Los roques, february 2010

A trip to Los Roques for app. 2 weeks with Knud, Lasse and Thomas. Lasse and Thomas were rookies while Knud has been here five times before. The trip was good with some minuses. Like always on Los Roques you get plenty of bonefish and they are well-sized, so you get to see your backing on a regular basis and combining that with sun and warm waters you can never go wrong – especially in the winter time when there is ice on the Danish waters.

Lasse´s camera did not work so he borrowed mine and Knuds cell phone did not work so he borrowed mine, I had a vacation without any electronics 🙂

If I have to sum things up we had more problems than ever before with lack of water and lack of electricity. Two days and nights in a row with no electricity means hot rooms at night and warm beers. Furthermore the shops were several times out of goods and restaurants had to close due to no gas or no food to sell. Hugo is really catching up with his idol Fidel, Venezuela more and more looks like Cuba.

Furthermore the number of fishermen were larger than ever end also the number of other tourist and this increased the pressure on the beaches and flats available for the guideless flyfishers – the cheapskates  i.e. us most of the time. For example kite surfers can really destroy a flat when they cross it at 50 km/h.

My most memorable moment was when I caught a kind of garfish (the local garfish has a lot of teeth up to 6-7 mm) after I released it into the water it opened its mouth and bit me in the knee, then it backed and swam to the guide and bit him in the leg. After this incident with a 1½ pound fish towards two 200 pound humans both humans were bleeding. It was clear who won that battle.

Thomas with a bonefish, this is classic Los Roques

Lasse with a very nice sized bonefish from the main island Gran Roque.

Los Roques and diving pelicans is a classic. This year the pelicans were diving quite close to the fishermen given them great opportunities for catching bonefish that approaches the pelicans when diving – but sometimes you also catch a pelican. This type of fishing is not my way of fishing bonefish but it is very efficient.

Thomas with a bluerunner. He spotted a school attacking very close to the beach while we were waiting for our lobster at a restaurant on Craskey and he ran down and got this nice fish. We were hesitating a bit and got nothing, determination pays. Normally there is many opportunities like this but this year we did not see many attacks and that is a pity as I find this type of fishing very intense and entertaining.

The lobster Thomas ran away from. It is not the cheapest lunch but it is one of the best. 

Our guide Chapin on a pancake flat. We had some very interesting fishing on these pancakes and I would recommend Chapin as guide, he really knew his stuff.

I also managed to be in a picture – even with a hookup

And then a quick release and a bad photo – that is life

While moving around with the guide Lasse had a handline out and got this barracuda. A nice fish that really woke him from his sleep, but as chairman of the bombayfly he will have a hard time explaining that he is fishing with a handline.

The local fishermen lands many different species like Wahoo, sailfish, barracuda etc.

Los Rouqes is not just bonefish, you may catch many species a lot them we do not know the name of but it is always fun to catch something you don ´t see back home. 

A carite – a small spanish mackerel.

A small jack.

A pompano – looks like a small permit

A yellow tail snapper

Description of my stripping basket

 

• Cones in the bottom are the best way to minimize problems with the shooting line. Here the number and the placement are optimized.
• In a large stripping basket, the shooting line is easy to place and with more room for the flyline, less problems occur. This is naturally most important when you have a lot of flyline in the basket, i.e., when you are making long casts.
• Low weight and the curved back improves the comfort.

 

 

 

 

• No protruding edges on the inside or outside can catch the flyline.

• Built in handle to facilitate transport.
• Quality buckle mounted on a 50 mm wide belt ensures comfort and makes it easy to release the belt.
• Belt holes with “anti-twist” and tight tolerances prevent twisting of the belt and minimize unintended water leakage.
• The stripping basket is made from a special polypropylene for minimum weight, maximum strength at low and high temperatures and resistance to UV radiation.

 

 

 

• Built in rod holder.
• Discrete colour.
• To order

Stripping basket in the art

Painting by the danish artist Peter Carlsen.  It is  called “Villy is hooked up”

floating device when swimming

If you when fishing in the tropics need to cross a channel too deep to wade then you may use your stripping basket as a floating device to keep your gear dry.

Gudenåen, 21/3-2010

A drifting trip with Henrik, Lars and Jan from Kongensbro to Tange sø. It was quite windy but that did not matter untill we reached the lake where we had to work quite hard to move forward. Lars started with a very good pike at 8,3 kg corresponding to 18 pounds but unfortunately he was too much upstream for me to take a photo.

Later I got a nice 11 pounder which I was very pleased with even if I don´t look pleased.

I was even more satisfied when I hooked and landed an even better fish that really spinned the pontoon boat around. It was a pike on  app. 18 pound.

Here Jan is fighting a pike under supervision of Henrik.

When we had lunch break we all had caught fish and landed some very nice sized fish, and normally the fishing is better after lunch – probably not because of the time but due to place. But today we got fish after lunch but mostly smaller ones and not that many. At the end of the day we had caught 18 pikes all together and as I got 6 and my so for best pike on a fly I was very satisfied.

Gudenåen, 20/3-2010

The first trip in Denmark in 2010 was a drifting trip with Lars and Thomas. It was also my first trip with my new pontoon boat made by Lars, and I have to say that things seemed quite convincing, so I am full of hope for a future without flat pontoons.

Three Anderson pontoon boats – a sight never seen before 😉

Thomas caught the first pike, that grabbed the fly in an unusually way as it jumped out of the water and grabbed the fly as Thomas was trying to wriggle some weed of the fly with the fly in the air!

Thomas and I each got two pikes in the 4-5 pounds range and all the pikes had leeches, a common sight at some times of the year. The lang and cold winter had also been tough on the swans as I saw seven dead swans on the banks.