Viking Lars | Saturday, 17 October 2015
October brings relief, so to speak. Relief in the way that days are getting shorter and the early onset of darkness lets you go home early. And morning fishing can hardly be called morning fishing anymore.
Although I really like getting up early, even summer early (i.e. in the middle of the night) to go fishing and catch the sunrise, there's something relieving about being able to get up at 7am, drive for half an hour to go fishing, and still catch the sunrise.
October is a great fishing month, and I think morning fishing is the best in the first half of the month - now? It doesn't make that much difference, I think. Water is cooling down and good fishing can be had all day. If it wasn't for the fact that October sea trout can be notoriously picky, but often, it's a simple matter of convincing oneself that it actually makes sense to cast minute flies (#12, #14) into the vast ocean.
We've had a not-particularly-warm summer this year, but in return, a very mild autumn, which sort of stretched the non-existent summer well into September and even early October. This also means that some of the big pike lakes are still green from algae (or might have cleared up by now - haven't checked for the last 10 days or so). But if they're clear, or when they clear up, it's best to be ready, because that usually means good pike fishing!
The early evenings, early onset of darkness, brings the same sort of relief - you get to fish the sunset, and still be home in time to tuck in the kids. Unfortunately, it also brings an end to meaningful after-work fishing trips. They simply get too short by now.
But all in all, october is great, because it brings a sort of equilibrium to the urge to go fishing and the wish of staying home speding time with the family (and maybe even getting a few things done in and around the house). An early morning trip, fish until noon and you're home for the rest of the day, not having to get up unreasonably early, so you're not knackered the rest of the day.
The PoD is from a morning trip in late September.
Lars