Bernd Ziesche | Wednesday, 27 May 2020
Two and a half years ago I released a fine pike of 96cm in a small lake near my home. Since then my friend Hansi and I were fishing that lake many times without catching that one pike again. Of course we were wondering if that pike was still in there!?
Yesterday our question was answered by another club member catching that pike on a spinning rod. That pike now is 100cm. Since the lake has just the size of a football field and yet has little food to offer, that pike obviously didn't eat a lot. So he just grow 3-4cm in over 2 years!
Exactly why we could not catch that pike again. He only eats little, so there are just short times when it's possible to catch him. That and the fact, that he learnt what a fly is, safed him pretty well from us as it looks.
Luckily he again was released and hopefully will spent some more years in that lake. I truly was happy to see him still being in that lake. Having said so it's for 2 reasons. One is that I want him to live as long as possible. The second one is that it clearly means there is room for my fishing (catching) abilties to significantly improve! And that's fantastic!
Last night I thought a lot about how we fished that lake for the past 2 years and what to change in our strategies to maybe catch some of those pikes again which we already caught once or twice before. And who knows, there might be an even bigger one in, which yet we didn't meet!? I have a feeeling we soon going to find that out. I developed some serious ideas last night!
You may find the old and new picture of that pike at the end of the pictures below.
Besides meeting that one pike again we caught several fine fish within the last days. Asp, carp, ide, pike, tench and perch. Not much more we could have asked for inside our home area.
Hopefully in your area many anglers will understand the high value of releasing fish, too. It's getting better in my country all the time. We work on it!
Great week to all of you!
All my best
Some pictures as always...
