Ande the pike turns to zander
Greetings!
Just a short update about the latest fishing trip together with Jakob from Kustlandet, it was a windy one to say the least at Brantestad fishing camp.
Pike was the target, but this lake also holds a good stock of large zander - but according to Jakob they never bite this late in the season... So with the boat fully loaded with rods and equipment and some nice bags of dead baitfish we headed out on the lake. And Jakob steered the boat with a safe hand, making sure we would find the best place of the day. And as you can see from the picture, I think he was also looking out for ships, distant islands and perhaps the summer and a brighter future for us all...
The wind did give us some problems, even if we did choose a good spot, and we hade some problems controlling the boat and the floaters. We fished on different depths, from bottom (12 meters) to 7m, 5m and 2m, covering the pelagic zone - slowly rowing the boat forward, with the dead baitfish wobbling behind us.
First bite came on the float fishing on 5m, suddenlyit was gone and Jakob had the first chance of catching one. But the fish was too quick, leaving us with nothing but the hooks to retrieve. At the same time the 2m float also went under, and, since I was slow, appera on the surface again. But soon it was gone again, and I tried to set the hooks - and managed! We now had our fish on the way to the boat, but the feeling was that it was just a small pike, it did some headbanging, but peacefully came closer to the boat. When it popped up we saw that it was a nice zander, even though they do not bite this late in the season...
A nice bonus this windy day!
Continuing the day with dreams of the 1m+ pike, that slowly followed the wind away. We caught two more pikes, biggest one around 85cm, and missed a couple of bites on the floaters (as I said, it was hard to controll them). We saw some nice echoes on the sonar, but they did not take any interest in our baits, perhaps next time...
I've said it before and now it comes again - this season is really interesting for fishing, so if you have the chance to come to Sweden now, don't miss it!
//Kristian
