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| Across Denmark, particularly
in urbanized parts of the country, one can easily find private lakes
known as put and take lakes. The concept is simple. The lake is privately
operated, fish are regularly stocked in the lake, anglers can pay
to fish and keep their catches within the limit based on the amount
of fishing time paid. Obviously this type of operation is rarely seen
in Western Canada, since we still have a tremendous amount of natural
resources where anyone can utilize without paying a huge amount of
money. Some may call the put and take lake fishery unsportsman-like,
unchallenging and boring. After all, how hard can it be to hook a
couple of farm-raised trout from a small pond? My attitude towards
these lakes was exactly that when I first tried it out, but it was
soon changed after several outings.
Nearby Nina's house is a put and take lake called Poppelsøen, where I frequently visited during my stay. The lake is regularly stocked with rainbow trout, brown trout, atlantic salmon, redfin (european perch), northern pike and walleye. The size of the lake is around 6500 meter square. During cold winter months, the lake water is circulated by several water pumps to prevent it from freezing up. Our first outing to Poppelsøen this winter productive, but cold! After getting over my jet lag, I was very eager to get out, breath some fresh air and wet a line. On the first Sunday afternoon after my arrival, we packed two spinning outfits and a few lures into the car and off to the lake we went. The lures we tried were pretty simplistic, either 1/5 ounce silver hammered spoons or copper inline spinners. After five casts, Nina managed to hook into a small rainbow that was around 1lb. A few quick photos, back into the water it went, we were excited as we thought there would be dozens more fish to come. That was not the case, cast after cast for another hour, not a single hit was felt. It was 3:00pm, and that's dusk time in Danish winter. I could feel the temperature drop rapidly as time went on. Hands began to freeze, and our minds were no longer on who would hook the next fish, but how to keep the hands toasty. While I was ready to call it a day, a gentle hit was felt on the end of my rod. The cold definitely slowed down my reflex, as my arms didn't response a couple of seconds after the hit was felt. Nevertheless, the fish was still hooked. It was a small brown trout, a species that one rarely sees in BC. I was excited, snapping many shots on my digital camera to capture the magnificent large red spots on its back. By the time when the fish was released, it was almost dark. We called it a day, hurried back to the car while struggling to keep the fishing rods onto our frozen hands. |