STORYTELLING — CREATING MEMORIES 8/50

TIP 7: Find the shallowest spot on those big shallow plateaus...

This final tip is a tribute to my good friend and my “Volkerak mentor”: the living pike legend Bertus Rozemeijer.
He guided on the Volkerak for 26 years before retiring. His three most memorable quotes were:
“The Volkerak: the best lake to blank… but also the best lake to catch the fish of your life.”
“The Volkerak: the lake with the most fish migration in all of the Netherlands.”
“The Volkerak: even in this huge body of water, our friend the pike loves extremely shallow water!”

For this final monster‑pike tip, we go back to last month — March 2026. So not that long ago.
We had Daniel back in our lodges — you know him from catching the biggest pike of 2024 in our Hall of Fame, and from the story Big Pike Tip 3: WHY ‘NO BITES’ IS A VERY GOOD SIGN.
By now Daniel has his own boat and no longer books guided days. This time he didn’t bring his usual fishing buddy, but Alex — fishing the Volkerak for the very first time, and still a “beginner pike angler”.
He texted me long beforehand: “I want him to have a good day’s fishing. That’s my mission.”
But their first day was a disaster — a brutal blank.
So that Saturday evening he came to us for advice. What could they do to still get pike in the boat during these tough days?
At AnyWareFishing, customers can always count on our advice — even if they don’t book a guide or bring their own boat. We are, after all, “Anglers for Anglers”.
We explained: Pike fishing in February had been fantastic, but in March the pike gradually disappeared… spawning season was coming!
Two things were crucial:
1. In recent weeks only jerkbaits or twitchbaits produced fish. All other lures gave almost no action. So get your Westin Swims ready!
2. Fish extremely shallow — deeper than 1.60 m and you won’t get any action!
We took out the Volkerak map and advised three spots for the next day — their Sunday.

That Sunday I had a long list of TODOs. The last weeks before season closure are always extremely busy. Work on the water lodges and boats kept me “on shore”.
But I was stunned when, while working on the guide boat, I saw the guys already returning at 14:30.

They tied up the boat and came ashore — super excited, ready to tell their story.
On the first spot they saw pike spawning, so they left them alone. On the second spot they had no bites.
But on the third spot everything exploded:
Six pike, all within the last hour, all in 90 cm of water, all on the Westin Swim in ‘Natural Pike’ — see photo.
But the last pike completely blew them away:
A true Volkerak queen of 131.5 cm, fat as mud, almost impossible to lift!
The photos had to be taken quickly and didn’t do her justice — chaos in the boat, emotions running wild. They returned to the lodge to calm down and share the story.
Of course I had to dive into my huge collection of Westin Swims to find another 12 cm ‘Natural Pike’ for Alex — he didn’t have one yet and still hadn’t caught a pike.
When I found one for him, they left again — and I went back to work :-)
When they returned in the evening, they had caught three more — and Alex had landed his first Volkerak pike: in the shallows, on the Westin Swim ‘Natural Pike’. Mission accomplished!

Fun detail: During their week on the Volkerak, these guys caught 27 pike — all on those same spots with only 90 cm of water. Nowhere else did they get bites!

REALLY SHALLOW FISHING!!!

When a fishing holiday seems doomed… but suddenly becomes the best one ever!

Unforgettable memories.