Holland Ahoy

Well, we certainly picked a good week weather wise, dry and sunny for the most part, with temperatures in the mid to high teens.

After the overnight ferry to the Hook of Holland, we headed to an area I'd been told holds some grass carp and tench, just an hour or so from the port. 

A little campsite on the canal was found, then we had a walk with the plumbing rod and found a few spots and baited them with the trusty seed/maize/sweetcorn mix. 

The canal was fed by little djkes, maybe six foot wide and eighteen inches deep. It quickly became apparent that some decent fish were feeding all the way along these tiny watercourses,  although we couldn't access them, as they were all entering from the far bank. 

After watching with the binoculars over several hours, I was convinced that those fish were grass carp feeding on the bream spawn.

The first evening produced just a few scabby bream, but before leaving we baited heavily , ready for a dawn start. Well, an early start for me anyway. Bully hates getting up and usually appears on the bank a bit later.

The bream were a pain. Smallish fish of 2-4 lb were ravenously feeding on anything and everything, but you need to fish through them, because there are often carp and tench on the edge of the bream shoals.

I was up early and as I arrived I immediately spotted fish rolling. 

Within half hour I was into a fish. Heavy and fighting hard, it had to be a carp. Yes, an immaculate common of 14-15lb and my best from a canal. "Well chuffed".

A couple of nice tench and a small carp followed, before the sun became too much for me, and we packed up late in the morning, ready to tuck in to a big breakfast. 

In the afternoon we got on the bikes and had a scout round. Another nice canal about five minutes ride away was our first stop.

We used the little nine foot rods that fit on to my bike rod holders and first chuck out on a feeder a dreaded bream was hooked. Off came the feeder and a change to floating crust ensured.

A short while after a few crusts were chucked in, the first surface swirls appeared. Not big enough for carp.

A ten yard mid river cast was met with rod pulling over, as an angry asp surged downstream. The fight was typical, fast and furious, but over quickly

 A nice fish around 4lb.

Later we spotted carp in the tiny djkes and thought they'd be an easy catch, but despite sneaking up to them as quietly as possible,  we seemed to spook them and we returned to the van carpless.