Twenty-one

I have visited our neighboring country Estonia several times but have never fished there before. At June it was finally time to fix this horrible mistake.

I arrived to Tallinn by ferry on the morning and started to drive around to look if I can find some nice looking fishing spots. After checking couple of places I stopped to River Pirita just about five kilometers east from the downtown of Tallinn.

Nice, sheltered fishing spot.

At the time I got to the river it was raining buckets. Well there was a couple of bridges nearby so I moved under the bigger bridge and found a nice sheltered place to fish at. My only goal for this trip was to catch at least one fish no matter the size nor species.

Let it rain...

This was actually a very easy job. There was tens of aggressive Three-spined sticklebacks hanging around and it took about two seconds to catch the first one. I had added a country number 21 to my list. I caught about ten more sticklebacks and few Bleak before I headed shopping (just couple of cans or bottles of beer, long drinks and wine) to the town.

Estonian Three-spined stickleback.

After packing my summer refreshments to my car I parked to the harbor and went back fishing. I was fishing at the dock and thought I’ll catch some Round gobies and maybe some Perch. The other half went right when I caught about ten gobies. I also caught one small Viviparous eelpout as a surprise catch.  

Round goby (Neogobius melanostomus).

Viviparous eelpout (Zoarces viviparus).

A nice trip in not so nice weather gave me nothing less than a one more country fished.

Stay tuned. Some more countries and fish species coming soon….

Starting the 2014 season

Long time no see.

During the autumn I made several attacks after Pike but nothing worth mentioning happened. Well, I bought a fly fishing rod etc. for Pike fishing. Once I borrowed a belly boat from my friend I was totally hooked. So I was forced (yeah right) to buy a belly boat of my own as well. I caught some Pike  during the autumn but all the big ones got around me from the distance.

Me and my new toys.

Now, after a long and mild autumn the ice fishing season has finally started. I have made few bait fishing trips after a Pike but results have been crappy. After three full days trips I have landed only two smallish Pike.

Viljami with a huge Pike he caught...

At the end of  January we had a meeting of Finnish species hunters. The meeting was at the place where I had a great start for the 2012 season (You'll find the report here).

There was about fifteen of us hunting for Fourhorn sculpin, Baltic herring, Eelpout and what ever will hit our baits. During the day many of our group caught one or more lifers. I caught four new species for my 2014 lists including Smelt, Three-spined stickleback, Baltic Herring and Fourhorn sculpin. The Viviparous eelpout was one species I didn’t caught though everybody else caught at least one.

I was too lazy to take any pics at this trip. But hey, luckily you can find better report (in Finnish) and some pictures at Juha's blog.

I haven’t decided yet if I’m gonna do some serious species hunt at the Finnish waters this year again. I’m now on 10 species so the start has been quite good. Well the time will tell what I will do.

Quite soon I’m travelling to Canary Islands with my family. It’s not gonna be a serious fishing holiday but I’m still quite confident I’ll catch some new species to add to my life list as well….

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.

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.