Summary 2012 January – April

At the start of the year I took a challenge to catch as many fish species as possible from Finnish waters on a one year period. And of course if I would have a chance to catch something totally new for me I would crab that chance.  Here comes a short summary of the four first months of 2012.

January

My year started at 3^rd of January with fishing from the jetty. First trip of the year was a success and I caught eight different species from which a Viviparous eelpout and a Fourhorn sculpin are quite difficult species to catch otherwise than winter time. About one week later it was time for my first ever ice fishing trip after Rainbow trout. This trip was a success too. I caught totally four Rainbows that day. After that I made four other ice fishing trips and caught couple of more new species for the year. By the end of the month I had caught 11 species. Not a bad start for the year.

A Fourhorn sculpin was one of the first species of the year.

February

There’s not much to tell about February. But I still managed to add one species to my list. I made four ice fishing trips from which one after Burbot (Lota lota). A 45 minutes of fishing gave me three of them so my mission was completed.

March

At the beginning of March I travelled to Mexico with my girlfriend. I only managed to make one shore fishing session without results. In the middle of the week I booked a fishing trip with couple of local guides. I managed to catch nine different species of fish. And because this was my first time fishing at Caribbean they were all new species for me.

The Sand tilefish (Malacanthus plumieri) and....

..the Mahogany snapper (Lutjanus mahogoni) were species I caught from Mexico.

In the Finnish waters I made only two ice fishing trips at March, both to the biggest lake of the area. In the second trip I added a Bullhead (Cottus gobio) to my yearlist.

April

The spring came and all the ice and snow melted away. And that’s why there was a couple of weeks break at my fishing. There was still some ice at the sea and the rivers were flooding. I managed to make my first open water fishing trip at April 15^th. That’s when I caught my first Whitefish of the year. Later that month I also added a Bream, Ide and Vimba bream to my list.

The mysterious Vimba bream is one of my favorite species in Finnish waters.

The first third of the year gave me 17 Finnish species. It was a good result. A Flounder was just about only species I was missing at this point…..