And then, completely unexpectedly, it finally happened ...
After 5 missed pike in a row on your own handmade crankbait, with nothing more than a chewed up tail-part and a lot of aggravation to show for your efforts, you turn to something else. You try one of those 16cm divani tekneek gliders you have stored in your tackle box. One of those lures you really haven't fished before except a few casts right at boatside to try the action. After having watched our local fishing buddy Kjelle Lundberg to see how he fishes his jerkbaits, you want to see wthere you can give this, at first sight, piece of broomstick a similar action. You would be amazed at the kind of action this bait has, if only you fish it in the right way.
After having cast parallel to the shoreline twice, with no result other than the beautiful action of this lure which I could easily follow in this cristal clear water, I tried a third cast perpendicular to the shoreline. This way I fished the bait from shallow to deeper water.
I had only just given the bait two twitches when a dark shape moved from deeper water towards the shore. In a split second she opened her mouth and, so we discovered later, she swallowed the bait entirely with only 2/3 of the leader sticking out of her mouth! As a result we saw a big splash but the lure had disappeared. Judging by the bend in the rod, I could tell that this pike had taken the lure and that it was time to set the hook. All of this happened in a split second, even though telling it takes a lot longer.
After having set the hooks a few times (just to make sure, with the five pike I missed before in the back of my mind, this one wouldn't get away) I could start playing this fish. It immediately became clear to me that this wasn't a pike that would give up easily. I was about to find out the hard way.
Of course I kept wondering how large this fish really was, so I tried to get this fish close to the boat fast, without horsing the fish though to eliminate the risk of loosing it. The only thing we had seen so far was a large shape with a huge mouth! After a few minutes, she eventually showed herself next to the boat. We finally got a closer look at her.
My first impression was that this fish was close to or just over 40" but because of the water you can't exactly tell.
She now willingly let me move her closer to the boat, but she was still green! She opened her mouth and leaped in the air with a strong slap of her tail, returning to deeper water. She did this repeatedly , namely allowing me to bring her close to the boat, then opening her mouth and taking off again. In the end she got tired and thanks to the help and advise of my fishing buddies Kjelle and Dirk we could safely get her into the boat by means of a handlanding.
After the perennial unhooking and measuring, we took some pictures and we let her slip back gently into the water. I always release the fish I catch so they can live to be caught another day. I now have another fantastic memory! We measured this fish at 105cm. Just look at the markings on her, what an awesome sight!
My experience with Swedish pike was that they all grabbed the lures quite ferociously, but often so ferociously that they grabbed the head and a part of the leader. As you can imagine this resulted in many missed fish.
One thing I'll always remember though is that when you hooked a pike, no matter what size, you were in for a nice treat! They all jumped and smashed the surface to foam! And yes, we did loose a lot of fish that way but the sight of a pike that leaps in the air like a missile and the hard fight they put up sure makes my day!
Laermans R.