Summary 2012 August-December

August

There’s nothing much to tell about August. At the beginning of the month I made a road trip to the eastern Finland with my girlfriend. I had two target species there, a Dace which was supposed to be a sure catch and a Sabre carp if I was really lucky. And of course I failed to catch both of them.

A fisherman hunts Sabre carps.

After that I made one trip after Common gobies and other little critters of the archipelago and one Carp trip with Viljami. I didn’t catch any gobies neither Carp. Instead Viljami caught his first ever Carp so the trip was still a success. The only new species for the year I managed to catch was a Black goby. There’s one quite sure place for them nearby my home.

September

I made only four fishing trips at September. Because Viljami has got bitten by a “carp fly” and I was still missing my Carp of the year we decided to make another attack to stock pond. That was a great trip. Even though it was wet and cold the Carp were on a bite and I caught three of them. Viljami was not so lucky this time but he still caught one nice Carp too.

In the heat (coolness) of the night. Carp over seven kilos.

Another mentionable thing is that I caught my firsts Round gobies from my home waters. So now they will be our nuisance forever. I think nothing’s gonna stop them anymore.

October

October was a better month for me. With  a clue from my friend I made an trip in a search of Turbot to the south coast of Finland. After a several hours of lurking I finally found what I was searching for. It took about ten minutes before the juvenile Turbot accepted my offerings and I caught my fourth new species from the Finnish waters this year. I also scooped couple of Straightnose pipefishes with my bare hands but I’m not counting them to my lists because I have rule that all species should be caught by a hook and line.

Monster Turbot.

At the next trip I managed finally caught also the Common goby so my count of the year raised to 44 species caught from the Finnish waters.

November

There were not any species hunting trips at November at all. I devoted completely for Pike fishing. And I managed to catch few nice fish too. Among them there was also my new PB pike of 118cm and 12,1 kilos.

My new PB Pike.

December

At December I made one trip in the search of Flounder and White fish. No results so I had finally completed my one year task. I also made my firsts ice fishing trips of the winter. There’s not much to tell about them. Only a small Zander, one Pike, Roach, White bream and a Ruffe.

After all 2012 was not a bad year at all. I caught 44 fish species from the waters of my home land. My goal was to catch at least 40 species and 45 would be a great effort. There was still some easy species that I didn’t catch like Dace, Flounder and Grayling. I had a goal of catching three to five completely new species from Finland too. I caught four (Brook stickleback, Garfish, Alpine bullhead and Turbot) so that went great too.

Together I caught 70 different species at 2012. 45 of them from Finland, 16 from Norway and nine from Mexico. That’s not a bad effort either.

Summary 2012 May-July

May

If I could decide it should always be May at Finnish fishing waters. It’s still a good month for cold water species but by the end of the month many of the warm loving species have become active too.

I made eleven fishing trips last May. That’s about a trip on every third day. In the beginning of the month I caught few basic species like Bleak, Pike and Crucian carp but I also found couple of not so common species like Belica and Ninespined stickleback. At 30^th of May I made a species hunting road trip with my friends. That trip gave me my first completely new species when we all managed to catch Brook sticklebacks to our lists. Totally I caught six new species for the year on that very day.

There's not so many places in Finland where you can catch a Belica.

A Brook stickleback (Culaea inconstans).

June

June was almost as good month for me as May was. I even made couple of trips more than at May. There was couple of tricky species on my mind and somehow I caught them all. European eel and Asp were on my list after a great trip to the central Finland. My girlfriend was “out of town” when it was time to celebrate midsummer. So, because I had nothing better to do (what would be) I decided to go fishing. That was one awesome trip and I managed to catch my second new species of the year. It felt that it was almost too easy to find and catch a Garfish from the archipelago. By the end of the month my year points were on 38 Finnish species.

Belone belone, not so common catch in Finland.

July

At the middle of the July I thought that water levels may be lowered down enough to find some Stone loaches from the ditches. And I was right. Again one species to add to my year list. At the end of the month it was time to head towards Norway. On the way there me and Jarno made a short stop. And it was a successful stop when we both caught the Alpine bullhead. The first ones of our lives.

My third new Finnish species of the year. Alpine bullhead.

The week at Norway was a success too. We caught plenty of big cod. And what it comes with species hunting all went more than well. From the basic species of the Arctic Ocean I finally managed to catch the Wolffish, Atlantic halibut and Rose fish. I caught four new mini species as well. They were a Longspined bullhead, Norway pout, Yarrell’s blenny and last but not least a Rock gunnel. Totally I caught 16 different species from Norway. That’s not a bad effort on a one week trip.

Atlantic wolffish.

We caught couple of Norway pout from 150 meters deep.

One of the coolest species I've ever caught. A Rock gunnel (Pholis gunnellus).

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…..

Specieshunters.com

I have been looking a website for species hunters for years. Somehow I’ve managed to fail in my search. In the beginning of December I noticed an interesting web address at my blog statistics. It was called Soortenjaagers.nl (“soortenjager” is Dutch and means “species hunter”). I just had to check out the website immediately and realized that this was it. They have also translated some parts of the site in English.

Currently there are around 50 registered species hunters, all from Netherlands (except two maniacs from Finland). I have been chancing e-mails with the folks in Holland and in the future they hope to have registered species hunters from all over the world. I promised to make my share in the task. It would (and will) be great to have global ring of the species hunters at the one place.

In the site you can easily add species you have caught to your personal lists and you can also send pictures of your catch very easily.

So, if you have been hunting for fish species go on and register to the www.specieshunters.com. You can also find a link from the right side of this blog.

PS.

From the site you can also find a page called “Zwoonzels” where you can add pictures of the species you haven’t identified yet. With the help of the other hard core species hunters I can now add five new species to my all times list. Here they are:

Ringneck blenny (Parablennius pilicornis) from Spain 2010.

Bucchich's goby (Gobius bucchichii) from Spain 2010.

Panamic sergeant major (Abudefduf troschelii) from Panama 2011.

Blackspot seabream (Pagellus bogaraveo) from Croatia 2011.

Senegal jack (Caranx senegallus) from Gambia 2009.

 So my all time species count raised to 126.