Weird weekend

This was a very strange weekend. After eight days at  work, I managed to take a day off. How to spend it? The decision could therefore be only one. I'm going to go fishing :)

A few days earlier, I received a mail from Lucas. E-mail was attached to the picture...

Big Luc and small 10lber

 Lucas caught this pike like by-catch, when he was fishing for perch. Like he said, it took him more than 20 min to land this beauty on the very light perch tackle.
Why such a big pike tempted to a such tiny lure? It was strange.


I finished my shift at 12 and went to fish after.
Days are getting longer now, so I could make a short evening session. When I was on the way, Luke called me. He said that I do not have to hurry, because he took my fish,  10 minutes ago...

Lucky Luke

This pike, like previous one was caught on the perch tackle. Another strange coincidence?
When I arrived there, Luke went home. I started to fish at the same mark as him.
For the first hour I had not any single bite. The river looked like fisheless. So I decided to move downstream. It was good move:) Next 3 casts produced 3 fish for me. Cast after cast. Two first fish was a small pikes-5lb each. But the next bite was different, and after nice fight I landed...

Surprise

Salmon, on the perch lure, from my pike mark! I could not believe my eyes! She looked like post spawned fish, but was very strong and in perfect condition. 

After a quick photo, she strongly swimmed back

This particular river was known as an excellent salmon fishery in the past . It is closed for salmon fishing now, to protect the remain population and rebuild the stock. Using lures such as The Flying C is also banned.

Not much time left before dusk, so I changed location and moved to a canal nearby. Evening is a very good  for perch fishing, just as it was this time. I landed few nice spiky's, before it got  completely dark.

Fat evening perch

The night was cold, with temperature dropping several degrees below zero, but we were on the river at dawn anyway. Fishing was difficult, because our perch rods has a very small rings, which froze quickly.

Frosty morning

Perch's did not take as good as before, but we managed to cheat some of them :)

Luke and perch

When it became a little warmer, perch have disappeared from our spot . So we also moved to the different location. River was very busy today. Sunny sunday afternoon atracted many anglers. There was a local angling club competitions as well.

Fishing in the crowd

It was hard to find a gap beetween all this pole rods, feeders and pike deadbaits sets. But we managed to find a free space of the crowds. I tied green small grub on the very thin pike tracewire. My main line was 0.18mm mono. I did just few casts and...

...Quickly became crowded behind my back. They all bet on big pike . But this fish fought differently and
 after a few minutes, it became clear that this is another salmon. Big salmon-well over 10lb.  Disappointment :(

Unfortunately I was unable to unhook her in the water. But she is safely returned to the river in a few seconds later.
After that meeting, my perch jighead was looked...

So, it was a very weird weekend.
How is it possible that the salmon coexist on a  fishery along with pike and perch? Can these fish stopped there, during the trip back from their spawning grounds to the sea ? Or is this a first sign that, the salmon population slowly begins to revive, and  this river has a chance to return to the glory of the past?