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.

New year, new targets

This year I will try how many species I can catch from the Finnish waters on a one year period. At 2010 I tried that too and my result was 35 species. But then there was many “easy” species missing from the list.

This year I’m targeting to 40, maybe 45 species if everything goes really, really well. There’s bunch of species that I haven’t caught yet from Finland. I think that 3 to 5 new species this year is more than possible to catch.

Here’s some of my targets (new species): The Alpine Bullhead (Cottus poecilopus). On the way to Norway, it should be quite easy to catch from Lapland.
The Ziege or Sabre Carp (Pelecus cultratus). It’s not easy but there should be good chances at the Canal of Saimaa.
The Brook Stickleback (Culaea inconstans). This should be quite sure to catch. The only population of the species in Finland is situated about 30 kilometers from my parents-in-law, so I'll give as many shots as necessary to catch one.
The Garfish (Belone belone). This is the species I’m gonna hunt for real. I have heard that in the Archipelago of Turku this species is nowadays actually quite common. Fishermen who are targeting seatrout do catch also garfish every now and then.

Besides of these four species, here’s couple of species that are possible to catch too; Butterfish (Pholis gunnellus), Spotted goby (Gobiusculus flavescens), The fifteen-spined stickleback (Spinachia spinachia), The European Sprat (Sprattus sprattus) and of course the mighty Atlantic Salmon.
My first attack of the year will be very soon, hopefully I can catch something………

I wish tight lines and screaming reels for all of you readers (I really hope that there’s more of you, not only Vesa) for the year 2012!