Vimba Bream, second attack

Last Thursday we drove to one river with my friend Jarno. Our target was suppose to be Vimba Bream (Vimba vimba). A mysterious fish from the family Cyprinidae. Every spring they run to the rivers for spawning and after that they vanish back to the sea. I actually caught one from the sea last August and that is the one and only Vimba Bream I have ever seen elsewhere outside of the rivers.

So, no Vimba at Thursday either. We caught some Roach each and Jarno caught a small Bream too. That means I have to go back there soon.

The name of the game was some small Roach every now and then.

At Sunday I was fishing at my home bay. Caught few Roach again and my first Bream of the year. Count is on 15 now.

Spring season opening, finally…

Last Sunday I had a couple of hours to spend by fishing. I decided to hit to the nearby river. I thought that maybe the Ide or even Vimba breams have started their spawning run to the river. They were not. I tried a bit over two hours and I didn’t have even one bite. So, it was time to change plans…..

Waiting for the bite......in vain.

 

I hopped to my car and drove to Ruissalo. It’s an island in front of the city of Turku. I knew that the place where I was heading to would be full of other fishermen. But still I took my risk to crowd between them.

When I got to the shore there was one man landing a nice Whitefish already. I casted my worm between the others (or actually way behind them thanks to my 12 feet feeder rod) and the waiting game was on.

Couple of other fishermen. I counted 22 rods on the short piece of the shore line.

 

Couple of other guys caught a fish before my rod tip gave signs of the bite. It was a nice Whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus). It weighed about half a kilo (or a bit over pound). After that I tried about one and half hour more, no more bites so it was time to leave back home. The Whitefish was my species number 14 for this year. Let’s see what I’m targeting next……Pike, Vimba bream, Flounder, you never know.

The European Whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus).

Viva Mexico

At the end of the February there was only one sure thing. My girlfriend and I both will have winter vacations at the beginning of the March. So we were waiting any interesting “last minute travel deals” to appear. All we could find was hundreds of deals to Canary Islands. Until an week before our vacations we spotted a reasonable priced trip to Playa del Carmen, Mexico. It took about two minutes to make the decision, so Mexico it was.

At the first couple of days we enjoyed some good food and a bottle of Corona every now and then, walked back and forth on the avenues and streets of the city and just chilled out. We also made a trip to old ruins of Chichen Itza. It’s amazing what a man was able to do over an thousand years ago. That night I decided to go shore fishing next morning.

The famous pyramid of Chichen Itza.

I woke up at four a clock, had some breakfast and left from the hotel. I walked almost an hour along the beach until I found an decent looking place to fish for. It was a quiet morning. No Barracudas, no Jack Crevalles. Only few small Needlefish followed my spoons but I couldn’t hook them.

My newest travel set, Penn Battle 4000 and Berkley Muscle travel rod.

 

Next day we took a ferry to the nearby island called Cozumel. From the island we took a couple of hours snorkeling trip so I had a chance to see what’s swimming under the surface of the Caribbean. And there they was, Parrotfishes, Rays, Angelfishes etc. etc. You can only guess if that eased my pressures to go fishing again….or NOT!

It was Saturday evening when I went to talk with local fishing guides about next day’s fishing trip. It was expensive trip (I thank you Americans with your big bunch of money) but I really wanted to do that.

I had a date with my guides at 6.30am and as I was on time probably first time at my life, they weren’t. They showed up about seven o’clock and started to prepare their boat (mañana mañana-attitude). At 7.25 we finally hit the waves and the trip begun.

Our boat, almost ready to go...

The first two hours or so we trolled on the edge of the deep water with Ballyhoo baits. Then I got bored with trolling and told to guides it’s time to start catching now. So it was bottom fishing time. As soon as my baits hit the bottom there was something snapping those. First I had some difficulties to hook them, but after few lost baits I finally caught my first fish. It was an White Grunt. After that I caught fishes every now and then. There was couple of Groupers, Grunts and Snappers, Tilefish, Wrasse and one Triggerfish. I like all kind of fish but there is something about Triggerfishes, I like them even more.

Here’s pictures of some of the species I caught:

White Grunt

Coney

The best fish of the trip. Queen Triggerfish.

Yellowhead Wrasse.

 

So, I caught nine species which from all were new for me. My total count is on 111 now. Now it’s time to concentrate on Finnish species again. Fortunately the winter is finally over and the spring season has started….