Trout Fishing, Angelpark Fischhaus Letscher

Chasing Rainbows In The Black Forest

Angelpark Fischhaus Letscher, Zinsbachwiesen 7, 72213 Altensteig, Germany

Angelpark Fischhaus Letscher

It was time for my annual visit to Germany, to catch up with family, a short trip staying at four addresses over five day, but I was a little bit more excited about this trip as we had managed to arrange for Sarah's brother Emil to take me fishing for Rainbow Trout in Germany's Black Forest. Emil had visited England where I had taken him beach casting at Hasting, a far cry from teasing Trout, this was a second leg of our friendly rivalry, and he was at home whilst I would be the one watching and learning a very new way to fish for a species that until now, I have never really given any time to catching. We set off early at 7am, it was still dark and cold, and in the crisp morning sunrise I got to see the beautiful Black Forest covered in a light sprinkling of snow as we drove the hour to the venue.

England Vs Germany - Round 2

As we pulled up to Angelpark Fischhaus Letscher I was surprised to see how busy it was, lots of anglers milling about the three lodges and taking position in swims on the many small lakes which were arranged like any other commercial fishery and all fed by a small Black forest stream meandering through the complex. We took our tackle to the first lake where we met with Emil's friend Heinrich and laid claim to our swims by putting our tackle on some of the benches that surrounded the lake. Fishing started at 9am, which gave us plenty of time to set up, prepare the bait, pay at the fishing lodge, and even get a drink of mulled wine each. I also took time to walk around a few of the other lakes, some of which had thousands of trout, farming pools and some with very large trout obviously specimen lakes, but as I looked at our lake I could not see a single fish? the water was gin clear, where were they?

Berkly Powerbait Dough Paddle Tail

I had asked Emil about the rules and it seemed that Berkley Powerbait Dough was the only bait allowed and most of the emphasis was on how to kill the Trout once caught, a swift hit to the back on the head with a priest and then cut the throat with a knife before any unhooking or photos. Emil had kindly lent me a small 6' telescopic rod with a small 3000 sized reel loaded with 5lb line, the rigs were a little confusing to me at first as we used loaded floats attached to 5 barrelled swivels to reduce twisting with a 2 meter trace of 4lb line with a size 10 hook, and a few split shot about 12" away from the bait. It wasn't until I realised that the bait was fished like a lure and the float was only to aid in casting and even more so, to show other anglers where you were fishing so you could avoid tangling together. Emil taught me to twist two different colours of Berkley Powerbait together into sausage then divide up and rolled into small balls the size of marbles. then the hook was pushed into the bait and the rolled into an elongated tear shape, and moulded over the knuckle on your hand to produce the tail section of a shad. I was really impressed at how good the bait looked as it spun and vibrated mimicking a small fish as it was slowly pulled through the clear water.

Hungary Trout Chasing Dough?

As we chatted away, the rest of the anglers started casting, it was 9 o clock and fishing time, causing a slight panic as if we were late for something?, I looked along the bank and chuckled to myself as it looked like twenty odd spidermen were all shooting webs out across the small lake. I cast out and it was apparent that with approx 3 to 4 meters between each angler this was going to be tight, very tight. I watched the bait spin alluringly through the water, but apart from one fish that I had seen earlier, I could see that it was a pointless cast as I couldn't see any fish within 15 meters of my bait. Then as if by magic, the Trout were being introduced to the lake by the inlet pipe just to the left of my swim, there were at least 6 trout swimming around in front of me, I attempted to cast out, but I was slow, and I had to wait until a clear spot to cast into because everyone else to the right and left of me were all casting directly at the confused fish which were swimming in frantic circles chasing many different baits in many different directions, and this continued until the fish were out of casting range. It seemed like madness, and it was! but there was a method, very careful well timed casts and making the most of it when others were not fishing due to re baiting and unhooking were paramount to being successful. I was lucky enough to hook and land my first fish a little under a 1lb in this excitable moment of mayhem.

Winner Gets To Kiss The Old Trout

This was fishing, but not quite what I'm used to, but the excitement of seeing the Trouts following and hit your bait was a sheer delight, and when a Trout ignored your beautifully vibrating bait as it passed its nose, or even took the bait and then manged to spit the hook out just before you struck was so frustrating. As quick as the madness started it stopped, all the fish were either already caught or by sheer luck had managed not to see a alluring powerbait spinner, I decided to leave my rod out of the water and re baited the hook ready for the next wave of Trout to enter the mosh pit via the inlet pipe. During the next waves of introduced Trout I managed to catch 5 and Emily managed to catch 4 before our fishing time was up, We had decided the winner was the one with the most weight, it was close as all Emil's fish were big whilst I had 3 small and 2 bigger ones. We took our fish to a gutting station on the complex, where we weighed out fish. the scales were a bit temperamental but the weights seemed about right, but my fish weighed 2.45kg and Emil's fish weighed 2.25kg. Although I had somehow managed to beat Emil, the only thing that really mattered was that we had enough fish to feed the whole family who were coming around for dinner. It had been a really exciting days fishing, and although not the most challenging and more like shooting fish in a barrel, it had been a lot of fun, productive, and a very sociable day out, and one that I could recommend to anyone visiting the Black Forest, just make sure you can cook what you catch! And the way Emil cooked the Trout, seasoned with curry powder, paprika, worcester sauce then stuffed with onions and garlic butter was absolutely divine!

Curried Trout, Lecker Lecker!

Pike Fishing, Bewl Water

Luck Also Comes In Threes

Bewl Water, Wadhurst, East Sussex, TN5. UK

Bewl Water, Bit Difficult To Get It All In The Photo

It's that time of year again, the cold weather moving in from the north, the first morning frosts, and the rustling of red and golden leaves in the wind falling to the ground, time to get the Pike rods out and go blanking! errmm... sorry I meant fishing. No really, I go fishing a lot, and I very rarely blank, except when Pike fishing when I very rarely catch, why? I'm not too sure, lots of reasons, there are way too many variables to contemplate, but as always, I have a plan, I was going to put all my faith into a lure fishing session at Bewl Water, I've never fished Bewl Water before, never fished from a boat for pike, and considering I have only ever caught 2 or 3 Pike on lures in about 30 years, you could say that I was a bit over optimistic that I would catch, but then again if I wasn't, I would of given up fishing long ago.

Captain Newbie At Your Service

After booking a boat for half a day for me and Sarah, we set off early with one rod and reel each and a small tackle box, net and landing mat, almost nothing compared to other sessions, but a welcome change. we arrived nice and early, it was sunny with a clear blue sky and gentle breeze! I love these days. We paid our dues at the lodge and loaded up the boat. I had assigned Sarah as captain for the day, then it dawned on us that neither of us knew how to use or even start a outboard motor, well there's a first for everything. And sheepishly I headed back to the lodge to ask for a tutorial. One of the Rangers happily came and showed us the ropes, which was quite handy as I got to ask where the Pike were, and he gave us the location of a few bays to try. Now with the engine turning over and drifting nervously away from the pontoon, we set off into the abyss, I knew this water was big and it wasn't till I looked out as far as I could see, that I realised whilst looking at the map and the shape of the water that I could only see a very small part of it, undeterred we headed west along the northern bank till we found a small sheltered bay lined with weed, it looked like it could be providing Pike with ambush cover so we set anchor.

Now My Favorite Lure! Fire Tiger Baby!

Whilst I set about Lure fishing with my 8' Snowbee Sea bass special spinning rod with Shimano Stradic 5000FJ loaded with 20lb PowerPro braid and 12" of wire trace, Sarah wanted to catch a Trout for dinner and opted to float fish sweetcorn with a 9' Shakespere Uglystik and Shakespeare Mach3 reel loaded with 6lb mono. I tried at least 8 of my lures and nothing and after 30 minutes I decided to move, I believe most of the time that if a Pike hasn't hit after 10 casts its very likely that there isn't one there, and the temptation to explore as much of this new water as possible was way too appealing to linger about anywhere too long . We upped anchor and continued along the bank till we found one of the locations the Ranger had advised we fished, I have to be honest, I wouldn't of stopped there by my own accord, no features, no bank cover, exposed to the wind and waves, but I know that experienced knowledge is invaluable most the time, and I wasn't in a position to know any better, so we set anchor and set about fishing.

A Sheer Joy Whatever Size

About 20mins had passed and again nothing, I had gone through most of my first choices of lures, spoons, spinners and soft plastics, one thing was bugging me was everything I was using was silver, the water was clear, they flash in the sunlight to imitate small natural bait fish. But with no hits I decided to go against the grain, I picked out a brightly colored 10cm firetiger E-Sox Flektor sinking lure, normally suited to cloudy waters, and cast out parallel along the bank, I let the lure sink to the bottom and had made a few flicks and reeled in about 5 meters, when bang, a single quick pull on the lure, I stopped reeling in and again I felt a knock, I stuck to set the hook and I was in, with all the lure fishing failures in the past this made my heart pound! I knew it wasn't a big fish but it meant everything to me. I played it carefully, and when it first surfaced it spectacularly tail walked in a last attempt to spit the hook before I dwarfed the small jack in a 42" specimen landing net. believe me that this fish was a long time coming and the relief as I unhooked and held him up for a photo was immense. It wouldn't matter what happened for the rest of the day, I was so happy with my first hard lure caught 2lb 12oz Pike, and nothing would change that.

Getting Smaller, But Not My Smile

But my luck would not stop there, in the next 9 casts I hooked and landed another 2 pike, one at 1lb 7oz and 1lb 2oz, yes they were going from small to bait sized!, but this was heaven for me! I had found where they were hanging about and now presenting them the right lure. But as quickly as it started it finished, probably due to disturbing the water to much and spooking them away, but we stayed a extra 30mins just in case, before I decided to head back east past the lodge to an area that the wind was pushing into a very large corner, I hoped that would give Sarah a better chance of a Trout and it seemed to be a good of a place as any to fish. We swapped rods for a bit and Sarah was really unlucky to lose a 10lb approx pike which spat the hook when it surfaced next to the boat,  we didn't have anymore bites or hits between us, maybe because I lost my lucky lure to some rocks, we tried several other bays and a creek before our day come to an end, and we motored back to the lodge at full speed for a good 10 minutes.

Last And Definitely The Least. Bring On The Beast!

What a fantastic day! the weather, the fish, the boating experience and the excitement of a new venue to explore made this a session I wont forget, and with 17 miles of bank to explore this place could keep you interested for decades, and I have no doubt that there are monsters hiding in the depths I also had another first today and a painful lesson about fishing in boats, I slipped on the wet floor whilst balancing as the boat rocked, I was attaching a lure to my trace, this left two points of a size 8 barbed treble deeply embedded in my finger! ouch....yes it hurt! but not nearly half as much as tearing the barbed hooks free with pliers, not for the faint hearted let me warn you! Just a little reminder to take extra care whilst handling hooks on a boat.

Oh Captain My Captain