Last trip after Flounder

After a couple of weeks period of frost on 12/12/12 there was finally only minus two degrees out. So I went shore fishing after Whitefish. And of course I was hoping to catch some Flounder too. But it’s not always going like you have planned. I also tried some spinning after Sea trout but my only “catch” of the day was a flu that I’m still having. It was snowing almost all day long and a brisk easterly wind made the conditions freezing. This trip was a seal to my species hunt this year.

The conditions were quite arctic.

I have still made couple of ice fishing trips after Zander and Pike but to say the least my results have been lousy. Today I was out about five hours and my only catch was one small Roach and a small White bream.

So, the fishing season 2012 is now over. I will make a summary from it in some point. Now it's time to wish You all a Very Happy New Year!

November piking

At November I had few chances to go fishing. And I used those chances for Pike fishing.

At 5^th of the November I headed to my friends summer cottage to the eastern part of the Archipelago of Turku. For some reason these waters have always been quite challenging for me even though I’ve caught some nice sized Pike from there. Well, this time it was even more challenging. We fished from dawn till dusk about eight and half hours and I had not even single bite for sure. At least my friend managed to catch two Pike. That was not so good start for Pike season though there’s only one way from here. And it’s up…..

At the middle of the month I made my second hit after Pikes. Initially our primary meaning was try to search Shorthorn sculpins from the deep water. A night before we were looking at the weather forecasts and because of the hard southern wind we decided to concentrate purely for Pike. Afterwards thinking that was not a bad thing at all.

For some reason it didn't bother me at all that we missed this guys.

The day started pretty well and we caught a Pike every now and then. Pike were all quite small until Niko changed to a Storm WildEye Seeker Shad in a colour RHC. That’s one of the most lethal pike lures on the market (and that’s why I don’t like to use that). The first fish he caught with that lure was a nice Pike of 8,1 kilos and 104 centimeters. I was still fishing with jerkbaits and about half an hour later a really nice fish of over ten kilos rolled over by the boat after my jerk. Well, it missed my lure and we didn’t see that fish ever since.

Niko and 8,1kg.

Pike were on the bite and we caught them steadily. Again the fish were fairly smallish. The sun was already setting down when we arrived to our last spot of the day. I had just made a cast and said to Niko that it would be nice to catch even one Pike over five kilos today when it happened. It was just like earlier. A big Pike came and rolled over after my jerkbait. The only difference was that this time I barely managed to hook that fish. Niko scooped the fish up with a landing net and the hook slipped of immediately. It was a one huge fish. We weighed and measured the “old lady” and after few quick photo shot I gently released her back to the water. Few casts after we called that a day and what a day it was…

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention. My new PB Pike weighed 12,1 kilos and had a length of 118 centimeters. It was not a world’s biggest Pike but I’m pretty sure that I won’t catch a bigger one (probably) ever.

My new PB. 12,1kg and 118cm.

Four days later we were on the move again. This time I was with Jarno. The day started quite well again and Jarno caught a nice Pike of five kilos. Again we caught a Pike from here and another one from there. From one of our hot spots I hooked a bit better fish. It weighed 7,25 kilos, not a bad Pike at all.

The day is pretty short at November here in north and it felt that the time flew way too fast that day. Altogether we caught 23 Pike from which my seven kilo fish and Jarnos five, five and a half and six kilos Pikes were the biggest of the day.

7,25 kilos.

The weather forecasts told that the winter was coming so I just had to take a day off from work three days after our last trip. The wind direction had changed to east, it was full moon and everything else seemed to be wrong from my opinion. But because this was probably my last chance to fish in the open water I just gave it a go.

The day started actually quite well. I caught two Pike of about three kilos each with my five first casts. Pike were on surprisingly good bite and after few small fish I hooked something slightly better sized. It was only a Pike of 6,5 kilos but it took me a while to land it because the wind was pushing my boat to the reeds. I’m usually using jerkbaits for Pike but this day they seemed to like more at old fashion wobblers. So I caught most of my days catch with a Westin Jätte wobbler. My total catch of the day was 14 Pike and the six and a half kilos fish was the biggest I saw today. Still, not a bad day to end this years boat fishing trips.

Flattie hunt

It was end of the September when couple of friends of mine managed to find few juvenile Turbots from the south coast of Finland. Turbot is not very common species in Finland. There’s few areas where every 20^th flatfish or so could be a Turbot. On the other hand because of their rarity no one is really fishing for them. So it’s hard to tell how much you really could catch them if you would target specifically Turbot.

With a small hint of hot spot from my friend I finally headed for flatfish hunt at October. I started from the small beach they had caught their specimens couple of weeks ago. With a help of my headlamp I was scouring the beach and looking of any signs of the juvenile Turbot. After three hours or so I had not seen any flatties. All I caught was a Three-spined stickleback (only cause it was quicker than me) and I also scooped up couple of Straightnose pipefishes with my bare hands.

Straightnose pipefish (Nerophis ophidion).

I hopped to my car and drove to the next potential beach. I had been there about fifteen minutes and I was just at the end of the beach when I saw a flat and round little fish lying on the bottom. There it was, a Turbot (small one but still a Turbot). When I dropped my little piece of worm first time right in front of it, it took a short sprint away from me. Well, I followed it and tried again. There were absolutely no reactions to my bait. I had decided that I will catch that fish even thought I had to spend whole night trying it. I changed my bait to a red pinkie and offered it to the fish. It tried to taste it immediately but I could not hook it. So I kept trying and finally after few minutes (which by the way felt like hours) it bit again and finally it was mine! How it can feel so good to catch a fish that can fit completely to your palm?

A juvenile Turbot (Scophthalmus maximus or Psetta maxima).

I tried couple of more places in hope of the Flounder but all I could catch was one Sand goby. So I headed back home and was able to go sleeping at six o’clock at the morning.

Turbot on its own element.

Few days later I headed to another small beach in search of the Common goby. The first looks to the water showed that there were plenty of gobies to fish. In this point I have to mention that I was fishing at bright day light. Most of the people hunting for smallest goby species are fishing in dark. I tried to concentrate to the smaller specimens because the “bigger” ones would be most likely Sand gobies. I managed to catch over twenty gobies and at home I found out that there were two Common gobies among them.

Common goby (Pomatoschistus microps).

After these two trips my year count is now on 44 hooked species from Finnish waters plus one “hand picked” species (Straightnose pipefish). Also my all times species count raised to 121 thanks to my first ever Turbot.

100 species from British waters in two years

A Brit angler Trevor Cozens set a challence to catch 100 different fish species from the British waters in three years period. Now, after two and a half years he is finally completed his quest.

What a great achievement. Congratulations Trevor!

You can find one article about his story from here: www.dailymail.co.uk

Mr. Cozens also has his own blog: specieshunter.blogspot.fi

In the last couple of weeks I have been reading his blog so intensively that I haven't updated my own blog at all. Hopefully I can write something new soon.

Late summer carping

After those few trips hunting small species I finally decided to focus on bigger fish. At the southeasterly Finland is one small and really nice looking day-ticket water stocked with Carp.

We drove there with Viljami in the middle of the last week of August. We started with ground baiting and loose feeding, set our boilie rods out and started to fish with match rods baited with sweetcorn. I had my first and only bite almost immediately and landed a nice Crucian carp of 740 grams.

The rest of the evening and whole night were quiet. When the darkness had moved off and we were able to see our floats again we dropped our sweetcorns to the water. I had nothing happening at my swim but Viljami had constant bubbling at his swim. He had several bites but it took few hours until he finally hooked a fish. It was his first ever Carp. Not a massive fish but a nice specimen of over three kilos. And about ten minutes later he hooked another one a nice looking fully scaled mirror carp of bit over two kilos.

Viljami is playing with his first ever Carp

And here's his second fish. What a nice looking creature.

We tried a while more and I even moved to Viljami’s swim in a hope of Carp too. But nothing else happened. We headed back home but on the way we decided that we will come back as soon as possible. Viljami had been bitten by Carp fly and I was still missing my Carp of the year.

About four weeks later we were there again. This time we concentrated more to fish with boilies. The dam has a bit deeper area and I had got some tips that the fish had moved there. We had our first run about five minutes later we had casted our baits in. Well, this Carp was smarter than we did and didn’t hooked itself.

Hours went by and we had the next run in the total darkness at then thirty. I missed this fish too but about half an hour later I woke up when two bite alarms were singing together. When I got to the rods there was only one reel running so I hit it and the fight was on. When we got the fish to the landing net was the other reel still giving some line out. So, Viljami grabbed to the rod. First the line was stuck to somewhere but soon it loosened and the fish was still on. We left the second Carp to the landing net, weighed (it was a six kilos mirror), photographed and released my fish and then made the same meneuvers to the other fish. Viljami’s third ever Carp weighed 5,5 kilos.

First fish of the second trip. A nice six kilos mirror carp.

Viljami with a 5,5 kilos Carp.

Quite soon after we got back to the tent came next run. It was my turn again but somehow I lost this fish as well. It felt a good sized fish too. So, back to the tent again. I didn’t sleep at all because everything was soaking wet and it was freezing cold out (and in a tent too) there. At three o’clock at the morning was time again to dash to the rods. This time I hooked the fish and after a short fight a really nice looking common carp was lying at the landing net. It weighed a bit over seven kilos and was released unharmed.

7,14kg.

Our last run came about two hours later. Now it was Viljami’s turn but unfortynately he lost this very good sized fish (of course all the big fish are getting away, always).

At the morning I still managed to hook and land a nice little Carp of 3,2 kilos with a sweetcorn. This was one really successful trip even it was raining all the time and at night there was freezing cold. But the Carp were feeding though we had something wrong at our rigs. We lost more fish that we could land, was it because too small hooks, too short hair-rigs or what? It’s hard to say but something has to be changed for our next trip after this magnificent species.

The mighty Carp was my species number 42 of the year. Next there’s something totally different coming again…