Summary 2012 May-July

May

If I could decide it should always be May at Finnish fishing waters. It’s still a good month for cold water species but by the end of the month many of the warm loving species have become active too.

I made eleven fishing trips last May. That’s about a trip on every third day. In the beginning of the month I caught few basic species like Bleak, Pike and Crucian carp but I also found couple of not so common species like Belica and Ninespined stickleback. At 30^th of May I made a species hunting road trip with my friends. That trip gave me my first completely new species when we all managed to catch Brook sticklebacks to our lists. Totally I caught six new species for the year on that very day.

There's not so many places in Finland where you can catch a Belica.

A Brook stickleback (Culaea inconstans).

June

June was almost as good month for me as May was. I even made couple of trips more than at May. There was couple of tricky species on my mind and somehow I caught them all. European eel and Asp were on my list after a great trip to the central Finland. My girlfriend was “out of town” when it was time to celebrate midsummer. So, because I had nothing better to do (what would be) I decided to go fishing. That was one awesome trip and I managed to catch my second new species of the year. It felt that it was almost too easy to find and catch a Garfish from the archipelago. By the end of the month my year points were on 38 Finnish species.

Belone belone, not so common catch in Finland.

July

At the middle of the July I thought that water levels may be lowered down enough to find some Stone loaches from the ditches. And I was right. Again one species to add to my year list. At the end of the month it was time to head towards Norway. On the way there me and Jarno made a short stop. And it was a successful stop when we both caught the Alpine bullhead. The first ones of our lives.

My third new Finnish species of the year. Alpine bullhead.

The week at Norway was a success too. We caught plenty of big cod. And what it comes with species hunting all went more than well. From the basic species of the Arctic Ocean I finally managed to catch the Wolffish, Atlantic halibut and Rose fish. I caught four new mini species as well. They were a Longspined bullhead, Norway pout, Yarrell’s blenny and last but not least a Rock gunnel. Totally I caught 16 different species from Norway. That’s not a bad effort on a one week trip.

Atlantic wolffish.

We caught couple of Norway pout from 150 meters deep.

One of the coolest species I've ever caught. A Rock gunnel (Pholis gunnellus).

Summary 2012 January – April

At the start of the year I took a challenge to catch as many fish species as possible from Finnish waters on a one year period. And of course if I would have a chance to catch something totally new for me I would crab that chance.  Here comes a short summary of the four first months of 2012.

January

My year started at 3^rd of January with fishing from the jetty. First trip of the year was a success and I caught eight different species from which a Viviparous eelpout and a Fourhorn sculpin are quite difficult species to catch otherwise than winter time. About one week later it was time for my first ever ice fishing trip after Rainbow trout. This trip was a success too. I caught totally four Rainbows that day. After that I made four other ice fishing trips and caught couple of more new species for the year. By the end of the month I had caught 11 species. Not a bad start for the year.

A Fourhorn sculpin was one of the first species of the year.

February

There’s not much to tell about February. But I still managed to add one species to my list. I made four ice fishing trips from which one after Burbot (Lota lota). A 45 minutes of fishing gave me three of them so my mission was completed.

March

At the beginning of March I travelled to Mexico with my girlfriend. I only managed to make one shore fishing session without results. In the middle of the week I booked a fishing trip with couple of local guides. I managed to catch nine different species of fish. And because this was my first time fishing at Caribbean they were all new species for me.

The Sand tilefish (Malacanthus plumieri) and....

..the Mahogany snapper (Lutjanus mahogoni) were species I caught from Mexico.

In the Finnish waters I made only two ice fishing trips at March, both to the biggest lake of the area. In the second trip I added a Bullhead (Cottus gobio) to my yearlist.

April

The spring came and all the ice and snow melted away. And that’s why there was a couple of weeks break at my fishing. There was still some ice at the sea and the rivers were flooding. I managed to make my first open water fishing trip at April 15^th. That’s when I caught my first Whitefish of the year. Later that month I also added a Bream, Ide and Vimba bream to my list.

The mysterious Vimba bream is one of my favorite species in Finnish waters.

The first third of the year gave me 17 Finnish species. It was a good result. A Flounder was just about only species I was missing at this point…..

Specieshunters.com

I have been looking a website for species hunters for years. Somehow I’ve managed to fail in my search. In the beginning of December I noticed an interesting web address at my blog statistics. It was called Soortenjaagers.nl (“soortenjager” is Dutch and means “species hunter”). I just had to check out the website immediately and realized that this was it. They have also translated some parts of the site in English.

Currently there are around 50 registered species hunters, all from Netherlands (except two maniacs from Finland). I have been chancing e-mails with the folks in Holland and in the future they hope to have registered species hunters from all over the world. I promised to make my share in the task. It would (and will) be great to have global ring of the species hunters at the one place.

In the site you can easily add species you have caught to your personal lists and you can also send pictures of your catch very easily.

So, if you have been hunting for fish species go on and register to the www.specieshunters.com. You can also find a link from the right side of this blog.

PS.

From the site you can also find a page called “Zwoonzels” where you can add pictures of the species you haven’t identified yet. With the help of the other hard core species hunters I can now add five new species to my all times list. Here they are:

Ringneck blenny (Parablennius pilicornis) from Spain 2010.

Bucchich's goby (Gobius bucchichii) from Spain 2010.

Panamic sergeant major (Abudefduf troschelii) from Panama 2011.

Blackspot seabream (Pagellus bogaraveo) from Croatia 2011.

Senegal jack (Caranx senegallus) from Gambia 2009.

 So my all time species count raised to 126.

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!

November piking

At November I had few chances to go fishing. And I used those chances for Pike fishing.

At 5^th of the November I headed to my friends summer cottage to the eastern part of the Archipelago of Turku. For some reason these waters have always been quite challenging for me even though I’ve caught some nice sized Pike from there. Well, this time it was even more challenging. We fished from dawn till dusk about eight and half hours and I had not even single bite for sure. At least my friend managed to catch two Pike. That was not so good start for Pike season though there’s only one way from here. And it’s up…..

At the middle of the month I made my second hit after Pikes. Initially our primary meaning was try to search Shorthorn sculpins from the deep water. A night before we were looking at the weather forecasts and because of the hard southern wind we decided to concentrate purely for Pike. Afterwards thinking that was not a bad thing at all.

For some reason it didn't bother me at all that we missed this guys.

The day started pretty well and we caught a Pike every now and then. Pike were all quite small until Niko changed to a Storm WildEye Seeker Shad in a colour RHC. That’s one of the most lethal pike lures on the market (and that’s why I don’t like to use that). The first fish he caught with that lure was a nice Pike of 8,1 kilos and 104 centimeters. I was still fishing with jerkbaits and about half an hour later a really nice fish of over ten kilos rolled over by the boat after my jerk. Well, it missed my lure and we didn’t see that fish ever since.

Niko and 8,1kg.

Pike were on the bite and we caught them steadily. Again the fish were fairly smallish. The sun was already setting down when we arrived to our last spot of the day. I had just made a cast and said to Niko that it would be nice to catch even one Pike over five kilos today when it happened. It was just like earlier. A big Pike came and rolled over after my jerkbait. The only difference was that this time I barely managed to hook that fish. Niko scooped the fish up with a landing net and the hook slipped of immediately. It was a one huge fish. We weighed and measured the “old lady” and after few quick photo shot I gently released her back to the water. Few casts after we called that a day and what a day it was…

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention. My new PB Pike weighed 12,1 kilos and had a length of 118 centimeters. It was not a world’s biggest Pike but I’m pretty sure that I won’t catch a bigger one (probably) ever.

My new PB. 12,1kg and 118cm.

Four days later we were on the move again. This time I was with Jarno. The day started quite well again and Jarno caught a nice Pike of five kilos. Again we caught a Pike from here and another one from there. From one of our hot spots I hooked a bit better fish. It weighed 7,25 kilos, not a bad Pike at all.

The day is pretty short at November here in north and it felt that the time flew way too fast that day. Altogether we caught 23 Pike from which my seven kilo fish and Jarnos five, five and a half and six kilos Pikes were the biggest of the day.

7,25 kilos.

The weather forecasts told that the winter was coming so I just had to take a day off from work three days after our last trip. The wind direction had changed to east, it was full moon and everything else seemed to be wrong from my opinion. But because this was probably my last chance to fish in the open water I just gave it a go.

The day started actually quite well. I caught two Pike of about three kilos each with my five first casts. Pike were on surprisingly good bite and after few small fish I hooked something slightly better sized. It was only a Pike of 6,5 kilos but it took me a while to land it because the wind was pushing my boat to the reeds. I’m usually using jerkbaits for Pike but this day they seemed to like more at old fashion wobblers. So I caught most of my days catch with a Westin Jätte wobbler. My total catch of the day was 14 Pike and the six and a half kilos fish was the biggest I saw today. Still, not a bad day to end this years boat fishing trips.