Norway, land of the thousands fjords

At the end of the July we made a one week fishing trip to the northern Norway. There was four of us. Me, Jarno and two British friends of us, Peter and Darren aka Shaky. Our target was find some decent sized Cod, Coalfish and Halibut. And of course maybe find some new species for me and Jarno. There was still few basic Norway species missing from my list like Halibut, Wolffish and Rose fish.

Day 1

The first day was more like training for the future and didn’t give anything special for me. Only some small Cod and Coalfish, couple of Tusk (or Cusk) and a small Norway redfish (Sebastes viviparus). However it was a little bit better day for Peter who’s first ever fish from Norway was a seven kilos Halibut that followed his pirk all the way up to the boat and striked the pirk after Pete dropped it to the water again. Also, Jarno caught our first nice sized cod of 9,7 kilos.

Peter with his first ever fish caught from Norway

Day 2

On the second night we took a 45 minutes boat ride to the area we have had a hint from the British group at the accommodation just next to us. They had caught plenty of big Cod and some big Coalfish from there. They said that there should be a small bay and the fish should be just outside of it. But when we finally got there we noticed that there was not only one bay but two quite near from each other. So, we decided to split. Because we had two boats me and Pete stayed to the bigger bay when Jarno and Shakey went to check that other one couple of kilometers south from us.

Well, we did quite nicely with Pete. We caught several nice Cod over six kilos. They topped to 10,6 and 10,8 kilos and I was the lucky one to catch them both. But Jarno and Darren did it even better than we did. They caught totally 15 Cod over seven kilos and they both broke the bound of ten kilos twice. Jarnos biggest weighed 12,5 kilos and Darrens 11,2 kilos. As well Jarno caught three Wolffish while fishing Cod with big shad jigs.

Cod 10,8 kilos.

My haul of the day (or night actually) was nine Cod, few small Coalfish, a bunch of Tusk, few small Haddock and two Norway redfish. But now we had found the area and that smaller bay looked very interesting and was worth better studying too.

Haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus).

Day 3

I’m still talking about the days although we fished mostly at nights. At the third night Jarno hopped to the boat with me when Darren and Peter took the other boat. We headed to the same area than yesterday again. We started with Cod fishing. It went quite well, we caught plenty of Cod and my biggest weighed 10,95 kilos. But because Jarno had caught his Wolffishes from the shallower water inside the bay day before I wanted to try from there too. We also had an idea to try Halibuts with live baits. 

The start was explosive when Jarno hooked and landed a nice 8,5 kilos Halibut on our first drift. While our baits were swimming behind the boat we used our pirks for searching the Wolffish. I think it was our second drift when I hooked something bit better. And there it was, my first ever Atlantic wolffish. What an ugly beast it was. But hey, it was my first new species of the trip.

Jarnos 8,5 kilos Halibut with live bait

My first ever Atlantic wolffish (Anarhichas lupus).

Couple of hours later (I caught another Wolffish in between) I hooked something that felt a bit different. And up came a nice Plaice of bit under 1,3 kilos. We also had several bites at our live baits but they were too cautious to be caused by Halibut. The mystery solved when I finally hooked one of these munchers. It was a Wolffish again. After my Plaice we changed our Pirks to a flounder rigs. Jarno managed to catch a small Halibut and an American plaice (species I’ve never caught) with his rig.

Plaice 1,295kg.

Couple of drifts later I had an violent bite at my live bait. The fish took about ten meters of line very quickly and after my strike it just kept going. But after an half a minutes fight it just got loose. It was not a huge fish, but it would be a decent sized Halibut and my first ever Halibut as well. Because we were very close to the shore now, we reeled in our stuff and started one more drift. 

I had just dropped my live bait down when I had a new bite. Now it stayed on and I finally caught my first Halibut. Sadly it was about three times a size of my bait and weighed about 1,3 kilos. But species is a species and a Halibut is a Halibut. What a greedy little flatfish!

Not a monster but still a Halibut (Hippoglossus hippoglossus).

Jarno caught one more flatfish species on that same drift when he hooked on Dab. After that we headed back to the house. We had been out about 15 hours, so I think you can call that a day. Altogether we caught eight species today. Our mates from England had left several hours before. They had caught few nice Cod (topped on Petes 13 kilo fish) and Shakey had an Wolffish of over five kilos.

To be continued.....

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.

The Alpine bullhead, number 40

Species number 40 from the Finnish waters (This year) was caught at July 21st on our way to Norway (stories from Norwegian waters coming later).

We stopped to River Muonionjoki when we spotted a nice looking rocky shoreline where we though might be a good place for Bullheads. Jarno caught couple of Minnows almost immediately he got his hook to the water. Soon he dropped his first bullhead and some ten minutes later I heard a loud YES from his direction. He had caught his first ever Alpine bullhead and mission was accomplished.

A Scenery from River Muonionjoki. As you can clearly see, we fished at the middle of the night. The picture has been taken at 4.15 AM.

Except I haven't seen even one fish yet. I tried a while more before I decided to move about hundret meters downstream to another spot. There was a really nice looking small and rocky branch current. From there it didn't took too long to catch a fish. It was a bullhead and a quick turn of the fish exposed its stripy pelvic fins. Alpine bullhead (Cottus poecilopus) was my 51st species ever caught from Finland and 113th species overall (yes, you read right, 113th. I have miscalculated in some point. Before this I thought I had already caught 113 species).

The Alpine bullhead with it's stripy pelvic fins.

Anyway, it was really nice to move on towards Norway with a another new species on the pocket....

Nocturnal ditch digging

Couple of nights ago I went to one ditch to hunt Stone loaches. It was suppose to be quick trip because I had working day at morning. But the fishes had a different opinion.

At the first place I saw few fish and hook one. Sadly it wasn't Stone loach but Gudgeon. I left to another spot. There was few loaches but they were all too tiny to hook up (about 2-3 centimeters).

It was almost two o'clock and I decided to check one more spot and leave back home to sleep what ever my result would be. Finally, there they were. I spooked the first one off, second one didn't show any interest with my bait. The third one hit the bait but got loosen when I was lifting it up. Argh, It wasn't too easy this time.

Then I saw one more Stone loach, I dropped my #26 hook with a small bit of maggot right in front of it and "slurp", there it was. A species number 39 of the year. After the fish I headed straight back home, it was three am when I finally got to bed....

Stone loach (Barbatula barbatula)

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.