Moving Northwards

Having navigated the worse city in Europe for roadworks, congestion and general chaos ( Hamburg, and I don't care if the facts say different...copyright D.J.Trump ), we made the short ferry crossing from Putgarden to Denmark.

Parked up in a little harbour, tackle assembled and a quick evening session which resulted in a blank. Not a touch on the feeder rod. There were however,  signs of fish feeding near the surface in fifteen foot of water.

Next morning, lots of surface activity, so change of tactics.  Bits of bread were drip fed and soon there were swirls along the near bank

Second run through and the crust disappeared and the float buried. A lovely bronze flanked ide of 4lb 11oz hit the net. 

I did have a go on the feeder four hundred yards upstream and was rewarded with some cracking roach to 1lb 8oz and some decent perch.

The strange thing with the ide is that they didn't seem to be interested in any bait more than a few inches from the surface,  so you had to target them specifically. Which I was happy to do, obviously.  It was one rod, net and bucket of bait and that's it. Just how I like it.

I'd put a few crusts in an area, walk a hundred yards and do the same and repeat. Then look up the river until you see fish attacking the crusts.

They were catchable but wary. If you fished well, you caught. Too many cock ups and they'd spook and drift off.

Last night I fished a different section, mostly fast flowing and narrow, but with a few slacker areas.  Apparantly, there were big bream and carp, but it was not a typical habitat for both of those species. 

I fished like a plonker to be honest. No bites until I walked back to the camper and came to the last swim. I flicked in some crusts.

A single fish was mopping them up. I'd a float rig on, but the fish wouldn't move out of a tight area, so I quickly removed the float, retained the two split shot, lengthened the tail so the crust floated , but was anchored in position.

First cast and the crust disappeared. All hell was let loose as the fish thrashed crazily on the surface.  It looked massive and to be honest I thought I might have been a grass carp, but no, a huge ide slid over the net and was enveloped in the mesh.

I thought it was six pound plus but the scales said 5lb 13oz.  That'll do nicely.

I walked the ten yards back to the van, opened the fridge and took out a cold beer, where I sat outside in the gathering dusk, savouring the moment with a silly grin on my face.

Being a greedy fecker, I was up early next morning, where I fished a mile downstream and snared two more big ide, the best going 5lb 3oz. 

We've moved on to Copenhagen for a few days, so fishing will take a back seat for a while.

Maybe.