Gods… and pike flies

First of all, I want to wish everybody a (late) Merry Christmas, and say sorry to some people that I’ve made some commitments to (I’m working on it). As you have noticed, I didn’t post much lately, due to all kinds of unpleasant reasons. I already blamed some ‘higher powers’ for that (Gods) in the last couple of weeks, but today they have really proven themselves again.

Here’s the story…

Today I went fishing with Dimitri. Now there’s something you need to know about the two of us. We’ve met a couple of times along the water, about two years ago, so we started talking and exchanged phone numbers to go fishing together. He always fishes with lures, jurkbaits, plastic frogs, …etc, and me on the fly. So each time we go fishing (and although we never talk about it) there’s always this kind of competitive air around us wanting to prove the other one which works best for pike.

But, (and this I blame on the Gods as well) every time we go fishing together,… we blank (both of us)!

But, our motto is ‘never give up’, so we went out to give it another try.

But the Gods (again) welcomed us to the Belgian polders with a very strong north wind (which can be very dangerous when the wind comes from the right when you’re right handed), but I don’t blame ‘Them’ for that, because it gave me a perfect opportunity to practice my backhand presentation of the fly (for which I’m sure ‘They’ got a little irritated).

 

By the way, this is Dimitri doing his thing, with some plastic… ‘thing’.

But the gods still intervened, so we didn’t see a single pike for hours.

 

But they couldn’t prevent this beauty from working. I hate to brag, but when you’re up against ‘higher forces’, it certainly feels good when your fly has a great action!

By the way, this is the fly who defied the Gods.

It’s a tandem version of the previous flies I posted. It doesn’t only have a great action, it’s also a pleasure to tie (but it does take some time).

But again, …the Gods decided to build a steep slope where the only pike of the day was to be found (and there are still people who ask me why I need a landing net???).

Oh yes! This felt good,… until I had this cracking feeling in my back.

Yes, you can defy the Gods, but they don’t like it! And they intervene immediately!

 

But not even the Gods can take away an adrenaline rush, so this was a moment of joy instead of pain! And a nice pike (I hope the Gods won’t punish her for it)!

And although ‘They’ punished me by making my back and legs hurt so much that I could hardly move by the time I got home, 'They' weren’t able to ruin my day!

It felt great to be outdoors again. It felt even better to hold a pike in my hands again. And Dimitri is finally convinced to start fly-fishing. And although he wants to start with trout and chub in the Belgian Ardennes (which is nice as well), I’m sure that pike will follow!

So, how painful it might be, I can assure you, that it feels great to defy the Gods from time to time, and… what do 'They' know about fishing anyway???