26-04-08 Lake Ekete (Lithuania)

[Wandering_Angler]

An absolutely glorious blue sky with warm sunshine made it a perfect day to make my first trip to Lake Ekete since the end of winter. With the sun on my back I decided on a leisurely bike ride to the far end of the lake and a swim I have wanted to try for a while, next to the spot I call Boulders.



On arrival the water looked perfect and soon I was fishing a feeder out beyond a reed bed to my left, dropping the bait amongst the remains of what was once woodland before the area was flooded. I also put a waggler out in front of me about 2 rod lengths out into about 8 feet of water, fishing single maggot died bronze with aniseed powder over a bed of bread crumb mixed with vanilla flavored wheat, roasted and crushed hemp, chopped meat with garlic and maggot.

In the two swims further to my right, the first of which being Boulders, I have had a number of nice Bream and was expecting a bonanza of decent fish but this was to be one of those sessions my Granddad always calls ‘Tiddler Bashing’, and it soon became apparent that while I would be busy it wouldn’t be with the landing net as virtually every cast resulted in a small silver ranging from around ½ an ounce to 2 ounces at best.



Small fish or not, it is hard to not feel very satisfied sitting in a ‘T’ shirt warmed by the sun looking out on a beautiful lake. Every now and then a swan would gracefully swim by or some sea birds would come to rest on the sunken trees while the endless chirping of frogs and toads left me in no doubt that summer was truly now just around the corner.



In the end I had 345 fish in just over 7 hours for a weight of around 40 Lbs in a bag that included Roach, Rudd, Skimmers, Bleak and Perch. This is the most fish I have caught in Lithuania in one session although I have had more in the UK but all in all another great day and I went home happy :)

[Banana Steve]

nice catch, well done. thats a lot of fish. do the waters produce large fish, like Bream and Carp etc. I just wondered or are they taken for the Pot by the locals.

[Wandering_Angler]

Some locals do take fish for the pot but then they would usually only fish for an hour or so and would never take more than they actually need so it would usually be just 3 or 4 tops.

That all said there is virtually no pressure on the water, especially if you compare it to the UK. To put the stock levels into perspective, catches of less than 100 fish April to October are rare and 200+ is quite common.

Larger fish are there in abundance but there is so much water, finding them is not always that easy. Over 6000 Lakes, the Curonian Lagoon and countless rivers stretched accross a virtually empty country (most of the population is held in the 5 main cities) means that every session is an adventure :)

[Banana Steve]

Nice, So it must be lovely to go fishing and enjoy nature at its best and not have loads of people crammed on one venue.

[pingu]

Nice one WA


dave

[Norfolkboy]

Nice catch mate