Asptastic

We had a great cycle ride to the German border and stopped at a lovely cafe literally on the demarcation line.

It was a crossroads of cycle paths, loads of casual cyclists having a ride in the countryside. Very few lycra clad pros in their mirror shades and silly clip on shoes.

The nachos we ordered in the cafe were the absolute dooh daahs, as was the ice cream and what nots and the Belgium beer wasn't too bad either. A lovely day out.

Our park up was on a part of the river Maas that was ridiculously deep and totally lacking in flow. Unsurprisingly, my feeder fishing resulted in a total blank.

However, I had noticed lots of fry in the shallow margins and every now and again a predator would attack and the fish would scatter. Most looked like perch, but occasionally larger fish would hit the prey fish shoals.

A small plug ( or as they say nowadays, "hardbait" ) was clipped on which resulted in several perch of various sizes.

A bit of fun, but I was interested in what those larger crashes were, pike maybe ? Catfish ? Asp perhaps , but I thought they were fish of fast water ?

After the bike ride, the sky blackened and the wind got up to ridiculous levels. We were in for a storm.  It didn't last long and blew itself out entirely and when the rain stopped, I poked my head out the camper door.

The river was flat calm. Not a ripple.

Dusk was encroaching, so I grabbed the lure rod, net and lures and headed down to the water.

I clipped on a surface popper and just before I cast, saw a huge crash in the margins as an unseen predator hit some unfortunate shoal fish.

Third cast I was just about to lift the popper out and out of nowhere the lure was hit with venom and the water erupted under the rod tip. Ten or fifteen seconds of mayhem followed before it was hustled into the net.

An asp and a good one too, maybe 6lb or so. Well pleased with that to say the least.

Next morning I tried again....but you knew that.

No activity at all so after fifteen minutes I gave up and headed back for tea and biscuits. 

We were moving on to another area and whilst packing the van I heard a huge crash in the margins fifty yards from the van.

Interesting.  Mid morning, bright sunshine but they were obviously on the hunt.

Again, lure rod and net grabbed and five minutes later another asp smashed into the popper in literally inches of water.  Another short but savage fight and he was in the net.

Another nice one of 5lb ish I guess. Lovely.

Pleased with that one too. Bit of opportunism.

Asptastic.