A bit different midsummer festival

Because my girlfriend was still at Spain I didn’t have any plans for midsummer. No barbecuing with friends, no summer cottages nor rock festivals. So surprisingly I decided to go fishing. At Thursday night I packed my car, picked up a my trailer and boat and got ready to early morning start.

I was at the shore at seven am at morning. I dropped down my boat and headed to the place I had checked earlier from the sea chart. I trolled all the way there and a bit before I came to those islets I had a strike but I missed that fish. When I got to the islet I changed my tactics to spinning. I had tuned my lures for Garfish (I had been reading that it’s better if the treble hook is rigged to the lure by a short piece of line) but I still was quite amazed when I saw an Garfish following my lure to the boat. That gave me lot more trust for what I was doing. They really were there, it was truly possible to catch one!

After a several hours spinning and few shy bites I drove to nearby island and took a little nap at the cliff. When I woke up I tried to find some Black gobys but all I could caught was some Three-spined sticklebacks.

At night the wind calmed down, it was almost still and the scenery was really beautiful. I left my “home bay” where I had decided to mount my tent and spent my night and drove back to that very same islet. It was my third cast when I had a bite. The strike came straight from my spine and the fish was on. When the fish came to the surface for first time I saw that it was a Garfish. When it was quite close to the boat it took a tail dance I have saw never before. At this point I was 100 percent sure that the fish will get loose. But no, soon I had my first ever Garfish at my landing net. That was a great moment. After weighing and photographing the fish I fished a while more and had another bite from the same place. But another Garfish would be too much and I couldn’t set the hook.

Here it is, my first ever Garfish (Belone belone).

And the same fish with a lure it fell to.

It was almost dark now and I tried to find some small critters from the bay with a tiny hook in the light of my head lamp. I caught couple of Sand gobys (species number 37 for the year, Garfish was 36^th), Three- and Ninespine sticklebacks before my head lamp died. I had forget to chance the batteries before my trip. So it was time to get some sleep.

Couple of Sand gobys in the jar.

After breakfast I took another try with the small fishes. I caught another Sand goby in seconds and soon after that I hooked a small fish that turn out to be a Eurasian minnow. Wohoo, another new species. Then I decided to go after Garfish again. But it was completely different day today. Not even a hint from the fishes. And what was more it started to rain and the wind got worse again. I had planned to stay for two nights but the weather forecast told that it will be raining the whole day and whole night.

Minnow (Phoxinus phoxinus).

So I unpacked my camp and left back home. I had caught three new species for the year from which one was totally new for me. So I was more than happy for the result.

A Three-spined stickleback that I caught with a landing net. The creature just next to it is a normal sized maggot.

Turbo charged roaches and a slippery eel

At Friday 15^th of June my girlfriend  left to a holiday trip to Spain. I had promised to give her a ride to airport of Tampere and at the same trip I was able to check the local fishing possibilities. About twenty kilometers from the airport is situated some rapids called Kuokkalankosket. This is one of the best places in Finland for Asp fishing. So you can figure out what my primary target species was.

This was the place I caught my first Asp of the trip

I started fishing at noon. About one and a half hours later I had my first bite and I had a nice fight with an Asp of 1,4 kilos. Quite soon after my first fish I had another hit at the same place but then came the silence. Asps continued their chase of Bleaks but didn’t give any interest about my lures anymore.

And back he (or she) went. C&R of course.

I changed to another rapid. The Asps were splashing all over and I got couple of hits soon after I started. Few hours later I got a better hit and the fight was on.  It was a strong fish and I thanked it didn’t run down to the rapid. It was a nice fish of 1,7 kilos. I got one more juvenile Asp (about 300 grams) from the same place before I decided to chance place again. It was already ten a clock at night, I was supposed to sleep few hours in the car so I can fish all night after.

1,7 kilos of pure muscle and 95 kilos of something else

But I had come here to fish not sleep. So, another rapid, another shot. I started from the beginning of the rapid. There was few Asps  chasing  Bleaks again but all I could caught was a fail hooked Bleak every now and then. It was their spawning period so there was billions and billions of them in the rapids. So the Asps had more than enough food to chase and they totally ignored my tries to feed some plastic or wood to them. It was little bit over eleven now and it was getting a bit darker. I was leaving to another place to give a shot for a little Eel fishing with cutbaits (I had saved all my fail hooked Bleaks for bait) when I noticed a nice looking spot at the edge of the rapid. I casted my white Rapala Esko Team to the place and got a hit almost right away. It was a nice Zander of about 650 grams. Another cast and another Zander. Couple of cast without a fish and then I had bite again. The fish felt a bit different than those Zanders. And up came a Rainbow trout. Ten minutes, three fish, not bad!

The lures that gave me most of the action

A nightly Rainbow

Now it was finally time to move on. I had found a perfect looking place for Eel fishing earlier at the day. I set my rod out with a piece of Bleak on the hook. This was a first test for my new ProLogic bite alarms too. The alarm worked almost too well. I didn’t even get my ass on the stool when the alarm was already giving small signs of bite. The rod tip was nodding softly and the baitrunner reel was giving line centimeter by centimeter. I got enough of waiting anymore and decided to strike. And fish there was. I felt some kind strange wiggling at the end of the line, could it be Eel already. And it was. Amazing, I had been fishing for five minutes and yet I had caught my target species. After the Eel I caught one Zander with the bait. Actually I had at least ten bites, but I couldn’t hit anymore fish.

Eel of 1,16 kilos

I checked one more rapid (the most popular one in the area) after the Eel fishing. Didn’t catch anything else so I thought that it was finally time to give up. 21 hours of nonstop fishing is enough even for me. I hopped to my car and drove to Tampere. There was my next destination, a small pond that has a good population of small Tench, fair sized Crucians mixed with some Carp.

The sunrise at the rapid.

But before I started to fish again I took a few hours nap at my car, bought some more snacks from the supermarket and just chilling out a bit. At six o’clock at night I was ready to fish again. My groundbait was slowly making its job and there started to be more and more fish activity at my spot. First I caught only some small Tench, after nine some Crucians appeared to the place and some of them even excepted my sweet corn as a dinner. But I didn’t managed to catch anything bigger. I didn’t even see any Carp.

My biggest Crucian carp weighed a bit over 400 grams.

At midnight I gave up again and started my way back to home. For some reason I was quite tired and it took about six hours to get back home. It’s a pretty long time for a 170 kilometers of ride. I stopped twice to get some sleep between driving.

After all the trip was another success. Once again two new species for the year (now on 35). The Asp was my target and the Eel was very welcomed bonus. And I will catch that Carp later this summer….

Last weekend

Here’s a short report from the last weekends fishing.

At Friday I made a short trip after gobys to the nearby island. I was pretty sure than I could found at least some Black gobys and maybe some Sand gobys too. But no, all I caught was few small Perch.

My spot for the Saturday nights fishing

At Saturday I was working, but I was decided to go and do some after work fishing at evening. My target fish was a Tench (a real Tench, not those babies I had caught earlier this year). When it was time to go fishing it was raining cats and dogs. So no fishing today I thought. But at eight a clock the rain stopped and I still decided to go. But no Tench for me this time, only couple of Perch and one Rudd.

Sunday was the real fishing day. We had the match fishing court championships at the place where was a good chances to catch both the Asp and the Zope or Blue bream. During the contest several Asps and Zopes were caught and a nice thing was that I caught one Zope too. After the contest we continued fishing there with Jarno and tried to catch more Zopes or even Asps. We did not catch anything special although I lost one fish that propably was a small Asp.

There it is, my first Zope (Abramis ballerus) of the year.

When we left from the contest area we headed to the place where as I had heard from my friend was living a good population of Brook Trout (Salvelinus fontinalis). We found the place easily but getting to the shore and finding a spot to fish was another story. Jarno found one spot after we both had sank to the knees in to swamp and struggled through the brushwoods and legions of mosquitos. Jarno caught three small Brook trouts and finally even I caught one. It was time to leave back home. That was a place I visited first and with no doubt last time at the same.

Huge Brook trout from the place of suffering.

Day of the two new species for the year was not so bad after all.