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GOING DUTCH
HOLLAND GOING DUTCH
RELOCATING TO A NEW COUNTRY IS NEVER EASY, BUT WHEN GERALD PENKLER AND HIS FAMILY MOVED TO THE NETHERLANDS HE FOUND MYRIAD NEW SPECIES TO TARGET AND FRIENDLY ANGLERS WILLING TO SHARE INFO (IF YOU ABIDE BY THE UNIVERSAL RULES OF SECRET SPOT OMERTA).
Photos. Gerald Penkler
Dark eyes, cavernous jaws and razor-sharp teeth are what excited me about our move to the Netherlands. Dutch pike make short work of foot long flies and even bigger prey.
We were madly packing, or rather stuffing the house into boxes. It all started with a COVID travel window and a note from work to the effect of “move to our Dutch site now as who knows how long it will stay open for.” The chapter of my family’s move from South Africa to the UK ended as we boarded the ferry. The first blank page was penned immediately when UK border control found a wallet in my car engine compartment. Long story short, it was mine. Don’t ask. Border control did.
Relocation always brings an opportunity to make new friends, loads of learning and a richness of experiences. Fishing is no different and I quickly recognised the wealth of species finning about my new home. It was the predator closed season when we arrived in April and so the pike, zander and perch would have to wait. This gave me a chance to explore for something new and the Netherlands has lots to explore. With 17 million inhabitants, it is the second most densely populated country in the EU. Despite its small size, it is also the second largest exporter of food and agricultural products in the world. Every inch of land and water has a designated purpose.
Common bream
A neutral buoyancy baitfish pattern and the result below. Fortunately for the fish, water covers a fifth of the country. This includes deltas of two major European rivers, the Rhine and the Meuse. Beyond the popular pike, perch and zander, the list of species found here is massive. Carp, ide, asp, seabass and barbel were at the top of my list, but there was always the chance of finding tench, rudd, roach, dace bream, seatrout, wels catfish, flounder or chub too. Even the odd salmon and sturgeon move in these waters. Another interesting target is shad. Millions of allis shad and twaite shad used to migrate up the rivers from the ocean, work their way across Europe and spawn. A large relation to the herring, the allis shad grows up to 75cm in size and goes into aerial mode when hooked. Like salmon, the massive shoals no longer exist, but attempts are being made to grow the stocks once again.
I would need at least a few chapters to do justice to the fishing adventures I have had over the last six months. So instead, this is a series of anecdotes about some of the species I have been lucky enough to find so far in the Dutch aquarium.
CARP - Cyprinus carpio
Grass tips twitched and shivered as carp nosed their way across the flooded plains. It was here that I first noticed that the oil tanker carp, one in the 30lb class, would never tail or root in the mud. Instead, they zoomed up and down the margins sending small fry scattering. That evening I tied a few small suspending fry patterns to test a piscivorous theory. On tip toes to keep the important parts dry, I tried my best to impersonate a heron. Only my eyes moved as I followed a large carp finning into range. Plop. She twitched her whiskers, smacked her lips and slurped in the fly. I held tight, to breaking point as she muscled towards the overgrowth and freedom. I could not resist a small fist pump as she heaved into the net. It is moments like these that make all the legwork of finding visible carp worth it.
PRUSSIAN CARP - Carassius gibelio
Tails and fins broke the surface in a grassy corner. ‘Carp or bream?’ I wondered. Slithering through the mud into range, sitting motionless in the grass, a small carp caught my eye. Without hesitation it nibbled a small red tag woolly worm. I missed this one, but sure enough another small carp came swimming towards me. This time it charged and gobbled the fly. After some flapping, it flopped into the net. Peering into the net I frowned. Someone had taken a carp, decorated it with a frilly tail, armed it with a beak and sprinkled it with cuteness. What was this? A friend Whatsapped me the answer - the Prussian carp. (Right)
COMMON BREAM - Abramis brama
Slimy, stinky and as powerful as a wet bag. The first bream I hooked reminded me of a myotonic goat. It got a fright, froze, floated to the surface and slimed my net. Their lack of fight is a pity, since they are everywhere in good numbers.
Zander I have had one exception while plumbing a deep run, in search of barbel, Barbus barbus. The line paused in the drift and I lifted into something heavy. It swirled off, stayed deep, and chugged downstream. Yes! A barbel. The dream burst as it rose up the water column and flopped on the surface. A beautiful bream, deep bronze and in perfect health. This fighting version is not so bad, but I would still have preferred a barbel. At least pike love them.
RUDD - Scardinius erythrophthalmus
I could no longer resist. I had not seen a carp all morning and these schools of rising fish between the weed beds were too tempting. Off came the carpbol fly and on went a small dry. The ripples from the Parachute Adams disappeared in a spray of silver and red. I continued picking them off for at least an hour, vowing to bring my 2-weight next time. With upturned mouths, rudd specialise in surface feeding. They are a great target for sight fishing as they skitter about near the surface. I only saw specimens up to about 15cm, but they do grow to triple this size.
IDE - Leuciscus idus
Purple, orange and yellow reflected off the surface in the breaking dawn. In the dark oily swirls, fin after fin broke the surface. Ide. I was casting streamers hoping to find asp, another early riser and relation of the ide. As soon as it became fully light the activity stopped and I headed upstream. I spotted an ide cruising along the bank towards me. Crouching, I switched the streamer for a squirmy and made a short cast. It left a shimmer of scales behind in its haste to eat it. Ide remind me a lot of chub in that they are very skittish, but if you catch them unawares they are happy to attack a fly with gusto. They grow to around 50cm in size, but they often hybridise with asp resulting in much larger specimens.
ZANDER - Sander lucioperca
Friday night. 10 pm. We had launched the float tubes a few hours earlier and it was finally getting darker. One of my new Dutch fishing friends, Raymond van Ewijk, had a theory that Zander would be waiting on this drop off, ready to move into the shallows under the cover of darkness. I was very confident as Raymond spends hundreds of hours on the water and has the fishing knack. Sure enough, my line ripped tight and a strip set met a solid shake. This one felt bigger as my 9-weight arched flat, line pulled through my fingers and my float tube spun around following it. This is abnormal for a zander and we expected a good pike. Big steely eyes, spiky fins and sharp teeth broke the surface. Straight out of Jurassic Park, the zander is not going to win any beauty contests. However, this small 60cm specimen demonstrated why they have such a following.
ASP - Leuciscus aspius
Chasing asp and long summer days cannot come back soon enough. Raymond and Tim van Putten, another multi-species fly angler with the knack and some big asp to his name, showed me the ropes. Always on the move, picky, and with a penchant for ultra-fast retrieves, the asp is a tricky species on fly. With ferocious leader-popping takes that appear out of nowhere, the effort is worth it.
We froze as our eyes locked. The asp sank away from the edge into the depths. I was on a shallow bank covered with bait fish. The asp were aware and patrolling the drop off. I made a cup of tea, ate a sandwich and hoped that the asp would return. Recharged, I cast a small white zonker along the drop off. Within milliseconds, two asp had left bow waves in disgust. Another cast got the same treatment. Time for another cup of tea and a switch to a small game changer. Plop. Strip. Boom! I picked up several asp with this tactic. Some took the fly as it landed, others wanted a double handed super-fast strip and others took a more erratic strip. But, every one of them smashed the fly as hard and as fast as they could. Next season cannot come soon enough.
SEABASS - Dicentrarchus labrax
Aggressive, strong and dirty fighters, seabass are another species with a cult following. Unfortunately, they are also a popular and expensive table fish. The populations have crashed and even the once-famed fishing in the Europoort is a shadow of what it used to be. I will never forget my first seabass take. The 9-weight ripped flat and I strip set hard. Big fish. Surely? I was wrong. After a brief tussle a small ‘schoolie’ came to hand. We caught many schoolies that day. Each take was spectacular and for the first second you wait, hoping it turns into the big powerful run of a big fish.
TROUT - Oncorhynchus mykiss and Salmo trutta
The Netherlands is not trout country, but there are some stocked lakes. A famous water is Oostvoornse meer, an oasis in the industrial Europoort. It is unique as it is brackish and harbours saltwater species such as flounder and herring as well as rainbow and brown trout. There are massive brown trout with stunning markings that resemble leopard print. Having caught enough seabass schoolies we paid it a short visit. A calm evening and stunning views felt at odds with the heavy industry surrounding the area. The small rainbow was not needed for me to know that I have to return on the float tube in search of those big piscivorous brown trout.
Secrecy is important in The Netherlands and deeply embedded in the angling community. With good reason. The country is well populated and most water is near to roads. Anything recognisable in an Instagram post, be it a tree, a building or bridge means that you have five anglers there the next day. Despite this, Dutch anglers are generally very friendly and happy to show you the ropes. Give away a secret spot though and you might find yourself fattening up the next generation of Wels catfish.
The first season has been an amazing experience so far. For now, my focus has shifted to winter perch and pike. Once the waters warm up again, I hope to have more stories to add about Dutch barbel, wels catfish and shad.
