THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

I decided to take the flight option, but not to Scandinavia. I have a friend, Sven Hille who lives at
Rostock in what was a part of the old east Germany.
When the Berlin wall came down followed by reunification, former east Germans suddenly found
themselves free to fish from boats, particularly where Sven lives close to the old border, where they had
previously been restricted in case they tried to escape.
So like a lot of people in that area, he used the opportunity to buy himself a boat, from which he now
specialises in the art of offshore deep water trolling.
Fishing this corner of the Baltic is covered in detail in Part 2 under the sub-heading Germany. To cut a
long story short, Sven invited me over to compete with him in the annual trolling competition from
Schaprode on the island of Rügen where he moors his boat.
That trip unfortunately fell apart due to the grounding of all European flights during the Icelandic
volcanic ash fiasco of 2010, and had to be re-scheduled some weeks later in the company of Sven of
course, and Christian Bruckmer.
By then it was pretty much the effective end of the trolling season, so we weren't expecting much. The
weather also looked as though it was going to put a spanner in the works. Then suddenly, it changed.
The sea flattened, the sun came out, and we were away with open access to all areas.
There is a complete video demonstration of how the trolling is done on YouTube. I have also recorded
an audio interview with Sven covering the same topic and more.
With so much specialised kit and so many different elements taking place at the same time to cover the
greatest range of lure placing options, to try to explain it here in words would be very difficult. It's one
of those things you really do need to see first-hand by going to YouTube.
Working so many lures in that way in such a small volume of water is very impressive to say the least.
Thankfully, salmon to over twenty pounds and sea trout well into double figures were equally
impressed, allowing me to get my first proper salmon, the best of which weighed in at twenty two
pounds.
On the way back to the caravan we
were staying in one afternoon, Sven
dropped the biggest sea trout in at a
restaurant where we would be dining
later that evening. And joining us
there was a chap I'd seen down at the
moorings boarding his own small boat
called 'dorsch express', which
translated into English means 'cod
express'.
This turned out to be German
International fly angler Ulrich
Schneider who we'd previously seen
coming back that afternoon with three
Baltic Salmon and Sea Trout
salmon, the best of which was forty
two pounds, all caught while trolling
for pike on light tackle at the back of Hiddensee Island quite close to base. So much then for it being
the tail end of the season.
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