02-07-2022: July will be a great month for fishing. Next week we will go fishing for 3 weeks in the Belgian Ardennes. But first a few days of fishing around Rotterdam. Today i caught a nice ide and a pikeperch.
09-07-2022 till 30-07-2022: And again we had a nice holiday in the south of Belgium. This time barbel and chub were on the bucket list. A bizarrely beautiful fishing with very nice weather. Unfortunately, the weather was so beautiful that the Belgian government decided in week 3 to ban fishing. The water in the semois sank every day, so that less oxygen came into the water. Unfortunately for us fishermen, but to be honest, this was a correct decision by the Belgian government.
The river Semois flowed past the cottage. One of the longest rivers in Belgium, which eventually returns to the Meuse. From the house to the French border you can fish almost everywhere with the Walloon permit. In a few places it is prohibited and a few kilometers upstream you need an extra permit. Also note that you can buy two types of permits. With permit A you can only fish from the bank and with permit B you can also stand in the river.
Of course we wanted to catch some fish quickly. A small hook and a piece of bread quickly yielded a few minnows.
One of the fish we wanted to catch was chub. A fishing rod with a small float and a puff of bread was enough to catch 23 chubs. The most fun was when we were in the river, but several chubs were also caught from the bank.
Very few trouts swim in the semois river. Fortunately we always had a fishing rod with us during the walks. And when we saw a group of trout swimming we luckily managed to catch 3 of them.
It took a while to find the best way to fish for barbel. In the river we found a few places that were more than a meter deep. A pellet as bait and some extra food ensured that we managed to catch 12 barbels.
Of course we also fished for predatory fish. Besides 7 perch we also managed to catch a pike. There are quite a few pike in the Semois, but unfortunately the Belgians and French still take them for the BBQ.
The last two fish species were quite a surprise to catch. While barbel fishing we got some small taps on the rod tip. It didn't feel like a barbel when it was brought in either. So I was very surprised when it turned out to be a nase, a fish I had never caught before.
The other surprise is also increasingly caught in the Netherlands. However, I did not know that so many tenchs swam in the semois. The color is also more red than the tench in the Netherlands, which are more yellow. In the end we managed to catch 7 of them.
Oh yeah, and we had a bream ;)
