Hit the road Jake: When the autumn leaves fall

Every morning and every evening, mist rises from the field,
It's cool, you might even say cold, I'm shivering down by the river,
She can do it, drive away the ghosts, send rays of sunshine to greet me,
The forest and the world, changing colors, once green now red and yellow.

Foggy mornings, hoarfrost on the meadows, lonely rays of sunshine breaking through the milky haze. The wafts of mist slowly waft over the gray water, creep under your clothes and seem to make the clocks tick only half as fast. It's October and everything is in keeping with the changing season. If you ride your bike to university in the morning, you can thank gloves and a warm jacket to protect you from the wet cold. If it has rained, the windows of the passing trams are fogged up, the image of the people is as blurry, as fleeting as wafts of fog on the gray river. When darkness falls over the city again, I pedal and make my way to the banks of the river. Soon it will be a full moon, the night of the hunt, and I'm looking forward to it. I want to outwit the carp in a deep backwater, so immediately after my return from Slovenia I started feeding them every two days. Not much, maybe a good kilo, because I was hoping to appeal to one of the lonely and old residents of the river. The days passed and on a Tuesday, as darkness fell, I found myself back at my fishing spot.

This time I'm staying the night and lying in wait. In addition to all the harmless boilies, there are also two fateful baits with needle-sharp hooks waiting at the bottom of the gray river. The fog rises again, covers the backdrop with its gray robe and only reveals it again with the first rays of sun in the morning.

My bite alarms had been silent up to this point, but suddenly individual pipers alerted me, which turned into a slow, continuous tone. I quickly pick up the rod but have to cut back. Instead of going downstream, my line points in the opposite direction, against the current. I almost never use bobbins at this point, after all all the carp have migrated downstream without exception. But my current opponent is an exception. The 20 meters that I had thrown with the current, it had already shot up against the current and I must have noticed the bite with an extremely long delay. When I make contact, he bends the rod into a semicircle and mercilessly pulls off line. When he reached the bridge upstream I briefly felt the line rubbing against an obstacle, then everything was bombproof. I curse loudly, curse myself for not using Robbins and tried everything possible to get the line free. But it doesn't help, I emerge from this fight as a loser. Was it him? The old, great stranger I was hoping for?

A consolation was the full run that followed just minutes later, caused by a round ball. He also fought hard and gave me great joy that morning. I shook off my frustration and enjoyed the great morning atmosphere. The fog cleared, the sun rose in the sky and I soaked up the atmosphere.

In the evening the fog rose again and closed the process until the following morning. The game has been repeated for many days now, and I'm still looking after the spot. I especially use the morning hours before university for short sessions. Still in the dark, I drive the short distance to the water, drink some tea and experience the awakening of nature and the city. Often an hour is enough to get a bite.

So far they've all been great carp: round fish and big fish. Of course, none of them are giants, but that's not the fish population of this river either. A carp weighing 15 kilos is one of the big ones. Even though I obviously enjoy catching big carp, it's a relief that I can live out my own personal idea of ​​success here. It's not size and competition that matter, but rather my personal joy in catching the fish. This mental lightness pairs wonderfully with the magic of autumn.

Atmospheric

Honestly

A time to pause...