Posts Tagged ‘pike’

Vltava 24 in Autumn

Listopad 1, 2022 - 9:36 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

In Autumn, when the days are shorter, I usually more focus on Vltava 24, which I have about 12 minutes from my office and 14 minutes from home :-) Discharge in the river has been suitable during last weeks, but extremely high air and water temperatures still has not persuaded olives to hatch yet. Next weekend looks colder, so we will see. But I have managed a few visits and never blanked, I also caught a few small pike.

I would like to point one nice day, I took holiday from work as weather forecast promised maybe last good windsurfing day on the Lipno Lake. I made a proper breakfast, on the way to Lipno I helped my father with tyres, next I enjoyed the windsurfing,  great stabile warm wind and autumnal low sun changed surface of the lake to gold, it was really nice end of the season. I finished at about 3 p.m., so it was still enough time for quick coffee with keen windsurfer Luděk and for visit of Vltava 24 to catch a trout for dinner. I caught first fish by very first cast, so it was lucky fish as I did not want to finish so quickly. Second fish was also lucky as I lost it at the net, but the third fish had not lucky day and it was invited for romantic dinner. Finally I managed also one quick beer in the pub in the front of our house before my wife returned from fitness training :-)   My friend says “after fifty we can no longer save on yourself” :-)

December fishing and Xmas time

Leden 15, 2021 - 9:59 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

p1030429 In the first half of December we were facing Covid, but luckily we caught a mild version, so I had one day fever and chills and next I was OK. So I still had time in the second half of the month to visit Vltava 24, sometimes alone, sometimes with Honza or Tobi, I caught every time 4-6 trouts in one hour and half, few fish had over 50 cm. I also tried spinning rod and used different baits and streamers and I caught few smaller pike. It was nice, I´m always satisfied if I catch at least one fish in this time of the year. Weather was relatively mild, but after Xmas it cooled down and during my last visit, the river was very cold, on the surface was floating ice and I had not any single take. Not a bad closing day of the year :-)

But my friend Tobi was very successful in December, in one week he caught three fish over 90 cm on a twister, one pike of 115 cm, one carp of 90 cm and another pike over 90 cm. Franta Hanák added nice barbel, I borrowed pictures from their FB profiles.

During Xmas holiday we visited our weekend house at Lipno Lake, we enjoyed ice skating and I made nice pictures of ice floes washed ashore, and what was my surprise, that there was a smaller place without ice on the surface and there was a fishing boat on it, are they brave or mad? :-) We call them patients :-)

Vltava 24, the pike fever also struck me

Listopad 4, 2020 - 3:20 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

Days are shorter, so I prefer to visit Vltava 24 located backyard to save time. Moreover, fishery has been regularly stocked by decent rainbow since September and hosts also big pike. I usually take two rods, one spinning rod with a big streamer and one fly fishing rod with team of nymphs (one of the nymphs has usually big orange or pink collar from fritz :-) .

I usually start with pike fishing, I decided to use spinning rod with brained line, to cast big streamers with fly fishing rod is exhausting and I thing, that strikes with spinning setup are more save. I caught few pikes up to 65 cm, it is interesting, that pike always stay under bank under grass or a tree, and takes immediately after streamer falls to water, or on hang, when you start lifting the fly from water surface or change direction of movement. Never in the middle of the pulling. One fish of about 1 meter jumped from water just when I re-casted the fly and it closed his mouth empty, I had almost heard attack and full underpants. I will be back soon ….

Rainbows takes honestly, average size is 1 kilo, so I use 5-size Z-Axis and 0,18 mm tippet. The best combination is orange tag on dropper and blob on the point, water is unfortunately not clear as there is some “river works” upstream, so dry fly fishing is nothing special despite the high season of olives, it is better only during weekends, when the machines rests.

Heavy rain during the last three days raised the discharge in river, so next weekend I will probably visit river under Vyšší Brod, where the water is clear, or Květoňov lake.

Second half of summer on Lipno lake

Říjen 4, 2020 - 3:55 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

Covid restrictions limited travelling this summer, so apart from our trip to Slovakia we were staying at Lipno Lake for the whole summer. I visited a river a few times, but I focused more on the predatory fish in Lipno Lake. I was fishing both with artificial lures and on a life or dead bait, I preferred fishing with a dead bite on the Drahkowitch system. I caught many zander, few pike and perch and also one decent asp, I thing, that I have never returned without a fish. But one day was exceptional, I was fishing on life roach and bleak and had few takes from smaller zander. Smaller zander rarely takes fish seriously and runs away like a bigger fish (size limit of bite fish is 15 cm), it only sinks floater, stays on place, and releases the bite and again. If you strike immediately, you usually miss or has the fish hooked in jaws and you can release it without a serious injury. So I caught two small zander and also missed few takes, so I had the last life bite fish  – roach of about 18 cm, so I used a bigger floater and released the fish to the lake.  After one minute, the floater sunk by about 15 cm, I thought that it is work of the life bite, but it moved slowly and sunk deeper, so I expected again a small zander, so I struck and what was my surprise when I felt a big resistance, fish was heavy and I could not pull it from the depth, I estimated zander of 1 metre, but finally after about 10 minutes I saw a decent pike jumped from water, I was lucky as it not smashed my 0,30 mm mono tipped without wire,  it had 90 cm. It spat out the dead bait fish, so I decided to give the bait fish another chance and cast it back to water. After 5 minutes, I caught 65 cm zander on it and could go home, some days are happy days :-)

We also enjoined a lot of windsurfing, mainly in the end of August and in September, it is a pity  that we could not go to Lefkada this year, hopefully next year will be OK.

Vltava 24

Listopad 26, 2017 - 1:57 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

p1320688 We aimed last few visits of our trophy part in Vltava river on the pike fishing. I did not have a special pike rod, so I asked my friend Pavel, who is rod-builder, to cat my old lake rod by 20 cm and “sharpen it”. Tying of big streamers is interesting and fishing with them is hard work and strong rod helps. I was not so successful like Franta and Honza, but I caught few smaller pikes and rod worked well. One week ago we observed with Honza a big crocodile from bridge and estimated its length of about 1 m, and last Thursday morning Honza called me that it is exactly 96 cm :-) .

Last Saturday was not so cold, so we went again to Vltava with Honza, this time to the lower part of the river stretch. We started with pike fishing, but I had only few follows of smaller pikes.  In the end, I decided to wet also some trout streamers because the place looked like a home of a big rainbow, my leader was not ideal :-)   sink tip line,  1 m of fluorocarbon 0,50 mm, 30 cm pike wire, and next 2 m of 0,22 fluorocarbon with two black-orange streamers. After few casts I got strong hit to the line and decent rainbow was jumping above the surface of the river. What a surprise, finally I missed another take and one fish broke my leader, so it was time to go home. Hopefully we we’ll be lucky for few more mild days before the end of the year.

2 hours at Vltava 24

Říjen 24, 2017 - 5:31 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

p1320580 I was tying some big pike streamers yesterday evening (the best one will be definitely combination black and fluogreen with orange blob on tail :-) so i could not resist to test them today after work. I took also nymphing rod to catch a rainbow for dinner. Weather was nice, nobody was at river, but fish did not cooperate well. On nymph, I caught only a few monster dace and roach, not any take from rainbow. With big streamers I explored all suitable pools and windows at banks, but I recorded not any interest, I did not even see a pike, but finally, like Jakub Vágner, I caught one smaller pike by the very very last cast, however, it was not like Jakub, he always catches on the very last cast a monster fish :-) p1320582

Vltava 24, not only rainbows takes in autumn

Prosinec 18, 2016 - 9:44 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

stika1 Not only rainbows are in our trophy water, strict rules and less fishing pressure enable to grow up also other fish species. One day in December I was there with big streamers with Honza. I found one nice fish from railway bridge and I was navigating Honza during casting and moving of fly (it is not correct to call this 25 cm long monster as fly), he caught the pike on the very first cast, it was clear, that it would be a highlight of the New Year Eve, I cooked it with vegetables, lemon and on the white wine :-) I was not so successful, few pikes of similar size only followed my flies. We saw one pike which looked like three, I estimated size of 120 cm. I caught only one barbel under wing :-) My line was to heavy, I should shorten sinking head to about 4 m. Another day , Honza caught pike of 95 cm, another crocodile, how many rainbows it eats a day ?:-)

Tobi goes there sometimes also with spinning rod, it is true, that it is sometimes better than to stay in the ice cold water. One afternoon he caught there 17 fish including nice pike, chub, rainbow and also perch. I have to try it next year.

Vltava 24

Květen 23, 2015 - 9:13 am Komentáře nejsou povoleny

p1180872 I started river fishing in our trophy water Vltava 24. Flow was decreased to fishable conditions and I was there second morning before work. I had Hanak Alpen nymph rod size 4 and I was interested how strong the rod is. I was fishing 0,18 leader and nymphs size 10, what a typical light Czech nymphing style :-) . I got 5 rainbows in 1,5 hours and two of them were over 3 kg, however, I got only one, the first one smashed my leader as I was not able to get it to the net :-) Nice morning, the rod withstood. After two days I was back, first fish was nice pike, and I get 5 good rainbows around 1 kg range, nice water 10 minutes from my home. Looking forward to Vltava 28, maybe next week.

Start of the season 2013

Duben 29, 2013 - 6:24 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

potocak The fishing started slowly comparing with last season due to longer winter, it is similar probably in the whole Europe. I spent the opening day April 16th with friends at Květoňov lake, we were there just before the 6 a.m. The nice mild weather and the dawn on the eastern sky welcomed about 50 fishermen, all banks were occupied like during competitions and on the water surface was traffic of boats and belly boats.  Fish were taking from really first casts, everybody was satisfied and everybody caught a good fish, the biggest trout was caught by Franta Hanak (as usually :-)) The best line was Di3 or fast glass and the best flies were lures or boobies in light colours, surprisingly the  black/green combination was not good. I caught majority of fish on yellow lure with silver bead. They were also caught come big pikes, but majority of pikes were parading along the banks without any interest in our flies as they were preparing for spawning. I saw one crocodile of the length about 1,3 m followed by two smaller males.
I returned after few days, weather was very warm but light breeze promised nice fishing. After few missed takes we found that fish search more for natural food as there occurred an occasional hatch of lake olives and olive buzzers. And probably all of them had been already caught by a lure. I caught about 10 fish (both rainbow and brook trout) on black and olive buzzers, the best method was to pull flies on hover or slow glass line and change speed of retrieve, the take usually came during the speed-up. So it was nice afternoon and good practice for England, to which we are flying in the end of April.

I also visited the trophy fishery Vltava 24, we stocked again really good fish and the icing on the cake is brown trout in weight 3-4 kg. As the flow in river is still high, the best method is streamer, I caught majority of fish on pink or white combinations. The first rises of olives and sedges hopefully attract fish to surface, I saw some occasionally rising fish, but I was to lazy to change rod and I caught two of them on nymph. I took one rainbow home and he had in stomach buds of trees, so it was probably the reason why he was rising. Lets tie the brown/green buds :-) . I also found nest of kingfisher.

I got the hot message that the Czech republic was approved by the Congress of FIPS MOUCHE to organise The World Fly Fishing Championship 2014, so if you would like to see top fishermen in water, come in May 2014 to South Bohemia. The schedule of the championship will be similar like the EFFC 2011, if you are interested find the link on the main page.

 

Surprise at Malče reservoir

Únor 11, 2013 - 1:20 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

p1030830 We manage few small trout reservoirs. Malče reservoir with area of 3 hectares is the newest one, we get it to rent only 6 years ago. The reservoir was drained due to a technical maintenance 4 years ago and therefore all fish were taken out and we stocked only trouts during next seasons. During following years, nice weed-beds full of natural life were created along the banks, the reservoir was famous for the nice trout-fishing in almost clear water, it is probably the only still-water  in South Bohemia when you can fish trout on natural flies like small olives and sedges. But last season was nothing special and there were caught few bigger pikes. In the beginning of September 2012, we obtained request from the Vltava River Authority, the owner of the reservoir, that it is necessary to drain the lake again to test the stability of the dam.  We prepared the action for the beginning of November and we looked forward to see the residual fish stock. I personally awaited few trouts and pikes and some of coarse fish, what a mistake!!!

The total catch from the 3 hectares was:

- 445 kg of mixture of coarse fish with dominance of perch and roach, including perch of 1,5 kg and also some big bream, ide and tench
- 7 pieces of raibow trout including one fish of 60 cm  (we stocked 300 kg in spring)

- 20 kg of brook trout (we stocked 150 kg in the end of August)

- 30 kg of brown trout including some nice fish (we stocked 150 kg in spring)

- 20 pieces  - 45 kg of grass carp, it was stocked in spring to control weed

- 70 pieces/109 kg of pike including two monsters over 1 m (the biggest one had 8,4 kg), 15-20 pieces of the length +-70cm, 20-30 pieces of the length +-50cm and 20-30 YOY fish +- 30 cm.

All fish besides of trout and grass carp came to the lake from few small pounds in the catchment area and the predation pressure of pike to the trout is unexceptionable. I had to a little change my opinion on the usefulness of pike in trout-lakes as the predator of the coarse fish and the damaged trout and “trophy-fish” for fly-fishermen, during the day we found about 10 brook trout digested and brought up by pike…

It is clear, that the regular draining with 3-4 years cycle  is necessary to keep the required trout fish stock in this lake, and probably in all our trout lakes.