The first fish I catch in the new year always feels special to me – it feels like a reward, for enduring the cold and windy days without a single fin, and the “unfishable” days during which you just stare out of the window, dreaming of the red dots of spring. And maybe the first fish is an omen as well – at least it feels very promising, when the first few casts of the year are immediately rewarded with a fish!

The rain and the mild winds of the last few days have melted the snow and ice in the lakes, but have swollen the rivers massively… the Danube is a brown mess, absolutely unfishable!

So I went to a former gravel quarry near Zielfingen, for which licences are easy to get online… I chose to fish unweighted streamers and stripped them super slow with only very little jigging action. And succeeded! The pike was not very big, probably around 65cm, but it felt good! Eventually, after several weeks, a fish at last! May the year begin!