Day 3 : Ketelmeer

Mon 24th August

Anticipation

We were expecting good things following on from the excellent weights caught by all anglers here just 2 days earlier (several in the 50 & 60 kilo region). The morning had quite a lot of low mist especially around the river. We could see whisps of mist obscuring the mid-portions of the wind turbine towers. Also, the bridge at Kampen was shrouded in mist so that only the tops of the towers were visible above the mist - I really should have taken some photos - mental note for the future! As we approached Ketelmeer there was a delta-like area as several rivers opened up into Ketelmeer. These were ostensibly very shallow with just a few deeper boat channels. They were so shallow that we could see wading birds stood up hundreds of metres from shore.

Ketelmeer - where rivers converge

Ketelmeer is a large expanse of open water where several large rivers converge. On the left you can see  a bridge where Ketelmeer opens out into Ijsselmeer, Ketelmeer is tiny by comparison as can be seen in the next image where Ketelmeer is shown with a dotted outline.

Ketelmeer - last stop before Ijsselmeer

Apparently huge shoals of Bream inhabit Ijsselmeer and Ketelmeer and it is their spawning migration into the lakes fed by the Ijssel that results in great fishing in April/May.

Off we go

We had seen from Google maps that a road and cycle path ran parallel to the south shore of Ketelmeer. Parking can be done at the side of the road (in the grass between road and cycle path). The peg numbers have been painted onto the tarmac of the cycle path. However these had faded and were barely visible. We foolishly expected to be parked fairly close to where we fished. Whilst that is true when viewed from above, we hadn't accounted for the steep grass slope between the road and cycle path and then the steep stoney slope from the cycle path down to the water.

We started fishing at the range suggested by Bertie. He arrived after us but was fishing before us. It had taken an hour or so before the Bream turned up during the match so we weren't expecting a quick start.

Minutes turn to hours...

Nothing at all was happening, even after a few hours. The main difference between today and match day is that the wind had turned from being westerly and very strong to being easterly and quite light early on. It was also a bright sunny day.

The result

I ended up with 1 tiny Roach. Bertie had a dozen or so and a small Perch. Garry had 1 Loach and 11 small Roach. We were all surprised and disappointed in how poorly it had fished today - none more so than Bertie as he had seen first hand what it was capable of. For my part, I was just glad that Bertie was with us because that proved that it wasn't us doing anything wrong.

Current tally, 1 win for me,  2 for Garry.

Tomorrow

Daz and Andy had been on the Ijssel at Railway today. They only had a few Roach between them so had also had a poor day.  As we were just about to leave, Daz and Andy turned up to see Ketelmeer as they had never been. They were going back to Zalk tomorrow as they needed fish after their poor day on the river.

After today and having seen the poor state of the Ijssel and Vechte, we decided that we had to go back to Big Zalk. Consequently we finished mid-afternoon at Ketelmeer and went to pre-bait Big Zalk as it was on our way back anyway.

We had seen the weather forecast for tomorrow and were expecting a strong wind blowing toward us. We therfore used the Deeper to find the closest area of around 21 feet deep. We found a large plateau around that depth and it started to shallow around 27m out. Therefore we set our line clips to 30m and pre-baited at that range. This would be much easier than a long cast if the headwind developed.