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Written by Antti Kymäläinen
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Monday, 18 February 2008 |
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Foreword
Welcome to read my renewed flyfishing diary. Starting from 2008 I decided to write my fishing blog so it covers a report from every fishing trip I do. Reports are written daily basis and contain more detailed info than previous writings. I hope this change will improve the quality and help readers find what they are seeking from here. By commenting you will help me to improve it even more. So enjoy...
6th of April
Season opener. I went to river with Kimmo Piispa to see if there's any activity going on after winter. Weather was good: cloudy with occasional sun appearances. Water was still very cold as river was loosing its last ice. Some of spots still had ice coverage making fishing a bit demanding. The result was absolutely nothing, only one glimpse of pike was notised after my fly. Conclusion, no need to go there to hunt pike until water gets warmer...
14th to 16th of April
I got an invitation from Arto Kojo to come to fish in Kemiö/Baltic Ocean. That area is well known for trophy sized pikes and with high expectations I started my this years first spring pike trip.
Arto is a known pike fisher in Finland. He fishes pike with spin/cast rods and big jerk bites. We already have been fishing together in Vuoksi past autumn and it is interesting to compare jerks against flies once again. We had three days time to make an excessive field test at ocean.
Unfortunately the weather was too nice, first two days sunshine from cloudless sky and mild wind. Last day we had more clouds, but still in very mild wind. As you can guess we had some big difficulties in fish finding and when we found them they were not willing to bite anything. With vast amount of casts and long days we were able to get about 60 pikes (2 men in 3 days). Biggest for me was 6,8kg (see pic) and 6,4kg for Arto. The amount catched was equally divided between us so we can say both used methods worked with about same efficiency.
In nutshell, it was a pleasure to fish in those waters with Arto. The places for sure has a great potential, with better timing the results been totally different (note: just heard that on 17th they got 60 pikes, so things change fast). We'll see if I can make a new trip to there this autumn. Once again thanks to Arto for taking me there to fish with you. See you on Vuoksi at summer :)
8th of May
Today I had a short trip to lake Saimaa with Mika Huhtanen. Weather was about +10C, water from 5 to 9 degrees, some rain and occasional sun periods with basically no wind. We drove around and checked many potential pike spawning areas, but only spotted one very big perch. It was one of my first spring trips to Saimaa and somehow I can't read how the lake behaves at the moment. Won't give up though...
17th of May
It was a time to take some time off from garden work and went to our summer place with my daugther Aino. After I got Aino to bed, I had some time to visit shortly at our lake. Weather was perfect, mild breeze and last beams of sun at lake at 20.30 when I went to boat. Unfortunately our wooden boat leaked a lot. In every 10 minutes I needed to empty the boat to avoid sinking. No need to say that it didn't make my short fishing trip any more enjoyable.
Pikes were very active. Only checked the closest good spots and had three pikes with biggest of them 2,4kg. There were lot of activity on lake though it was late, but didn't feel secure at boat and hence returned back to summer place while still dry. Kinda shame though, would have liked to continue the fishing little longer. Hope next time the boat carries me better....
23rd to 24th of May
It was a time for traditional spring trip to Läsäkoski. I had caught on last visits few good fish from there and hence started my trip with high expectations. Weather was alright for fishing, but water was kinda high.
Fishing itself didn't offer me other than good casting practise and lesson to be learned. Being honest it showed that I lacked experience in spring river fishing (been fishing too much lately only on still waters and big rivers). I wasn't able to dig water deep enough with accuracy needed. There were few very good fishers (Kimmo Piispa (on picture at right) and Janne Nyblom) and watching them gave me few tips I need to remember in my next trip to river. Lesson learned - next time I hope to have different results.
1st of June
Finally water was warmed enough to make first real fishing trip to river Vuoksi. I did one trip to there about a month ago with Kimmo to check things and for this trip I had expectations to get some fish to boat. My brother Mikko was visiting us so naturally I went to river with him.
We went to river about 10am and weather was full sunshine with mild wind. We moved quite fast upriver and check few mid-summer places, which still turned out to be empty. Our target was one good spring place I knew at mid-river. After few casts we starting to see pikes following our flies and Mikko was able to get one bite the fly, but didn't get well hooked and was lost.
We decided to continue as with limited time we wanted to check many spots. 3rd spot was again more summer place and again it was still totally empty. The one after that was - hmmm - kinda packed. After dropping anchor almost after every cast we got pike after our flies and I got three pikes catched and released. Then we fished one hot-spot very carefully without any action until I casted my fly into tree. We pulled our boat there from my line in order to approach the spot quiet and just under my fly there layed a monster. I estimated its weight to be about 10 kg and it was there melting its breakfast at sun. It slowly moved away when we was 5 metres from it. We did try fish the same area 45 mins later and nothing happened. After we had enought casts we decided to go and have a look if it was returned there and it was! Laying about the same spot and had ignored all our flies we casted front of its nose. I assume it was just so stuffed that it has no interest to eat any more as our flies almost had touched it.
As time flied we needed to head back downstream and hurry to home. On the way I decided we go again to that mid-river spot to make few casts as there was good amount of followers earlier. We went there, first cast and bang - fish on. Its stronger pulls made me smile and little later nice 6,1kg was landed, pictured and released (see pic on right).
In nutshell, pikes at river are now very active and feeding after spawn. They are located in slow flowing, warmer water areas. I'd say the season is on now and around end of June fish can be found more at stronger current areas as well.
4th of June
Another evening at river. Weather was full sunshine, wind N mild with moderate gusts. Evening offered us casting practise and nice views. This time we were on river from 5 to 10 pm. Pike activity from sunday was gone. It tells something about the evening that we didn't see any pikes following our flies and lures (was fishing with Jarmo Himanka, who used spinning rod). All pikes we encountered took the fly alright, but only landed one about 2 kg fish. Dropped four though and one of them was heavier.
What we experienced though was large amount of small vendace (muikku) entering the river. We witnessed many brown trout chases in school's of small fish. Were very nice chases indeed. There were also lage amount of small two-wingers flying around, so with these facts in mind next time I should check some summer places as well.
8th of June - Windtunnel
Wind, wind and summer - three things I remember best from 8th of June. Never fished in river in such conditions, but I had a free morning so needed to try best out of it. At least it was easy to row upstream as wind was stronger than current. Start was promising, I got one and had few other takes at first place. So fish was on take, but from the beginning I had problems as anchor wasn't able to hold the boat on place.
For my second spot upstream I had loaded with high expectations. I had constant problems with fishing as shooting lines didn't stay on boat and tangled every possible places. But still kept fishing and got nice 3kg and one smaller from there. The previously spotted monster didn't show itself.
On the way back down I decided to check summer places. Due to current conditions I only stopped to one hot-spot. Started with sink-6 line and second cast offered me a nice surprice. I had a good fight and landed 4,02 kg pike. The good news about this was that pike's can be found at some summer places already. If the wind would have been even tad milder, I'd have had much better result I assume, but life is....
12nd of June
I got a change to get to river at noon and thought the weather would be nicer that few days ago. The start proved it that I was wrong and wind was as strong as sunday. I got first pike on my way up and second spot gave me wind, rain and 4,12kg pike. I kept cursing the weather although I have had good activity so far.
After that wind dropped and sky cleared. Then river died. No happenings at all after that. Long windy and rainy period changed to sunny calm afternoon/evening. That change really did put fish mouths shut...
15th of June
Short trip to river at evening, saldo nothing. No bites and not even a follower. Caddis though has started to fly and whitefish were already at surface. Maybe changing target species for while...
20th to 21st of June - Midsummer
 I spent midsummer at our summer place with my family and my parents. I had few chances to get to lake and fish some pike. Weather was very unsteady and windy. Fishing wasn't very productive over the weekend, but finally I got a possibility to test pike fishing from surface.
I ordered few pike flies from USA. Price of 5-6 USD is very nice for those flies and justifies the cost perfectly as I do have limited free time these days. I was "forced" to test those flies after I saw Barry Reynolds DVD In pursuit of the water wolf. I have tested some old selfmade poppers beforehand so I knew they should work.
And they did, first pike took the fly 3 metres away from boat with big splash. Superb fishing. Cought few over weekend and addition to that had more takes, strikes and jumps to that fly. Pikes performed quite manouvers while chasing the fly and that itself made the fishing very enjoyable and pulse raising. Very recommended to every pike flyfisher!
29th of June - Thunderstorm
It seemed that thunderstorm from midday was gone and forecast showed clear weather for evening so I headed to the river. Weather looked fine: cloudy and mild wind. I rowed upstream to starting place and anchored my boat to good spot. After few casts I had a nice pike on and it felt quite good in size. Unfortunately it didn't stay hooked. Dozen casts later I had another better pike on fly. Again few seconds battle and hook came loose. And same story for thrid time though this time just felt take and it just didn't get hooked. Right after that rain came and good thunderstorm followed it. For safety reasons my trip to river ended short and in pouring rain I returned back to shore. Unfortunate timing I'd say.
2nd of July
I had a evening trip to river as it seemed there's no thunders close. In fact weather was nice with clouds and some rain. Somehow fish weren't that active, surface seemed dead probably due afternoon-early evening heavy rain. I managed to catch three pikes and just before leaving rowed little bit upstream to fish one already fished spot again.
I hooked nice pike in there, estimated weight was about 5kg. Current was quite a strong in that spot so needed to keep high pressure to fish in order to even pull it up to boat. Then something unwanted happened: The pike cut my 55kg wire. I lost the fish and one of my trusty flies. The fly has been deep in mouth based on marks at wire. Was only caused by bad luck combined to strong flow of river. Will get it next time...
12nd of July
On saturday afternoon I went to river with Arto Kojo. It's always nice to fish with him as he's very experinced jerk bait fisher so differences between jerks and flies can be seen. This time pikes were not very active, but we cathed few from different places and lost some as well. The jackpot came when we were checking new area. First I got a small one and sometime after that at quarter past seven at evening a bigger one took my fly. After a pulse raising good ride it gave me, we got it on boat. I was sure it was my first tenner as the back was quite wide indeed, but unfortunately the stomach was totally empty. It weighted 9,4 kg and was biggest on my home river and as big as my previous record pike. What a happy catch it was. After weighting the fish was released and we set up new meeting at autumn, when it's well eaten :)
River Näätämö 15th to 19th of July
Report coming online soon
River Huopana 17th to 18th of August
Report coming online soon
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 19 August 2008 )
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