Travel Day 5: Photo Fishing

Day five was finally a day off from work. With all the free time available I was able to sleep in to finally catch up on my sleep debt and put jet lag behind me. It was quite nice. And when I eventually got up I headed out for a run to get some exercise at last and work off all the heavy food, large portions, and vast quantities of beer I have been consuming. I found a good park to run through and the park was full of creeks, ponds, and lakes. Of course being the obsessive compulsive angler that I am, I kept my eyes on the bodies of water the whole time trying to spot fishes. I saw quite a few and made a mental note to come back later with a camera.

After the run I got cleaned up and readied myself to head out. I was feeling exceedingly hungry so I found a nice outdoor eatery and got some food. And of course some beer as well. Beer flows like water here.

After I got some food in me and felt rejuvenated with the much needed fuel I headed back to the park I had run around earlier. The first pond/lake I walked by was very picturesque. Hemmed on all sides by cut banks, tall grasses and shrubs and trees around the edges, and a walking trail surrounding it. In the water were a number of visible carp nestled up against the cut bank poking around for food. An old man was there at a viewpoint where I stopped at first to check out the carp in the water. Shortly after I arrived he reached into his bag and pulled out a plastic baggie full of bread and started tossing it into the water in front of me. It was a little weird but I guess a nice thing for him to do.

As soon as the bread started hitting the pond, the water began to churn and things from the abyss below began darting toward me. There were about a million tiny catfish, a handful of carp of various sizes, and another fish I couldn't name that looked like a carp but had a normal looking, non-gummy, fish mouth. Then the ducks started getting involved too.

After a few minutes of amusement here I moved on. There were a good number of lakes, and every one of them had a handful of carps. Some big, mostly pretty small, and one colorful one. I also saw one mirror carp. I took a handful of pictures of them; most of which were feeding carp near the shore. And I must admit that something inside me was yearning to go grab my fly rod and head back out here. There were no signs saying no fishing, but from what I've read in order to fish in Germany you have to take some sort of exam to get a permit. Then in addition, depending on where you're going, there may be local rules and regulations and permits to acquire.  It seemed like way too much effort and confusion so I opted to fish with my camera instead. It was easy.

I'm also pretty sure that had I had my fishing rod, the most effective type of fly would have been anything that makes a slight splash and sits on the top of the water because anytime I would walk up to the water's edge, the fish in the vicinity would swim toward me rather than away from me. They would even sometimes come to the surface and try to suck randomly off the surface presumably hoping for some treats. And pretty quickly and got confirmation of my assumption when I saw a number of people standing on the pond shores tossing food into the water. It would have been like catching fish from a barrel. Fun for a bit but not at all challenging and I'd feel just a tiny bit guilty about it. Nonetheless, it's fun to locate new fish and watch them do their thing.