A few shots from the end of season 2011

Here's a few shots I found from my fishing camera, taken from the outer coastline.

Back in business

After many months of silence, I can finally say that I'm back in business. There's been many things that have kept me out of the water and away from the tying bench, but I think now I can start preparing for the Spring once again.

Q: What has happened since the previous post on this blog many months ago?

A: Not much by the fisherman's point of view. We had a few piking trips last Autumn and I had some pics and video from the action and they are mostly all gone due to total disintegration of my hard drive a month ago....

I managed to catch a few nice fish with the fly, some of them from the newly discovered places that nobody ever fishes, even though they are close to boating routes. Another thing to remember was the fly patterns tied to inverted hook. They worked like a charm and never snagged to rocks or other obstacles, still managing to hook fish quite decently. I'll write a post regarding them in the near future....

One of the "clients" being measured

No fly fishing lately

Hey, we've been having a few chilly nights and the days have been significantly cooler than they were a few weeks ago. Waters have slowly started to cool down, especially all the shallow areas, meaning that the pike are getting active. Unfortunately the weather warms up again next week, but I think it doesn't affect the pikes anymore.

Last weekend we had a little fishing happening with three boats and despite concentrating on jigging for perch, pikes got very active too. Well, I had my fly gear ready, but the weather made it impossible to aim for the pike in that manner, so perch it was then.

Now, as the vacation is over, it's time to get back in business again. I just gotta tie more pike flies and get all the rest of the tackle ready for some autumn piking. It's gonna take a month or so before the action really begins in the shallow places, but I think one should now try to fish some deeper drop-offs near the shallow bays. At least all the deeper banks were now full of pike, in contrast to the earlier summer, when absolutely every place was totally empty.

Time to enjoy the last warm weathers of the year and prepare for some serious piking!

Summer stuff

Summer vacation, finally!

Simply put, fishing has been shit lately. We've been suffering from severe heat waves and the water temperatures have increased rapidly, meaning that the pike are somewhere lost. Therefore I have fished for perch and zander lately, with just as bad results.

On top of all, the latest government invention, ethanol soaked fuel, is causing annoying trouble with my boat engine. Ethanol suck the moisture from the air and mixes it with the fuel. Finally those water drops find their way to the carburetors and cause poor idling and hesitation when accelerating. I had to disassemble all the four carbs, clean them  up thoroughly, put them back together and do the tuning procedures. On the last trip, one of the carbs caught a water bubble once again. It went away though, as I hit a rock in the middle of a deep bay.... Well, now it has a separate water separator in the fuel line, also the the whole fuel line is improved to meet todays standards.

What worries me the most, is the fact that the pike has gone hiding. I haven't caught a single pike from the perch and zander sites, which is odd, because normally you catch an average of 10-20 pikes during an afternoon of perch fishing.

Hey, I managed to get a little video from my latest pike, that I caught with my 6' 2wt outfit and 0.14 mm tippet. It was a short, thick and muscular fish that gave a nice fight with that macaroni rod. I combined a little shaky video from some of the last minute fighting after the jack got tired.

Any recommendations for a reasonably priced helmet cam? It aint easy to hold a camera while reeling in a fish......

So a bad quality and shaky image, but pike on the fly anyway...

Edit: The video seems to have gone bananas, I'll fix it soon...

I finally got an ide(a)

Finally that exhausting heat wave has gone away and temperatures have dropped from 32'c to 12'c. There was thunder and rain today and I just had to go fishing on a little remote river nearby.

I grabbed my 2wt 6ft rod with me and started my fish-mobile. Fifteen minutes later I was standing by the river, tying a small orange leech to the end of the tippet. First cast to the narrow, faster stream and bang, fish on and then it got away, just after a few seconds battle. I managed to identify the fish, it was an ide, in the ~35cm range. For some reason, they have been totally lost for a couple of years but now they are back!

On the next cast, a little perch swallowed the leech and I quickly released the little bugger. Third cast to the narrowest point of the stream and again, Fish On! This was clearly a bigger ide this time and I really had to fight it and the current with that macaroni-like 2wt rod. Finally the fish was ready to be quickly measured and released. Nice looking ide, 42-44cm range but skinny as hell. Nice start for the trip anyway!

A little silver for the rainy day

I moved a little and started chasing some perch. And boy, did they bite! They were absolutely crazy and hit the fly immediately when it sank to water. I didn't even keep any count on those little buggers, they ate the fly on each cast in less than 5 seconds. And they were absolutely everywhere.

Faster moving water

I got bored with those little perch and moved on to the small, slowly running brook. I didn't expect to catch anything from there, but still decided to give it a go. First cast and first fish on in a few seconds. This perch was a little bigger, in 250-300g range and I had to play it a little to get it landed and released. Another cast, another fish, a little ide this time. I slowly walked along the narrow stream and caught a few fish from each spot, mainly ide and perch. As a last spot, I fished the lower side of the rapids and managed to catch a few small breams. I had high hopes for catching those big 2-3 kg copper-colored breams just like in the old days. Needless to say, I wasn't that lucky.

Little stream full of little fish

A pool full of small fish

After punishing those buggers for two whole hours, I decided to call it a day, walked back to my fish-mobile and headed home. It was good time to end a day.

Recreational activities

Some footage from my previous trips targeting some smaller buggers with lighter tackle. With very bad results, naturally..

Nothing wrong with the surroundings...

...or the weather...

...but still no fish!

Not much to brag about

It was about time for me to give a little report for the last few weeks, unfortunately there's not much to talk about. After the previous post, I haven't been out there chasing pike. The weather has been awful, strong winds almost every day and now we have the heat wave, daily temperatures climb close to 30'c. So it's not a perfect combination for pike on the fly, together with my own laziness at the moment...

I've been mostly tossing some small flies on those small brooks, mostly targeting for ide and larger perch. Of course, also the regular pike/roach/bream will hit the fly every now and then. They're  so much fun to catch on a #3 rod, not to mention that one can catch 30+ fish in 15 minutes.

As you might have already noticed, I'm not that much of a fan of salmonids, mainly because I like the remote feeling of those natural brooks that haven't been commercially stocked with brownies or rainbows. This way I can fish in my own peace and not get disturbed by dozens of other fishermen. There's only one river that has a nice stock of grayling and rainbows and usually a very few other fishermen. It offers a nice alternative for piking, and is practically a C&R stream, as the rainbows start tasting like mud in the warm summer months. Graylings will be always released, as they are a native species and generally quite endangered in the southern parts of the country.

I've made some minor updates to my equipment, of which I will tell about later. I'll also upload some pictures from my nice-but-not-too-productive fishing trips, as soon as I get back from Sweden.