10 months of rest...

Finally i got out for some fishing from the warrior. On saturday i took off 4.30 in the morning and headed for Lake Vänern. Out on the water 8.00 trying to get some kind of rusty plan to work, trying to find fish in the water between Klas and Pålgrund, west of Kållandsö. Had some points given to me by Finnish friends, but thought i give some "old hot spots" a chance before getting.
The water was cold,  very cold. None fish thought of biting my lures before i entered warmer water north of Pålgrund. This spot wasn't far away from the point i was by my friends. Still, the area was quite big, so i went thru there five or six times and had fish biting every time.
I had a good day Fishing and everything went well.
Weather was great and i had two fishes with me back home. One salmon and one trout. Not sure of the weight but length was 67 and just under 80cm on the salmon. Two more undersized trouts and some strikes was what i managed to get that day. Fish took on baitfish with Vuoksiraksi and Salsa baitheads. Also flasher was useful today and in one occasion also actiondisc worked well. Fish took mainly in the surface, 15-40g. weights.
When boating in Kållandsö area: Look out for the poles that mark the routes. Ice have moved several of them or they are simply missing. It's not a good time to take the boat and engine to the doctor when the fishing is better then ever. Have a shitty fishing :-)

Vuoksiraksi where it belong...in the mouth on a fine salmon!
Fox rage nets save a lot of scales on the fish. 

Kinnekulle in the backgound.
No bananas in the boat, eh!?

Trout and salmon.

Blekinge 2012 - En trollingfiskares vardag

Thought it could be about time to update this blog with a smoking fresh video cut by Bert. I'ts a summary from last years fishing from Blekinge, South Baltic sea.

We had some really good fishing with just about everything we wanted, good size and fair amount of salmons we had contact with. No really big salmon hit our hooks but we had some 13-14kg as biggest and a very fine average size on the rest, some 11 kg, i think it was. Half all our caught salmon were released. We used only singlehooks on our spoons and off course the rubberized net, for gentle landing.

Last summer i burned some fuses getting involved in discussions with authorities regarding the politics in salmonfishing in the Baltics sea. I wrote many, many mails to Hav & vatten myndigheten and got more confused the more i learned about the system and politics in fishing in the sea and the rivers. When summer ended i was fed up, i have to say. The mess created by lobbyists, gready people and stupid politics is not to be fixed by a few angry sportsfisherman, that's for sure. There are several forums to join on Facebook, for an example Save the baltic salmon, since many angry and dissapointed fisherman jell a hell of a lot louder, that will make a difference.

I have done other things during my stay away from fishing. Upgraded my drivers licence, sharpened my skills in horse driving and so on. But fishing is up again. At last :-)

Enjoy Berts fine clip, but be beware of swearwords. Big salmon and fine weather may forgive some of the bad language! I'll improve this year <"((((><

Click for full screen and go for the HD definition. The light out on the sea is great for films and photos!

My stay in Laponia, Finland, 2012.

Summer up north was fine. Good weather with enough of everything, fine balance with some rainy days, but mostly overcast. I had a nice flow in most of my projects; getting firewood for a long time, restoring buildings, training and at last i did lots of fishing. Mostly we caught perch, pikes and some smaller trouts. So my intake of protein this summer was based on fish...Some sausages went down too.

Mother with nice pike.

Cousin with one of the pikes she caught.

A fishcatcher to have some trust in.

No road to this lake. Only a narrow path leads us to this remote
clearwater lake.

An afternoons catch.

Jani in Livojärvi with some nice perch. Spectacular weather that evening.

One of my best shots this summer.

Look at the colours on the perch. A typical clearwater fish.

Around a half kilo each...

This is a good way to cook fish. With a Finnish muurikka.

Lake Vättern

In case you want try to get some really nice char, Lake Vättern is the place to fish. We fished out of Hjo on thursday last week. The boat was in water from early afternoon till sunset and in those few hours we had a fair number of char in the boat. We kept some for the midsummer feast and the rest of the fish was released outside of the boat, as usual.
Fish took on baitfish behind dodger and flasher, baitfish behind actiondisc, on flies, both in in surface, 50g lead and on downrigger between 40-80 feet. No fuzz, simple fishing. Go for 25-35m deep water, east of the harbour and there's lot of baitfish and all the other ones that gives a nice go on the rods.
Watertemp. is not mixed up, so it's easy to find spots that held fish.
I had Stefan with me on this little trip on thursday. The fish in his hands is one of the ones we kept for the grill.

Have a jolly fine fishing everybody all around the sweet lakes we have to take care of.
I have been writing back and forward to Havochvatten.se about the salmonfishing in the Baltic sea.
The new regulations almost went thru; due to them, if we caught a salmon with adiposefin left (wild salmon) we should have thrown it back in the sea, dead or alive.
Now, there is only 40% of planted salmon in the Baltic sea that has their adipose fin cut off, since Sweden is the only country of them around the Baltic sea that do this. So, it's hard to know if it's a wild salmon on the hook or planted, so therefor the new regulations were put on ice.
 I was looking forward to new regulations, a plan to save and look after the population of wild salmon in the Baltic sea. Giving us something to follow we could have said also the regulations in the northern part of the sea must be looked over, all in mind to save the wild salmon.
Now the rivermouth of Torne älv is blocked by nets. Swedes blocked it june 19 and Finns will do it june 25. Opens up on september 15.
Up the river you'll find teams, approx. 50 of them that fish with nets and something called kullenät. These teams are not fishing for their living. They reported they caught 3094 kg. salmon last year with their nets. That is 300 salmon if averageweight is 10kg...That is clearly false numbers. I'm working on to prove it, so i leave it for now.
A have all the numbers of caught fish in the Torneriver, (numbers reported).
I must say it's gives a strange feeling when looking at all these numbers and at the same time look at the new regulations that almost went thru for us fishing with boats, rod and reel in the sea.
Due to new regulations I should have thrown back wild fish, maybe dead, in the sea when they haul up wild fish in nets in the pearl of wild, untouched rivers in northern europe, Torne river.
It's nuts!
I recommend you to read the regulations on the Finnish-Swedish boarder commission homepage .
Click on the banner in Swedish and then http://regeringen.se/content/1/c6/14/50/40/b597d13f.pdf
There is some 90 pages, but you'll soon find the interesting parts.
Now, when you have read it; contact Havochvatten.se by sending them a question to http://www.havochvatten.se/om-oss/kontakta-oss/skicka-flaskpost-till-hav.html how they will deal with our fishing contra the fishing they have in the rivers up north with nets.
The more of us that send mail to them, the sooner they have to start dealing with it. Show intrest!
Ask them simply how they can have rules and regulations from year 1800 in the rivers, when sportfisherman are put to regulations 2012 with the meaning of saving wild salmon.
Do a good job and have a nice summer.
I'm off to Lappland tomorrow. Back in august :-)

Stefan with one of the chars