The weather was beautiful, thus finding the fish would truly be a challenge. Warm and sunny with mild wind. Nevertheless we tried to be optimistic and hold our confidence high.
We arrived to the first area which looked like it has potential. I steered the boat so that it would drift alongside the reef and we could fish the area efficiently. We tried our best to go through every rock, weed and reed to find some fish but it wasn't easy. After some twenty casts Eki caught his first, a small pike under a kilo. I had a bite too but the fish pulled itself loose. The area wasn't convincing at all considering our success in the coming competition, for we had no other contacts with the fish there. However we decided to come there on Wednesday after all.
Not a bad weather for trolling. |
We still went through several different places with varying features. Shallow and deep bays, rockpiles in open water, wide shallows and such. We also tried some trolling along some underwater banks but the fish were really hard to catch, for even though we did all we could do and only caught a few small pikes and around ten perch. Eventually our limited time ran out and we headed towards home admiring the glaring sunset.
Our scouting trip came out to be as bad as we were afraid it would be. We managed to stay positive however. After all, the weather was wonderful and it's always refreshing to be at sea. Maybe this bad scouting trip will mean the competition day will turn out fine? Who knows, we'll see how it goes on Wednesday.
Flat out on the sea lane. |