First catch, no catch

On the 11th of April the annual fishing prohibition started all over the country. That's it. Until June there's no fishing rod thrown in the water, no lure being prepared, no fish being caught in the national waters.

With one exception: frontier waters are still being free for fishing until 26th of April. As long as our neighbors are not stopping, there is no point in banning your fellow countrymen to fish in these waters. It just happens that we have the biggest branch of the Danube, bordered together with Ukraine.

Right where the Sun sets, where the trees can be seen, that's Ukraine. And we've been fishing for 4 days in these frontier waters, taking care not to get too close to their borders, as they are famous for bringing you in, together with the boat.

On the Chilia branch, one of the three branches the Danube splits in just before entering the city of Tulcea, there is the biggest amount of water, in relation to the other 2 branches: Sulina and Sfântu Gheorghe (!Saint George). So practically, we had something like 60% of all the water the Danube collects up to this point, to fish in.

You can imagine that every other fisherman soldier wanted a piece of this. Everybody was here, on this branch, hidden under the coronas of the trees, either on the shore or safely tucked inside their boat, with all the "weapons" set and released for "kill and ask the questions later".

Drunkness as a state of mind

We managed to get there sometime around 3 o'clock in the afternoon, fearing all the time that the weather forecast was right and that it's gonna rain cats and dogs. Everybody in the fucking boat was already drunk, me being the exception as I was the driver. There was no way to get into a discussion with my merry friends, as the big JBL Boombox was shuffling some iPhone that was connected (BTW: incredible speaker that one... impressive I tell you!).

As soon as we got there, the Sun came out, even if only for a minute. It was just enough to get me in the drinking mode as well, after I was pissed off with the fact that the drinks we've taken with us, on the boat, are weighing more than ourselves and are unbalancing the whole damn thing.

In the end the drinks came in real handy as from that day onward, nobody was sober anymore. Not even the owner of the place we've been to, who has been drinking with us all along.

The nights are long in the Delta of the Danube and some drink always comes in handy. Especially when you are catching nothing...

Water on the rise

After all this winter drought there was time for the rivers to start flowing again and the Danube makes no difference. As soon as the waters start pilling up on the Western part of our beloved Europe, a lot of them are taken in by the Danube, who then in turn, pukes them through the Delta in the Black Sea.

During our stay the freakin' water level has risen about 1 meter. Because of this, before our departure, I had an unexpected plunge in the water, as I had to jump on the plank connecting the shore to the dock. The plank acted like a fucking spring throwing me in the water to my waist.

Long story short: we catched zero. Nada. That if you don't count the small fish that some of us caught while playing on the surface with the rod. Not even a freaking bite.

And then, one evening, our neighbors nextdoor, staying on the same house with us, brought this inside:

So yeah, the Delta still got it. It's just a matter of running for it, having the right tool to take it, with a pinch of luck.

Photographing these things on this evening didn't really helped with the luck on our end, in the upcoming days. We finished the whole party, still trying to come back from our drunkenness, while pitying ourselves for getting nothing. With the damn speaker in the boat. It's a fucking monster and to think that we allowed to take this over with us, on a fishing trip. That thing was so loud that you could hear it, through a pretty thick cannopy of trees, 300 meters down the fucking river. I think that the fishes were also throwing a party, mocking us, downstairs, on its music.

You know, if the Earth really was flat, like some try to argue these days (!go figure), this place would be like on the edge of the freakin' world, you know? It's so peaceful, quiet, time surely is perceived differently here. People usually fish, this is their main activity, an activity that for sure requires silence and tranquility. For sure our gang didn't bring that when it came with that loud thing.

But in the end it was about leisure and friends having a good time.

Just like the cat...