Day 1 : River Vechte - Broekhuizen Weir
Sat 22nd August
Uh-oh!
We arrived to find a couple of cars in the car park. That is not the reason for the Uh-oh as they were fishing but were lure fishing on the far bank and moving around frequently. The more significant problem was that the water had almost no flow and there wasn't anything flowing over the weir. Still,we persisted and drew to see who would be upstream and who would be downstream. I drew upstream so went as close to the weir as possible and Garry went a few pegs farther downstream.
Very quiet start ... but might be improving
Neither of us had a bite in the 1st hour. Garry rang me and, whilst on the phone, I had a bite - hit the fish and then my hooklink broke an inch or so from the hook. I was gutted as it must have been damaged. We continued chatting whilst I put on a new hook and Garry then caught a Bream. Just a couple of minutes later (whilst still on the call) I also caught a Bream. We finished the call as we both thought that the Bream had arrived.
Alas
Neither of us had anymore Bream or even signs of other fish for quite a long time. I noticed a trickle of water coming over the weir. I hoped it would be the start of more water coming over and the flow picking up.
Time for a change
I had been fishing worm but then decided on the maggot feeder. After a few casts at the range I had been fishing, nothing materialised so I decided to put out the Deeper (castable sonar) to see what depth profile there was at different ranges. It did seem a little deeper at longer range so I reset my line clip to try the maggot feeder there. The flow had not increased, neither had the amount of water coming over the weir. However I started to get quick bites and caught a few Roach. They were not big fish but at least something was happening. I was hoping that better fish might find the regularly cast maggot feeder but it wasn't to be.
News from Big Zalk
Daz called me mid afternoon to see how we were getting on. He also said they were both catching Bream regularly at the lake. In fact - he had to end the call as he was into another Bream. He called me back around 20 mins later (he'd caught 2 Bream in quick succession). He said they were going elsewhere on the next day and back to Zalk in 2 or 3 days.
I called Garry to give him the news. He'd only had a few small fish after the initial Bream. We had a chat and decided to fish Big Zalk the next day. As nothing was happening here we would give it another hour then pack up and go pre-bait at the lake. Bertie was also fishing a match on the Ijssel at Cornfield (near Zalk lake) the next day so we would be able to find out how the Ijssel was fishing and meet up with Bertie for the 1st time on this trip.