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Loosdrecht Plassen Ventus Lake

30/04/2006

30th April return to Loosdrecht Plassen Ventus lake, Holland
Queens day is a very special time in Holland, the celebration of the queens birthday brings orange and celebration to all cities and especially Amsterdam. This time we decided not to dance at the live acts and drink cheap beer in the all day, night celebrations, but instead organise a nights fishing on my local water.

My local water, well Holland is actually covered in water if you didn’t know. The meaning for the Netherlands is land under water, that’s why they need all the dykes and canals. This truly is heaven for any match, carp or predator angler. Hundreds of lakes, canals, dykes, river systems and reservoirs to choose from.

Both Loosdrecht and Vinkeveen lakes hold carp over 40lb Dutch pounds and plenty of them.Adjacent to the larger lake is a smaller more fishable lake called Ventus. The main lake depths are between 5m and 30m, where as the smaller lake depth is averaging and 1m in the shallows and 1.6m in the middle. There is a sneaky deep hole of 30m2 but its only fishable from a boat and only a hot spot in winter. My preferred part is on the other side of the lake fishing off one island into the opposite island margins with a distance of 40 metres directly across and 50 metres to the right reed point, perfect for casting and placing free offerings.The family and I arrived on Saturday morning. We travelled from car to boat in Oud Lossdrecht the closest town to the lake and from there it took 30 minutes to get to the island crossing the main lake and going through a water way under the Oud Loosdrechtweg road to the Ventus lake.Two easy erect Fox bivis, one small and a continental were housing myself girlfriend and two kids. One agreement was not to bring bed chairs but to have air beds instead. This also saved space in our boat. To keep the kids Chris & Bo entertained I set up two spinner rods to fish for the perch, pike and zander which are commonly found in the lake. The wife laid back and drank wine watching the boys fiddle with their tackle.

I set up two carp rods one to the right reed point and the other one to left point of the island margin. Both setups were very simple, low visibility 15lb ultra thin mono hook links with a long braided hair attached by Gardner corkscrew swivels which I introduce them when I used to be a Gardner Tackle agent. 3oz lead on Korda clips through to 3ft of ready spliced leadcore which I loop to loop through the corkscrew swivel. This is the set up I start with every time I go fishing. Changes would be a popup rig or leadcore rig for distant fishing but there not needed here. The edges of the island margins have wooden poles protecting the bank from getting washed away. These are fixed in by concrete at the bottom and provide my hook baits with a clean gravel shelf to rest on. The bait I chose for this session was Green Lipped Mussel standard 18mm bottom boilies one on each rod. I placed both rods out with a scattering of freebies around them. The right reed rod caught the most carp mainly high doubles early in the afternoon, evening and each recast saw another handful of bait being spread around the hook bait. In total I issued just over kilo of bait to catch 4 fish including the big one.


Thea landed her first carp, a mirror of 16lbs. lol it was fun watching her hold it and smile for the photo at the same time.Last carp caught on the right reed rod.

As light faded and darkness came we started dinner and cooked a delicious meal and relaxed with wine and beer. We sat up and talked joked and eventually the family turned in for sleep at around midnight. Around 5am in the morning the left island margin rod screamed into life and after a hard fight I slipped the net under the fish I came to Loosdrecht to catch. It’s any carp anglers dream to fish a local water and guarantee a 30 pounder in a session. Good bait and the right tactics will turn up good fish for me anytime here. The light conditions were terrible for a photo, mist covered the lake and considering it was the end of April the weather though sunny was actually was bitterly cold. And I was out of my nice duvet and airbed where my girlfriend slept. I quickly sacked the carp up safe to a tree and safety line to a bank stick and slipped back under the duvet into the warmth and sleep quickly took me away.Around 1pm both tents were packed away along with all the bedding, cooking stuff, rubbish bags and carp gear. Last thing to do was get the prize out of the water for a photo shoot before we jumped into the boat and made are way back to the main lake.

Thanks to digital cameras we can take as many pictures as possible to capture the best shot photo. Note how I’m holding this carp with one kneel as a support. Is the fish below the same fish? Can you see anything odd about the carp in the picture?

Yes it is… the carp weighed 31 Dutch pounds around 34lb UK scale. But as you can see the weight of the carp looks different between the two different styles of holding carp at photo time. This fish has been marked by other anglers, probably to identify the carp and its weight on capture.

Never do this to carp! You can easy tell the difference of carp by scale pattern. Just take lots of pictures of each side and you’ll find some disfiguration or damaged scales to recognise on the next capture if it’s a new fish or not.

Any excuse getting in to the water! I was surprise to find it so warm. Well with the sunlight and depth it was probably why the carp were feeding hard in this area. We said good bye to Loosdrecht promising to return, jumped into our boat and travelled back to the main lake and harbour. Loaded the car and drove 45 minutes back to our home. Start fishing in April for the first chance of the year to catch a big carp. Good luck!

Leigh O'Keeffe.