Lake Geneva - Lure fishing

Lake Geneve - Lure fishing - 2013

1m20 : my new record pike record on Lake Geneva

In my article of the end of February I let you know that I have caught my first pike with the Creeper from Art Baits.
It is Sunday, March 10th and I finally have some time to go fishing again on Lake Geneva. It promises to be a beautiful spring day with temperatures around 13 °C. Early in the morning around 7am I still scratching the ice from the windshield, but there is no wind, so it's a pleasant morning on the lake. The lake is flat as a mirror so it is a perfect day for whitefish fishing. Locally called ‘Féra’ or ‘Coregone’.
But after my first pike in February, I could not withstand the desire to take my pike rod in the hand to test my rod for the violence of a great lake monster pike.
I start jigging the slopes from 5 meters to 20 meters with my lure.

Once you get to my desired location, I see some boats in deeper water. These fishermen cast their lines around 35 to 40 meters deep and they fish statically for whitefish.

As I don’t see any fish on the sonar, I ‘flipper’ gently to 30 meters. I set the zoom of my sonar more sensitive to detect possible whitefish that are glued on the bottom of the lake. When I start to see the first fish, I take my dropshot rod and let a few nymphs down. There's nothing going on. Just what I expected, because it is still early in the morning and probably still too cold. I decided to leave the fishing for whitefish until the afternoon.

I hang around at the 30 meter because something tells me that a small whitefish could be a tasty breakfast of a big pike. I take my pike rod with my pink Creeper, leaded with 30 g. This weight allows me to cast far away what is important at great depths otherwise the lure hits the bottom only when it is vertically below the belly boat.
My first try is immediately the good one: a relatively discreet touch followed by a nice fight. I think having a real beast online. It fights back heavily and is not planning to put its nose immediately to the surface. Now my new rod is really tested but I have no doubt, it feels solid for this size of fish.
With the adequate patience I can get the monster at surface. It is not easy to find a way to put this lady on my knees and within seconds everything around me is covered with a layer of pike glue. 1.20m is measured for this pike and the lady made me sign a new personal record. With the other fishermen around, I have the chance for getting a picture.

It is now 10:30 and I decide to go home for lunch.

In the afternoon, I'm back on the water. It takes me about half an hour to where I had the pike this morning, and I saw the signals whitefish again. I fish with red nymphs, on hooks of 12 with golden beads as head. There are still two boats from this morning and still around 40 meters. These fishermen fish with two to three rods armed with a series of 6 nymphs. Viewing the number of lines that they have out, they can only fish passively and react when they see a touch. I doubt if they do not miss the majority of their chances. The touch of a whitefish is so subtle that one can hardly feel it. That is why I try to keep my lead as close as possible to the bottom of the lake without keeping it at the bottom. So I go with very small movements up and down while touching the bottom occasionally in order to control that I am not drifting to deeper water. With this technique I feel a weight difference when a whitefish bites. I don’t make the effort anymore to make 6 nymphs on my line. Experience has taught me that I catch everything at the two nymphs closest to the bottom. After 15 minutes my fellow fishermen see me catching a first whitefish, not that big but with its 35 cm it's still a nice fight.

Not even 5 minutes later I get a new hit. The golden headed red nymphs are the right choice for today. This time the fight is much tougher. Repeatedly the whitefish gets off back to 30 meters and I cannot overcome it by risk of breaking my line. For at least 10 minutes my rod is bent into a U-shape with its point in the water. I do not dare tighten the reel too hard because my wire of 0,2 mm will not resist.

Meanwhile, there are already two boats that stopped to watch the battle. Another 10 minutes and a few nice runs later, I see the whitefish closer to the surface. It is really a big one. Indeed, a large more than 60 cm whitefish, comes up to show for a few seconds. But immediately he disappears under my flippers and he unhooks…

Really too bad, but I'm glad I had a glimpse of it. Also my audience had never seen a whitefish of this size.

Well, it was a beautiful day and I thought, two records on the day would have been too much. I will re-do the record whitefishing another day.

Enjoy the upcoming spring fishing - Roel