A huge pike, a fat catfish and good company

The first hour did not amount to much. It was the middle of the day after all, and that is not the best time to catch fish. After a couple of hours of fishing it finally happened. Behind me I heard a rod whip over. There was the first one. The fish fought oddly at first and came in fairly easily, but close to the boat she woke up. A beautiful fight followed, and after a few minutes I could net a thick pike of 115 cm. What a start. A quick photo, a measurement and straight back. Fortunately the water temperatures were acceptable and she swam off quickly.

We carried on and caught some more pike and zander out of the weed on chatterbaits. We decided to give the weed a rest and go vertical jigging. That is a little less intensive, so the kids could sit down and do something different. I do not use the LiveScope much, but for vertical jigging on a guiding day it is genuinely brilliant. It lets everybody fish sharply, including children who would otherwise lose patience. With the LiveScope it looks like gaming to them, and they love following their shad hovering above the bottom.

We quickly caught a few zander and had great fun. After an hour we had seen enough of that and decided to finish the evening casting. We caught a bit more fish, but the focus had gone slightly. We would do one more spot and then call it a day.

Straight away the father got a heavy thump on the rod and it bent right over. I saw a tail slap and knew immediately what time it was: catfish. After a solid fight in which the three of them took turns at the tug of war, I could grab it. A quick photo and back to the ramp, that was plenty. It hardly gets better than this: good company, decent numbers and thick fish among them.