Oh yes, oh yes! We can finally fish for pike, perch and zander again after the annual closed season has passed. Yes, there is a loophole where you can fish for them using worms, but as I like to fish with lures I always look forward to the last Saturday of May, when the season opens again after two months of not chasing those big Dutch pike.

Careful release of a Dutch giant!

The closed season on its own is a bit of an outdated format, as it is created to protect our predatory fish during spawning. Back in the days when winters were still cold, most pike spawned at the end of April. In these modern times with warmer climate, most already spawned mid-March. It would fit these modern times better to have a closed season in August or so, protecting them when the temperatures are too high, in order to fish for them responsibly.

During the opening of the Dutch season, our favorite style of fishing is with swimbaits that run as realistic as possible. The 25cm line-thru roach is always a winner this time of year. The Moderate Sink (MS) version can be trolled close behind the paravane, while the Slow Sink(SS) is great for casting and trolling above the grass. Most of the time the grass is 30 to 50 centimeters below the surface, which is perfect for these lures. Just run your lures as high as you can over the grass, and you are good to go!

Monsters in between the grass…

Our weekend consisted of one long session and multiple short trips, benefiting from the early mornings and late evenings. We had one session with over 30 fish and several big meter+ pike. Overall we caught two heavily build fish over 10kg with the biggest one topping of at 116cm for my buddy Jesper!

In the video below, you can watch the short trailer, of what to expect from the full video

– WATCH FULL VIDEO HERE – 
 

Watch the whole video HERE ​
 

116cm giant for Jesper!​

A big bonus during the first weeks of the season are the zander that are still really shallow. Stunning colors, black with gold and green and purple spots on their fins. Who wouldn’t want to catch a zander like that while fishing for pike? 

Simply amazing how the zander look this time of year!​

The coming weeks we will focus on benefitting from the short grass, fish the spots we want and cannot fish in a few weeks. After that it will either be super shallow, surface or weedless… Or go pelagic!

Good luck the coming weeks guys, make the most out of these long and sunny days!