This and that

It’s been over three months since my last post. After my trip to Sweden I have been fishing only at local waters. To save you all from a suffering, I'll keep my report as short as possible....

Ville with his second ever live baited winter Pike. 6kg sharp.

The winter was long and persistent so I made my last ice fishing trip to the Baltic at the 18^th of April. And what a trip it was. Totally I had 36 runs with my live baits from which I caught 14 pike. And the best part was the pike were decent size too.  Here’s a list of my six biggest pikes of the day: 7,2kg/6,7kg/6,5kg/6,45kg/5,55kg and 5,35kg. That was not a bad way to end the ice fishing season.

A fat lady on the way back home...

Two weeks passed by before I made my first open water attack. I decided to go after Ide. I caught few of them. Not any trophy ones but it was still fun to catch'em.

In the middle of May came our friends Daron and Darren from England to fish with Jarno and me. On the first day they went with Jarno to hunt some Vimba breams. Saddly I couldn't get day off from work so I missed this trip. All of them managed to catch at least couple of Vimbas so the trip was a success. 

On the next day we borrowed my uncles boat and headed to the Archipelago with a Whitefish on our minds. When we found the island (it was a "bit" foggy at the morning) it didn't took too long to catch our first Whitefish. Together we caught about 15 of them. Not a super good day but at least we had fun.

Daron and his first ever Whitefish.

Fishing is not always so serious....

Then came the last fishing day of their trip. This time our target species was an Ide. Again a species they haven't caught yet. The season was at it's end already but still they managed to catch two Ide each.

Darren was very pleased to catch an Ide.

Even I caught one....

In the change of the May and June my girlfriend travelled to Spain again. Of course I offered to give her a ride to the airport because that ment I had a chance to catch some Asp again. Jarno hopped on too and so we had 24 hours to hunt for Asps. My trip started very well when a good sized fish hit my Rapala lure after an hour of fishing.
After an longish fight Jarno scooped up my fish and then I just realized the size of the fish. It was by far my biggest Asp ever. A beautiful fish of 4,2 kilos.

What a nice fish!!

After that I managed to catch three more Asp though they were all small. For some reason Jarno failed to catch any........well he caught few Perch, a small Zander and this one.....

The one you really don't want to mess with.

After that trip and between those trips mentioned above I have made some shorter trips after different species. I don't have any goals what it comes with species hunt this year (all the new species are still welcomed of course) but it's still always nice to catch different species with different methods.

At this point I have caught 21 species from the nearby waters. One to mention is the first Round gobies from my home bay just couple of hundred meters from my home door....

Last trip after Flounder

After a couple of weeks period of frost on 12/12/12 there was finally only minus two degrees out. So I went shore fishing after Whitefish. And of course I was hoping to catch some Flounder too. But it’s not always going like you have planned. I also tried some spinning after Sea trout but my only “catch” of the day was a flu that I’m still having. It was snowing almost all day long and a brisk easterly wind made the conditions freezing. This trip was a seal to my species hunt this year.

The conditions were quite arctic.

I have still made couple of ice fishing trips after Zander and Pike but to say the least my results have been lousy. Today I was out about five hours and my only catch was one small Roach and a small White bream.

So, the fishing season 2012 is now over. I will make a summary from it in some point. Now it's time to wish You all a Very Happy New Year!

Searching for Flounder

Waiting is on again....

About an week ago we made a whole day trip after Flounder with my friend Jarno. There's nothing to tell to posterity. We caught altogether seven small Whitefish and seven Perch.

My first Whitefish. A huge fish of about 100 grams.

There was also a unpleasant episode with the local fishermen. They came with their boat, saw us and our rods on the shore and dropped their gillnets right over our lines. And believe it or not this is still just normal behaviour in the archipelago of Turku.....

There's a gillnet buoy about 30 meters from the place I was sitting.

So, no Flounder this time. Hopefully I can make another trip before the fish are leaving those shallow waters.

Spring season opening, finally…

Last Sunday I had a couple of hours to spend by fishing. I decided to hit to the nearby river. I thought that maybe the Ide or even Vimba breams have started their spawning run to the river. They were not. I tried a bit over two hours and I didn’t have even one bite. So, it was time to change plans…..

Waiting for the bite......in vain.

 

I hopped to my car and drove to Ruissalo. It’s an island in front of the city of Turku. I knew that the place where I was heading to would be full of other fishermen. But still I took my risk to crowd between them.

When I got to the shore there was one man landing a nice Whitefish already. I casted my worm between the others (or actually way behind them thanks to my 12 feet feeder rod) and the waiting game was on.

Couple of other fishermen. I counted 22 rods on the short piece of the shore line.

 

Couple of other guys caught a fish before my rod tip gave signs of the bite. It was a nice Whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus). It weighed about half a kilo (or a bit over pound). After that I tried about one and half hour more, no more bites so it was time to leave back home. The Whitefish was my species number 14 for this year. Let’s see what I’m targeting next……Pike, Vimba bream, Flounder, you never know.

The European Whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus).