Matching the hatch is important says Steven Bokstal - On a trip to the Europoort in Roterdam there are fish to be caught and records to be broken!
(Click on any picture to enlarge)
I like to take to the water to fish. Normally I fish from my Hobie kayak but I like to fish from small boats too! Wednesday the 6th of August was the day that I went fishing with Lesley Luijer on his Warrior 175 . Lesley is a fishing guide at Europoort , the port of Rotterdam and he has a fine reputation as a skipper that can find fish.
Tuesday , the evening before, I had a call from my friend Olle Bulder . Olle was still on hollydays but had to abort his vacation in France for private reason and could use some distraction. So the arrangement was made the three of us would head take to the water.
Next morning we met at the beach near Hoek van Holland . We stuffed the boat with our gear and when we were ready to launch we were collected by a tractor and was pulled to the waters edge . Fortunate we had a very calm sea , so we could launch quite easily and we were soon heading towards our first mark .
The weather forecast wasn’t that nice . We had to deal with a south southwestern wind up to 15 knots and in the afternoon we would get some rain as well . There is nothing you can do about the weather other than to be as prepared as you can!
A few days before, Lesley was given a tip from a fellow boat angler , who had a great session and would give him the coordinates . He caught his fish with a specific kind of pirk and would arrange some of them for us . Twenty minutes after the launch we we met the guy on the spot . On the fishfinder you could see an enbankment with a difference of 2 meters . so Les putted the coordinates in his plotter wich is linked with a Minn Kota i-pilot , so we didn’t need to anchor . this has many advantages ; you can move in a instant and doesn’t make any disturbing noises . The I-Pilot is a superb piece of technology and the Minn-Kota connects effortlessly with the Hummingbird GPS/Fishfinder.
Minn Kota’s I-Pilot
A few minutes later we were ready to fish ! Me and Les started with a Black Minnow 120 from Fiiish and Olle tried his home made look a like . It didn’t take long before I had my first hook up . I felt instantly that it was a cod who took the BM . It was headbanging like a nutter! Olle and Lesley were also into fish . They were all cod on this spot. Cod are nice but we were searching for bass . When the current was weakening also the hook ups became less . It was time for another spot.
The next spot was in front of a jetty made of big boulders . At some places there were holes in the jetty and you could see some current streaming in from the other side of the jetty . These were the places where we could expect some bass . A perfect ambush for these predators . It didn’t take long before my first bass was landed . I caught with a BM but with a smaller weight of 12 grams . Thirty minutes passed and we already had 6 bass hooked ! Then we had a visit from two older gents who also had bought some BM’s from Lesley and didn’t know how to fish them . I just thrown in my BM and Les told him that I would give them a demonstration . ‘Just throw it in front of the boulders , let it sink to the bottom and give it a slowly retrieve and whip it up a few times ‘ . At that moment I had the feeling that the lure was getting stuck so I gave it some firm tapping to get it loose . Just at that moment my rod bends down to the water and the reel starts screaming! ‘Wooow , this is a big wopper !!’ You had to see the faces of those two older guys ! but our faces as well. My heart was pounding like crazy . Meanwhile that bass was going in every direction and where I was afraid of under our boat as well . Then he/she choose the opposite direction and suddenly the fishing line snapped . Simultaneously we yelled a shout of dissilusion. I asumed that the line must have touched the bottom of the boat that caused the break . This could have been the biggest bass I’ve ever caught ! I estimated that bass was around 80 cm or maybe more , by the feeling of it’s power . ? I was gutted and of course I had to hear it for the rest of our trip ; ‘You had to do this and you should have done that’ . But at that moment I was so excited and stunned at the same time so mistakes can happen then .
We headed back to our first spot in order to fish with the outgoing tide . Again it didn’t take long before the first fish came aboard . Now the cod were good size fish and we kept 9 pieces for ourselves . Now Lesley was trying the pirk that was given to us and a few moments later he hooked a bass . Without hesitating Olle and myself changed our BM for the pirk and after the first cast we were also into bass . Double and triple hookups followed each other in a quick pace ! Lesley told us at that moment that his boat record was 56 fish . We are going to break that record Les ! 56,57,58….59 ! the bass were in a frenzy , actually we also were in a daze . Incredible fishing! Meanwhile the current was getting stronger and stronger and suddenly the frenzy was over. Typical of bass, it was time to move on.
We went back to the jetty but it didn’t made a big difference anymore . Just a few bass for the other guys and we counted that day of on 70 fish and settled a new boat record ! Meanwhile the rain was getting worse and we dicided to go back to shore . Back on land we cleaned the fish we had kept and had a reminisce of a good day fishing. We had a few drinks at the clubhouse to celebrate.
We can’t wait for our next meeting with Lesley ! If you like to go out on a fishing trip at the Europoort in the Netherlands , you can contact him at his site : www.bassexpress.nl
Oh….. the pirk that did the damage?
Anglers! What else would you expect!
