Gudenåen, 24/2-2012

A drift trip for pikes with 2 x Henrik, Sten, Kim and Klaus. It was VERY windy, so a loft of hard work especially for two fishing from belly boat.

Sten was man of the day. Here he is fighting the biggest pike of the day.

It was a pike in the 7-8 lbs range. Most of the pikes were 3-4 lbs so no big ones today. Sten caught 10 pikes out our total of 17 so he did very well. I got 3 and lost one so it could have been better but also worse.

When Tange sø looks like this then it is hard work to go into the wind. One man gave up half way and the rest do not have to worry about the fitness center today as we have had our work out.

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Los Roques february 2012

As the temperatures in Denmark was well below the freezing point (actually down to -20 degrees below) it was nice to go back to Los Roques once again with warm weather, sun and plenty of fast swimming fish.

The Danish Los Roques team was Rene, Ib, Eigil, Niels, Niels and myself. Christian and Berit that lived in a posada a few blocks away from the Plaza was also present but not at the moment of this photo. Eigil and Niels travelled by themselves but were at LR in the same period as the rest.

We stayed at posada Doña Magalys which is in the budget end but we were very satisfied with the hospitality and the food. Magalys is apparently a big fan of Hugo Chavez – why I don´t know.

Lorenzo is the name of the posadas pet parrot which was very fond of Rene.

Our primary target fish was the bonefish which can be caught blindfishing with minnow patterns in deeper waters or sight fished on the flats. I definitely prefer the sight fishing despite that it often not is a productive, but it is better fun.

When unhooking a bonefish it often makes the fish much calmer if you put it upside down.

Rene with a nice bonefish. The average size on Los Roques is quite good app. 4 lbs. This year I did not catch any big ones but even fish in the 4 -6 lbs. range can produce spectacular runs when hooked. Actually all kinds of fish down here are much stronger and faster than what we are used to back home.

We fished some days on our own and other days with guides. With our first guide Jesus we had several double hookups on the flats but every time one of us lost a fish during the fight. This was the first time we succeeded landing two fish at a time but from the boat. We did it later again with our other guide Alet.

One day fishing with Alet we fished for fish hunting at the surface. This is always very intense and I really like the action of this fishing. We kept the fish so we could have it for lunch as Alet promised to cook it. As you can see we got to lobsters not by fishing but by exchanging some of our fish.

Here Alet prepares our lobster and fish lunch on some Venezuelan design furniture including both chair and table in one.

A bonefish in its right element just before landing. It was hooked at this depth as well so one of my favourite hookups on the trip.

We caught also other species than bonefish – here a snapper

And a carite – a spanish mackerel. You need luck or a wire leader to land this fish and a plier to unhook it. They have incredible sharp teeth.

a small tuna

a blue runner

a pompano looks like a permit but never grows big. An austrian flyfisher got a 14 kg permit one of the days, a very impressive fish.

Eigil with a false albacore

Rene with a yellow tail snapper

A lady fish. Also called poor mans tarpon. They jump like tarpon but don´t grow big. I caught 3 ladyfish in 3 casts and then Rene tried for 20 20 minutes without any luck – I could not get my arms down 😉

Rene he caught a tarpon on the main island. That is really an achievement as we almost did not see any and even when you see many it can be very hard to catch one. Rene fished most af the time with a head cam and he got all of his tarpon fight on video. I hope and expect that I later can put some of his video on the blog.