Say hello to my little friend!

YES! Finally, yesterday was payday after my recent fishing antics, catching pretty much nothing but plants and algae. Last weekend I lost a really nice hook in a silly attempt at fishing in completly worthless conditions, and the week before that I sprained an ankle as me and Andres made a little trip in the woods. I was out by myself, getting hungry and at the final stop of the day. At the bottom of a big cliff I had climbed down, feeling sort of like a failure. Then this one took a bite on my hook!

Elegant. Swedish fish equivalent to JAS 39 Gripen! The width of the hoop is about 60 cm.

It´s pretty much my first catch ever, and before I had no idea how it actually feel to have one firmly on the hook. Now I do! On my fifth or sixth throw I felt the rod twitching, so I held off a little on the reel, and a second later it was literally screaming. I quickly tightened the let-off a little (or reel-brake of whatever it´s called) and realised it was something p r e t t y big on the other end. I had read up on the lake I was fishing in and suspected it was a pike. And she put put up one hell of a fight, it was probably a female as I’ve read that male pikes don´t get this big. I was more or less sweating after a few minutes when I started seeing huge marks coming up on the surface. I also had my polarizing shades so I could see down into the water a bit. She pulled really hard at times and every time the reel started screaming I only recall thinking something like “nonononononoooo, please, you´re not that big!”. I quickly caught up with what technique to use though, carefully catching up the line after each “round” and simply holding still or letting go a little as she pulled. After a while though there was no question about what it was as I got it up to the surface. I was standing there for a moment, somewhat confused and stressed out, just holding the rod and staring at it before getting the hoop. I was really surprised about how much the fish weighted as I lifted it out of the water. I can´t say how much, but it was heavy. Getting the hook out was a little tricky as two of the three hooks was firmly lodged in the outer edge of the lower jaw, and when I finally got it out it was all bent. Before getting the hook out I also had to mess around a with getting the jaw-opener firmly in place as I didn’t exactly feel like sticking my hand into the mouth as there was a huge amount of teeth in there. I was also really surprised about how hard it bite down at times.

The hook I used, not a big one but apparently interesting enough.

For a moment I thought about killing and cooking it, but in the end I concluded that it was larger than what I was allowed to bring with me. I really felt I had gotten enough satisfaction out of catching it though, and she proved to be such a respectable opponent (this day) so I let her back into the water. Afterwards I was almost shaking as I just had the biggest adrenaline rush in a long time. I walked back home, wearing a silly smile on my face the rest of the day.

And last but not least, I now have the office fishing record, BAM!

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