500 kilometer road trip

At 30^th of May we were heading to Helsinki with my friends Jarno and Viljami. There was good chances to catch few new species from the waters of Helsinki and we were also planned to make one stop on the way.

Guys are searching the Brook sticklebacks.

That was the reason why Jarno came with us. There’s only one place in Finland where is healthy stock of the Brook sticklebacks found. None of us had never caught one, so it was worth trying. I started with a small piece of worm, but the fishes only nibbled it. Then I changed to a piece of white maggot and almost immediately caught my first ever Brook stickleback. Yes, mission accomplished!

I caught couple of them more, Jarno caught two and finally also Viljami caught his first and only one. This was great stop on the way to Helsinki. Everybody has caught so called lifepoint. But now it was time to move on. All the species of Helsinki were waiting for us already.

My first ever Culaea inconstans.

By the time we finally got to the Round goby hot spot, our friend Vesa was already fishing there. He had caught about ten gobys yet. So, baits to the sea, gobys were waiting for us. It didn’t took too long when we all had caught us few gobys. We spend couple of hours there, caught lot of Round gobys, few Perch and Roach. We even caught few Sea trout juveniles.

The Round goby. They have been suffused all over Helsinki already.

Juvenile Sea trout (Salmo trutta trutta). As I had said before, species is a species.

 Next stop was a tiny pond in the middle of the Helsinki which has a good population of Belicas and Prussian carps. Jarno and Vesa focused on Belicas while Viljami and I were trying for Prussians. I barely got my float to the water when it was already going down. It took about 30 seconds to catch my first Prussian carp of the year. Viljami got his first ever in few minutes too.

Vesa, Viljami and Jarno on the action.

 About half an hour was enough there.  Clock was ticking and we had few places left to visit. Next we headed to one of the many islands of Helsinki. From there we tried to find one mysterious fish called Dace. I had an strong opinion that Dace don’t live in the coast (although all the identification books says so). But I was wrong and that was not the first time. In twenty minutes Vesa caught a fish that was not Roach, not Bleak, not small Ide. No, it was in indeed a Dace! Our schedules were stretching when we tried to catch more of them. But no, that was the only one we saw this time. So, forward said granny in the snow.

That was the point where we said goodbye to Vesa. After that we spend at least half an hour extra in the traffic jams at Helsinki. It was about five thirty in the afternoon when we finally arrived to our next destination. This small pond (very, very secret one) has a huge population of small Tench and Crucian carp. We spend about twenty minutes there. I caught 20 small Tench, but we didn’t even see anything else. It was maybe because we used maggots as a bait, sweetcorn would be better for the slightly bigger Crucians.

Tench of all eight centimetres.

 It was time to our last destination of the day. It was another pond and it was situated in the middle of the woods. The target here was another non indigenous species in Finland. The Brown bullhead. Vesa had told us that this is quite sure place to catch one but I was still amazed as my float started to move seconds after it hit the water. And there it was, small, spiny and whiskery fish, Ameiurus nebulosus. After all we caught quite a many of them too. And Viljami finally got his Crucian carp from here as well.

My species number 29 of the year, Brown bullhead.

Then we hit the road again, at last we were heading back home. About 500 kilometers and sixteen and half hours later we called it as a day. But it was all worth it. I caught six new species for the year from which the Brook stickleback was a totally new for me. So my year count is on 29 now and my total species count is on 112. Viljami caught five life points today and Jarno had his one too.

Great trip with even better company. Thanks to Viljami, Jarno and Vesa again.