Day 10 - 23rd May 25

Wijde Aa

Location

Seeing as I was unable to pre-bait/fish Big Zalk (due to the key problem), I decided to fish the above lake that is available on the Zwolle licence (you may recall that I got my VISpas in association with the Zwolle club). I met a couple of English anglers on Square lake the other day. The day after I met them, they fished Wijde Aa and had a good day with Bream to 6lb and half a dozen Tench, the biggest of which was 7lb 12oz - a cracking fish. I would love one that size.

I was able to drive to my peg to drop off my gear but then had to park roadside (only about 60m away).

The weather forecast was for another windy day blowing from the west. The western bank of Wijde Aa is accessible so should have the wind behind me again. On the topic of weather, we had quite a bit of rain last night and more was forecast during the day.

I arrived around 8am and started by casting the sonar - and got quite a surprise - it was deep at over 40ft 35m from the bank. So I started fishing in that deep water (a depth count of 26!), firing out half a dozen balls of bait laced with hemp, wheat, caster and mashed sweetcorn. After a couple of hours I hadn't had a touch.

Before the weather changed for the worse

Am I going for a swim?

A couple of guys were walking around the lake. They approached me and I asked if they were looking for a place to fish. They said they were looking for somewhere to baptise people - my hackles went up. Were they serious or was it a veiled threat. It turns out they were serious. One of them had fished this lake and showed me some photos of the large Tench that he had caught.

Brian to the rescue

Brian arrived at the lake once I had been there for a couple of hours. He suggested finding a count of 9 so I duly reduced my range until I got that depth. I fired in another 6 balls on my groundbait feeder line and also 6 on my method feeder line. I planned to fish 2 rods until I found out what they wanted and where they were.

Method scores first

I had been using pellet on a hair rig on the method feeder for a while and had not bites. I then switched to a hair-rigged piece of sweetcorn and got a bite straight away resulting in the first of 4 Bream on the method/corn combination. In the meantime I had one Bream on the grounbait feeder with maggot and caster on the hook. However, this was a bit of a cheat as I didn't see any bite but, as often happens, I lifted the rod to retrieve and re-cast and then noticed there was a fish on.

On the groundbait feeder I had been switching baits to see what they wanted. It took a long time but I eventually started getting bites and fish on my favourite Bream bait (worm and corn cocktail)

Changeable weather

I had managed to get my brolly up before the first of the showers arrived. It also helped break the wind that was blowing on my back/neck. The worst shower accompanied strong winds about 2pm, just as I was having my pack-up. It was a mixture of hail and rain.




Moody skies



The result

I ended up with 11 Bream for 35lb 2oz. I may visit this lake again as I would love a big Tench. If the wind keeps up then at least it is comfortable fishing too. It could also be easily fished with a waggler even in this wind. There is reasonable depth close in but I could also try the slider if I wanted to try a bit deeper. Food for thought if I get my fill of feeder fishing.

One interesting snippet, I had always intended to do this and remembered this time. I wanted to cast my sonar beyond where I had baited (and was fishing) then retrieve and see if it detected fish over my groundbait. I tried it and it certainly did. It was beeping like crazy and showing the presence of a fair few fish. This confirmed what I had been experiencing (line bites, plucks and other signs of fish).