Fishing adventures, big pike lost!

Adventures of fishing with big pike lost… I start by confirming what the saying goes: "The fish that escapes from the fisherman's fishing rod is always the biggest!" That's what happened to me with some pike that still haunt my dreams. And mine were big, very big, how big? The biggest. There were quite a few and I remember each one, as if it were yesterday.

Fishing adventures on Bascov

In 2002 I managed to reach the Bascov and Budeasa accumulations, Argeș, carried by the mirage of the huge pike that Gheorghe Dinuță from Pitești was catching, I think that's when I saw in pictures the first 14 kg pike in Romania. If I didn't have great results on the first day on Budeasa, I moved the boat to Bascov, where it was known that there were more pike, but smaller ones, when I was young I didn't have much patience or the whims of a trophy hunter. I saw how the rest of the fishermen on Bascov were catching a white silicone shad with a red head, I still didn't have such a thing in my kit, I was fishing exclusively for the spoon at that time. I studied them and realized that they were fishing near the bottom of the water, launching, dropping gum, then reeling slowly and steadily.

Jaw

Those gums were so precious that they avoided fishing a productive area with water 8-9 meters deep, an area invaded on the bottom of the log water. I had learned the tip from one of the local fishermen, said and done, I went head-to-head to the frames directly on the hooks. I did the first groping launches, counting how long it took for my spoon to reach the bottom of the water. Then, in fishing, after the spoon started to fall, I counted two or three seconds less than I was counting and I started to reel constantly. And I counted if I came sour, deep water, until the oscillation reached the bottom I fell asleep. I don't know how many launches, just when the recovery starts I have an attack of taking the rod from my hand, I try to contract, I feel my teeth chatter on the spoon and in a few seconds the pike comes in a dizzying speed fixed under the boat and he parks my oscillation in a log. I couldn't react, it all happened in seconds. Moby Dick, of course.

Big pike on the Tataru pond!

In the years 2004-2005 we frequented the Tataru pond quite often, a miniature Delta a few kilometers from Bucharest. Every exit on this gorge was an adventure, the access being one of the most difficult encounters in my life as a fisherman. The entrance to the lake could be done in rainy conditions only with the 4 × 4 car through Plătărești or on foot, crossing a drainage channel of Dâmbovița with the pneumatics in the back and the covered nostrils. But it's worth it, even if I vomited a few times on the canal or got stuck in the car. There I saw for the first time next to the boat a pike over a meter long that I tried to catch for two days in a row.

And Gamakatsu is still missing

On the first day, an oscillating army with a small anchor hit me in the head, it bit, I held it for a few seconds in the fiberglass rod, but I couldn't sting it well. He left me the flabby rod and some tooth marks in the metal of the teaspoon. The next day I changed the rod with a stronger one, the thread, with a thicker one, the anchor of the same teaspoon, with a 2/0 Gamakatsu. I was ready. Reaching the scene, I launch, the wave comes to my head again, the caracalina takes the spoon, stings hard and I feel the anchor gnash its teeth. I spit it out, keep playing the spoon, he gives it to me again, I let it go for a second or two, I stand on my feet and I sting again with all the force that the adrenaline in my body gives me.

Erase and rewind

He spat it out again. And he returns to the boat, bubbling water in a circle. I spent the rest of the day in the same place, launching hundreds of times, hoping for a new attack. He didn't come. Shortly after this incident, the pond was dried up and stunted by the villagers, it is rumored that 13-14 kilograms of pike were removed with a fork.

100 meters sprint, Fărăgău

Also during that period I was visiting Doru Someșan, in Târgu-Mureș. A fishing evening between the boys, I was stringing the lures from the kits on the table and Doru was showing me an oscillator that looked like a hammer with a nail. "This swelling is from a pike, it hit me in the spoon, I stung it and took 100 meters of wire without the right to appeal, I put my hand on the drum towards the end and it jumped out of my mouth," says Doru. "When and where?" I asked. "Near Târgu-Mureș, on Fărăgău, the pike is still there, do you want to go tomorrow?", Doru's answer came with joy.

Huge

In the early hours of the morning we inflated the inflatable boat exactly where the story had taken place. "Look, at that reed chair, he gave it to me!" I couldn't wait, I entered the water with my boat half inflated. It was quiet for an hour, we didn't talk, we tried to make as little noise as possible, launching ghost after ghost, hoping for an attack. I look in the kit for an oscillator similar to Doru's, I find it, but I don't check the anchor - big mistake. I launch towards the fultan and in the middle of the recovery route I feel a tick and there is a big whirlwind. "Pfff, how big it was, you say someone pulled the plug in the throat!", I tell Doru showing him the water disturbance made by the return of the pike.

17 kilograms

And we didn't talk for an hour, and we kept fishing in the same spot. A gust of wind was moving our boat and I could no longer launch comfortably in the winning direction. I could reorient the position of the boat using the oars, but I preferred not to make a noise and somehow launch behind me. Just when I wasn't paying attention, I received the most violent attack possible, so strong that the boat returned to its original position in the pike feature. I continued until dusk, but I had no more features. Shortly afterwards, Fărăgăul was dried and attacked with forks, I found out a few years later that a 17 kilogram pike had been caught.

Horsetail Yarn

The Danube Delta, Holbina Trei Bibani, year 2014, Horse Tail. This is the name of the lake named after a plant that grows in abundance in that area, the plant called "horsetail". We were pioneers in fishing on this site and we liked this lake due to the deep water in the middle, with submerged plants, so we insisted here on looking for large specimens. I knew from the past that there were specimens over a meter long, I had fished on Holbina in 2004, 2005, Mălin had dropped a monster right in front of me on one of the lakes, called Oaia Mare. But that's another story.

Our everyday pike

We return to our pike, Cox launches over a Christmas tree with a glider, attacks, stings, the thread leaves the drum like a carp, shouts "Wow, it's big!", I jumped ready with the lie. I hear the water slamming behind the boat, I turn my head and see a big pike head sticking out… and I say, "Wow, you're crazy, another big one came out here in the back!" Of course it was the same, he had bitten the wobbler and sprinted straight under the fir blanket and our boat. The funny thing is, the drill was going on in front of the boat. He wasn't amused that he got rid of the wobbler and we waited half an hour to get him back. Thus, in the eyes, it was over 120 cm long.

I got rid of her again

We returned in a few weeks to catch her. And I started groping with exactly the same glider that Cox had used, but I had equipped it with two Gamakatsu 2/0 anchors. In addition, I had applied the brake to the reel and increased the thickness of the wire on the "which on which" principle. It doesn't take too long, I have an attack, I sting, the pike leaves exactly like a rifle, it takes 30 meters of wire from my tight drum almost to the maximum and it is parked somewhere quiet. "Do you still have it?" Cox asks me. "I don't know!" I answer and start walking from meter to meter. You don't want to know how many zigzags we made between the fir columns until we recovered the wobbler. He had escaped.

Sweden's hub, Umealven!

To end the year properly, on the last expedition from Sweden, this summer, I dropped a big pike again. Seriously, that was the biggest thing I've ever had in my rod. We were on the last day of the expedition with Cox in a boat on the river Umealven, none of us had caught pike over 100 cm in the five days of fishing. "big pike", the specimens here being used to consume trout of appreciable size. We constantly caught pike of 70, 80, 90 cm until we reached an area with stronger current and plants, where we decided to anchor and insist until the end of the day. We exchange ghost after ghost, gums, gliders, wobblers, everything we have in the kits.

Spoon, spoon

My wrist was tired from the rats released and I decided to relax a little by fishing with a spoon. I put an 18 gram oscillator, leave it on the bottom of the crystal clear water and start playing it vertically in the water stream. A log on the bottom of the water rises, opens a huge mouth and sucks my spoon. "Mom, how big is it !!!" I sting twice, to make sure he doesn't escape, and a story drill begins, which Cox assists, obviously annoyed that the hub that was well over a meter long hadn't come to him. Of course I miss it. How? I have no idea. It is certain that I saw in Cox a smile in the corner of his mouth: "At the spoon, ha?" Then he caught a 111 cm one, see video 360.

And yet where do big pike fishing adventures end?

In a way, now I'm glad I didn't catch them, at least after reading one of Mălin Mușatescu's articles, from which I marked this passage.

"It simply came to our notice then that I was fishing for pike. dreaming catch after catch to catch bigger and bigger. There was no limit in my subconscious, the pike I was running after was always bigger than anything I had ever caught. And I have to admit that this invariably cast a shadow of blaze over the smaller catches I had, pike that would have delighted the more novice fishermen, as I was years ago. However, how big should the pike of life be? This is the term - "pike of life". 150 cm? 200 cm?

Where do you go to say, “Brethren, I stop here. I have the pike of life. "

You know that state when you catch a big pike. After a few dozen ordinary pike, on a perfect day, you bring her to lie. You bring in the boat the pike over a meter, the record. You take pictures, you let him go and you sit on the bench. Your hands are still shaking. If you are a smoker, you light a cigarette. If you quit smoking, you light a cigarette. If you are not a smoker, you are fooling around and ask your friend in the boat for a cigarette. Wait, stop fishing, watch the other fisherman launch, retrieve, catch a pike from time to time. You know you can't fish anymore, at least for a few minutes. Any ordinary pike that will come will no longer give you satisfaction. You prefer to sit and watch. Then, after a while, you will fish detached, distracted, without really wanting to catch anything else. You only fish like the race drivers do after they have won the race, they run a lap or two to greet the audience. Logically, if this is the story of a day of fishing, so should the story of a life of fishing. Maximum pike, mammoth. How much should it be? ”