Vantastic Lukas: Recharge your motivation

"Second home"

Brought to my knees by the weather and all the other recent negative events, I found myself heading towards the Mediterranean at the beginning of November. Hoping that the weather would be nicer there so I could recharge my batteries for the rest of my tour.

Like many times before, at the end of the day I ended up at the “Devil’s Lake” via a detour. I was always drawn to the Mediterranean, red mountain landscape. I didn't even have to fish to feel comfortable there. It is the ambience, the mood, the landscape and the people with different motivations for being there that make this place very special for me.

First arrive

Separately, but more or less agreed with each other, Clemens and I arrived at the lake almost at the same time in the evening. I wanted to spend some time at the lake without fishing. Check the situation calmly, arrive first and, above all, fix the problem with my broken window.

With the help of my French friend Sebastien, I was able to order a window from a nearby VW workshop. I had to bridge two days, which I spent doing sports and visiting some anglers who were at the lake. I also fished one night on a small river that was near the VW workshop.

There I “instantly” caught two small schuppies that night, which I immediately put back without taking a photo.

After three days that I spent more or less passively fishing, I had enough motivation to settle down for several days and devote myself more to fishing.

New motivation

Clemens and I decided to get together again to spend our last session together here in the south. We chose a spot in the middle of the wind that we could even reach by car. The tents were protected from the weather by the trees and were therefore safe. Above all, I always kept a close eye on the wind at the lake so as not to suddenly experience a nasty surprise. The conditions were anything but pleasant: daytime temperatures of a maximum of 10 degrees and the cold, onshore north-west wind made us almost incapable of action and allowed us to simply endure. Always hoping that the assemblies were still in their places, we waited for a bite. It took four nights before I lost hope in this place and packed up to try a much shallower part of the lake for a night or two.

As always, the last act when packing up was to retrieve the rods. I messed up three out of four rods, which forced me to jump into the boat to retrieve the rigs... How I hate that... I cursed and fought my way through the waves. When the weed suddenly showed resistance on the last rod, the retrieval ended well and after a short fight I netted a mirror. With a good feeling, I left the spot and changed the side of the lake.

The first frost

It didn't take long before I found myself on the lake with my boat again, but this time in a much less windy part of the lake. To my surprise, when I searched for the spot, I found the water temperature to be lower than in the previous area. Choosing a spot also turned out to be very complicated and I could hardly find a spot free of weeds. Demotivated by the circumstances I encountered, I laid down three rods with the certainty that I would change positions again the next day. The night became cold, the first frost adorned the autumnal golden shore in the morning, everything glittered - a magical moment, even without fish.

The flood

In the morning Clemens also came to my place with his car packed, where I was also busy packing up. He stayed at the last spot one more night, without success. We discussed it briefly and decided to try again together an area that we could only reach by boat. We parked the cars in a busy parking lot to ensure they were safe and set off to sea. In order to fish more effectively, we split up and fished in different areas of the water at a distance of around 200 meters. I again chose a shallow, weedy bay, Clemens fished deeper and put the rods down to around 10 meters. We chose the sheltered places while paying attention to the predicted low pressure front, which was expected to bring a lot of wind, rain and also milder temperatures.

In preparation for the bad weather front, I created a “drainage ditch” that was supposed to protect my tent from flooding.

Happy to have chosen a place protected from the wind, I lay awake on my lounger on the second night. Strong gusts of wind kept shaking my tent, which could be heard from far away whistling down the mountain behind me. The rain pounded down like a torrent of rain on the tent material with every gust.

Bad weather – fishing weather

It was around four in the morning when one of my bite alarms suddenly picked up from the melody of the “wind peeps” and became a continuous tone. “That too” – I thought and put on my rain jacket, which should at least protect me somewhat from this devilish weather. I somehow pumped the fish up from the bank and netted a small mirror. A little annoyed by the size of the fish, which knocked me out of the tent in this doomsday atmosphere, I put it straight back into the water and quickly retreated back into the sheltered, dry tent.

At 8 the next bite brought me out of my doze. I ran to the rod and a short time later lost another small mirror that fled into the reeds and ran away just in front of the landing net.

The water had risen almost half a meter during the night. Small waterfalls formed everywhere in the mountains, which flowed into rivulets at the foot of the mountain as small streams into the lake, turning it red. Fishing weather!!

It really “bucks” again

During the day I got three more runs, but only one fish exceeded the 10 kilo mark. At least I finally had some action again. The weather calmed down over the course of the day and I really enjoyed fishing again for a long time. I was fully motivated, tied new rigs and placed the rods meticulously in the spots after the storm. Unfortunately, the bite frequency didn't last long and the next day, when the weather improved significantly, Clemens and I were only able to catch one fish each. But the best fish of our session at Teufelssee.

Time to say goodbye

The weather turned into the most beautiful autumn weather. The wind had died down, the water had cleared up and fallen significantly. Not the best conditions for good fishing on the lake.

So after the fourth night and two and a half weeks that we spent at the lake in total, we decided to pack up. From here we went our separate ways again. After seven weeks of “freedom” and living in nature, Clemens began his journey home to Germany. I wanted to explore new paths deeper south. This time it was less about fishing, but more about exploring new landscapes, enjoying good weather and diving deeper into new countries and cultures.

Let's see how long I can last without fishing...

On my downward journey, I visited Lukas and Christina, whom I met during a session a few weeks ago, at a lake towards the Spanish border. We've been in touch ever since, so I took a quick trip to spend two relaxing days together.

New ways

From there I navigated directly to Barcelona, ​​but already realized in the traffic chaos that it was too hectic for me. So, on the recommendation of Lukas and Christina, I left it with a short detour to an old bunker complex on the outskirts of the city with a panoramic view of Barcelona.

Two hours later, about 50 kilometers behind Barcelona, ​​I reached a parking lot right by the sea at 7 p.m. Tired from the drive, I got out of the car and took a deep breath of the mild evening air. At a pleasant 17 degrees at night, I wrote these lines with the sliding door open and the sound of the waves in my ears, constantly reminding myself of the beautiful moments and opportunities life has to offer...