Goby hunt from the ice

A bit over an week ago I was at the ice fishing competition. Couple of the competitors managed to hook some Sand gobies from there. I took that as a challenge for myself and last Thursday I drove back to the same place for pre work quick session after gobies.

It took about fifteen minutes to hook and land one. I was using #22 hook and couple of small split shots on the line and a tiny bit of worm as a bait. I then use the rest of the time (about half an hour) searching for Zander but that Sand goby was the only fish I could catch that morning.

This is the first Sand goby I've caught from the ice.

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.

Few short attacks after different species

After we had got back from Norway (report will come as soon as I have time and inspiration to write it) I had one week of vacation with my girlfriend. We had planned to make a road trip to eastern Finland. After an 1400 kilometers and 17 and a half hours drive from Norway it was really refreshing to hit the road again at next day….

On the second day we stopped at the city of Joensuu where it was supposed to be almost a 100 percent sure place for Dace. Only problem was that we had borrowed a fridge to our car, but nobody had told us that it has two different settings cold and HOT. So when I opened the fridge it was like sauna inside and you can guess what had happened to my worms and maggots. Oh yeah, all dead. Well, I decided to give a go with dead maggot. But all I could catch was one Roach and one small Ide.

Next day I bought a box of worms from Savonlinna and at the afternoon I gave a chance to them at one lake that was full of Dace. Or so I had read from the wonderful world of internet. I found a nice looking, very narrow sound with a strong current. That’s the place I thought because Dace likes to swim at the current. I caught some Bleak, Perch, Roach and one small Ide again but no Dace from here either.

The sand castle of Lappeenranta

We woke up at the city of Imatra and headed south to Lappeenranta. After checking out the famous sand castle we drove to the banks of Saimaa canal. There I had few hours chance to catch my first ever Sabre carp. There’s only one good place to hit Sabre carp in Finland and it’s here at the canal. From here I caught Bleak, Roach, Perch, Ruffe, Bream and White bream. It would be a lottery win to catch one with a three hours trying, so no Sabres for me this time.

At least I caught something from the canal.

Next week came and I made one trip after one “easy” species I still haven’t caught this year. It was a Black goby. I have one area nearby at my home it is almost sure to catch one. And because I was thinking like that it turned out to be very hard to find even one. It was almost getting dark when I finally managed to land one tiny, dark brown fish I was after. At last even one species I was targeting surrendered.

The Black goby (Gobius niger).

My last species hunting trial was at Saturday two weeks ago. I drove over hundred kilometers to one nice looking place where I was sure I can find some Common goby and if I was lucky enough maybe some Butterfish or even Two-spotted goby. I walked by the shore and finally found a nice still place with a sand bottom. And there was fish too. There was lot of tiny juvenile Three-spined sticklebacks but among them there was even some other fish and looked just like gobys. Hmmm, gobys in the mid water, could they be Two-spotted gobys? After an hour of hard trying I caught one goby from the school. And it was a Sand goby! What the hell they were doing at the mid water they were supposed to lay at the bottom. After that I went after the smaller gobys that were laying at the bottom like they should do. There was at least 50 of them at the very small area. Normally they are greedy bastards but now I couldn’t catch even one of them. They came to sniff my bait but didn’t even try to taste or swallow it. Nerve breaking endeed. On the way back to the car I tried to find some Butterfish or even some fish between the bladderwracks but all I could catch was two Perch.

So after all these trips I’m now on 41 species this year. Next on my hit list is a Carp, hopefully that trip will go little bit better.

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.