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After a couple of days of relatively nice weather and a moderate wind, the biggest Dutch sort of roach, the ide, was to be cought on a fly there again..
For most Dutch flyfishermen, the ide is the holy grail of fishing in the Netherlands. With it's maximum size of 80 centimetres and it's more than explosive power, it's the most worthy opponent a man can get in this colourless country.
After wading into the massive lake, armed with my #2 size parabolic and a bag of old bread to lure them into my reach, it took me a while to locate the schole of fish again. This fish is pretty shy, especially after some idiot lets his dogs swim 20 metres away from me.
After i told the son of a bitch to stick his dogs up a specific part of the human anatomy, peace returned. As a nice side effect, the fish returned as well, and so the fun could begin!
After a couple of minutes, the first (little) ide took my fly. Because i was still pissed off about the dogman, i missed this one.
Not even twenty seconds after this one, his bigger brother came by for a nibble.. After a short struggle (these babies are STRONG!!) i released the fish, and prepared for new battle.
In the meanwhile the real big ones came on the spot... What a monsters!!!! These fishes (really in the 60-70 centimetres range!) were after the pieces of bread i littered, and were swimming two metres away from me!! With shaking hands, i tossed my little dry fly to one of them, and to my horror the fish rose and took it!
Unfortunately i was so impressed of the size of this beast, that i stroke too hard, and broke my leader-tip:-((((((((((((((((((((
This bad luck got too much for me... Even the fact that i caught a nice medium-sized one minutes afterward couldn't cheer me up again..
Tomorrow i'll try again... Stay tuned, here on the Trouthunter's lair for more reports of the mayhem to come!
16-05-2003 The day after..
Well, as promised here the report of the day after. The weather unfortunately turned bad (19 degrees Centigrade and a 3 Bft. wind from the east). Managed to catch six ides anyway, but the size of those was pretty disappointing:-(
01-06-2003 Nightfishing after a HOT DAY...
After a sizzling hot day (30 degrees centigrade) i tried my luck again at the same spot near my parent's house. Because of the hot weather, i didn't start before 2200 H. This was also just in time, because there were still many swimmers and sunbathers around. I got a lot of comment, while wading into the lake with my fishing gear (hey, there is no salmon here, and that kind of dumb stuff), but i immediately started catching! (this also swiftly terminated the "funny" comments of the swimmers!). After an exciting evening i caught a couple of dozens of fish, varying from 15 till 40 centimetres. So a pretty successful evening!