importantly, Max beats his record on the Fly, an 81 cm! We see a few hunts too, but we can't motivate the troublemakers.

We retrace our steps, finding Thierry at the foot of a newly-constructed building with a sort of small pond at its feet. While we chat, I have fun pulling out Silk, shooting backhand at the foot of the new building, without really looking at the water. Suddenly, a tap... reflex hooking, I stop looking at Thierry, and start looking at the water... Less plump than my two Pikes from the mill, but longer... A nice 91 cm! Thierry admits to having combed this little pond up and down with Ed... with nothing to show for it... Just Edouard apparently getting his fluoro cut off, but well above his floating hard lure, which he was able to retrieve.

Ed finally joins us, with a big smile on his face, he'd hooked three Pikes on his NFC SJ705 IM. Including this nice 80, bigger than his biggest of the previous year... (thanks to the kid who was passing by, by the way).

Second day

We start by seeing two hunts while smoking our morning cigarette... in front of the rental... Inevitably, we attack them in a hurry, but without success. Scouting session for the rest of the day, more in nature. Beautiful day, very pretty spots, but not the right day, with the water still quite chocolatey. In the end, we hit a few small ones, maximum 60 cm... but more unhooked than "out".

Third dayr

It starts like the day before... But this time, Ed, still in his Charentaise made in Crocs, limits his tea still in his hand, takes the cane determined to take something from the stoop of the house and early...

Well, finally, he moves off 5 very small meters, and brings out the Pike he'd seen the day before.

This time, we decide to go urban... Good for us! I start with a 74 cm. We see several hunts in one area, but can't make up our minds. They must not have been small. Ed and Thierry hit several on lures. No big ones, but a few fish, and that's always a pleasure!

On the way back to the cars, we saw two Pike in quick succession... Naturally, we attacked both... The first must have been little more than 45-50 cm. A lure and a streamer passed in front of its head... closer and closer... nothing could be done, it finally swished its tail! Unfortunately, the camera (well, the tel...) didn't have a polarizing filter, so the video didn't come out properly. Second broc, it should have been close to a metre, but it was very thin... maybe sick? Here, you can still make it out on the video...

Who said the Pike is opportunistic? So I think he's "likely" to be... but when he doesn't want to eat, opportunist or not, it's simple, he doesn't! And it confirmed that these days, the Pike weren't the most active...

We met up with two of my Belgian friends at the rental place for a picnic, a few laughs and a few fishing stories... We had less than two hours of fishing left... So I decided to reverse the first day's fishing stations, which I'd imagined doing for the last day of fishing, just to leave the fishs in these sectors alone for at least two full days. But, as after all, on the "safe spots", nothing had been caught... and I'd also missed two nice ones at the mill...

Bref, in the middle of the dwellings, Max and I hit a few Pikes... 69 for me, 76 for Max. I "unhook" one that I hadn't "hooked" though... It had simply attacked my streamer as I was pulling it out of the water, and managed to grab my streamer's comma... But it wouldn't give it back! He ended up dropping it just as I was about to take it out of the water, leaving me with a half-ripped comma that had gained an elongation of a few centimetres.

On this same course, I'm inwardly pestering two fishermen I see coming like bullets, and who start fishing a small 100-meter section, just behind our passage... I'm thinking "heck, we've just passed through there, aren't there enough fleets for them to go somewhere else?!?" Finally, I see a publication two days later on a Facebook group, and I recognize the jackets of the two guys I'd seen from afar, as well as the spot, from what little we can make out of the photos... They caught a pike that I'd caught three times last year in one month, on these same 100 meters! It has a particular deformity that makes it quite recognizable. Frankly, I'm glad to see this playmate still alive! He's only grown a couple of centimetres compared to last year, though...

On the other side, Ed gets his record Pike, 90 cm! At the foot of the mill where I hit my four pretty Pike on the first day. How bizarre! After looking at the photos, we realize that this is the Pike that Laurent, another Rodhouse prostaff who came to fish with me for a day, had caught two weeks earlier on a fly, 20 meters away. Ed hit it on a cast at around 40 meters, the Pike tapping after barely 1m50 of lure animation... He had a great time in the fight, on his MB767 Delta mounted in Casting: a playful rod but one that showed absolutely no difficulty in fighting this pretty Pike over 40 meters.

Last day...

We only have a few hours of fishing left together, since the buddies have to get back not too late to Amiens and Beauvais. It's windy, starting to rain and getting colder. I send Ed and Thierry to a spot I've never fished, but which looks very nice! They confirm that it's a nice spot... But then again, it was a "closed mouth" day... Ed gets a 76 cm. Thierry gets a clean cut on a Pike whose back he can only make out... a "gros dos"...

On the way to the spot where I'm taking Max, I pass a widening I know well... I've already caught a few 80 - 90 cm Pikes there. I tell him in the car: "this is a good spot for pretty ones, but if there are any, they're grouped together in this corner, and there's only 20 meters really to go...". So we don't stop, we go to the corner I had in mind, where there's plenty to do. I miss two small ones, Max unhooks one of about 70 cm, after holding it for a good 30 seconds...

Unfortunately, with the wind, the rain, the cold, after two hours of fishing, and the constraint of the return for the comrades, we all give up. Message from Ed: "let's get back to the car, peel them off..." I say to Max: "tell him we'll find them in 25 minutes..." Well yes, 10 minutes back to the car, 10 minutes on the road... I wanted Max to take one last one, and ideally even bigger than his 81 of the first day. His record still seemed complicated to me, as it had to be over 94 cm.

I stop the car quickly 10 metres from the post shown on the outward journey. I tell Max: "we're just getting out a rod, take my Epic Bandit". Pliers, measuring tape, all that stuff stays in the car... Third cast, I see Max looking very serious, his eyes amazed, my rod bent in half! Max had just seen the Pike rush out from under the bridge, engulfing my almost 30 cm-long Streamer in its mouth! The drag sings, the rod works, Max is as focused as ever! I pull him out of the water and say, "It's measured! Result: 101 cm... Personal record, all techniques combined, also beaten for Max! And what's more, on a fly! it was the last cast of the weekend... but a last cast that was worth it!

Weekend report:

Less Pike than last year, we're coming across chocolate water, after a period of heavy rain. But we're hitting bigger ones! Last year, the biggest was 81 cm. The second biggest, from memory, was 76 cm... Here, we're doing, counting only the 80+ cm:

• 80 cm x2: one fly, one lure
• 81 cm x1: on fly
• 88 cm x1: on fly
• 89 cm x1: on the Fly
• 90 cm x1 : with lure
• 91 cm x1 : on fly
• 101 cm x1 : on Fly

On the number, a small advantage to the lure... and advantage to the soft lure over the hard lure.

But for size, the Fly brought in more pretty fish!

Materials used:

• NFC SJ705 IM
• NFC MB767 Delta
• Rainshadow IMMWS 72ML
• MHX F967-4 (fly, given for 7 silk)
• MHX F908-4 (fly, silk size 8)
• Epic Bandit (fly, 10 silk, Silk)