The last time I was out with Ruud was February. A super fishing day with beautiful weather and a broken starter battery at the end that almost ruined our entire fishing day. Fortunately, there turned out to be a harbor master living in the harbor where we were lying when the battery failed, who also happened to sell brand new starter batteries at 6:30 p.m. 😳.
In the meantime I have guided a lot and successfully for zander, cursed the pike in the Biesbosch (except for one day fishing in the Biesbosch has been downright dramatic), Ruud became a father and I went fishing for Black Bass in Spain.
And last Monday Ruud and I were finally able to go on a zander/ perch hunt again, armed with a few hundred worms because we now live in April.
Quite a difference, up to 30 degrees in Spain and then again barely 2 degrees above zero and a cutting 4-5 Bft east wind. Anyway, I put a worm on the hook , cast out a few times and bang... Fish on!
A lousy bite, but the zander is nicely hooked and can quickly go back into the water. Cast again.... immediately a good hit, I set the hook and it's fish on again. A clearly larger fish this time. The rod bends well and a heavy fish remains thumping deep. Ruud has been ready for some time with the landing net when suddenly the tension of the fishing rod drops, "&$%#$$", unfortunately.
We catch a few more fish at this spot and then decide to see if we can find some perch on the shallows.
Ruud tries a drop shot and I pull a jig head across the ground. We're not too confident and just as I'm about to announce I want to leave, I think I'm getting stuck behind a mussel bench. Out of habit I just set the hook and that's not for nothing. A rather ugly perch of just under 50 is our share.
Here on the shallows there was probably this one perch and because we are so nice and comfortable here out of the wind in the sun and because there are great zander to catch, we go looking for another place..... idiots we are. At the next spot we are completely blown away by an icy wind, we get exactly zero bites and an enthusiastic boat 'fishing control' comes to check our fishing licenses (and our bait). Because that is of course all in order, it only takes a little time and we can orient ourselves on a sheltered fishing spot. We choose to enter the Hollands Diep because we think we are somewhat sheltered on the north side.
Although we think we have been in the wind all day, it turns out afterwards, when we have to drive back for an hour, bumping over the waves, to get back to the harbor, that our spot wasn't so bad after all.
We fish alternately casting, drifting and on the livescope. By constantly applying different techniques: dropshotting, targeting fish at the livescope, longlining and just casting, the strikes keep coming and the fish as well.
We get double hookups several times and Ruud pulls some nice perch and even a small pike off the shallows with his drop shot.
By the end of the day we have 20 zander, 1 pike and 3 perch.... and of course we want to finish the day with 25 fish on board. That then takes us another half hour. We both get bites and we both lose fish number 25 a number of times. We try one last time to drift up the drop off before we give up and it's there that Ruud manages to catches fish number 25. The first day with the worms is more than successful.
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