1st Anniversary For "Carp Of The Thousand Lakes"

Dear readers,

My blog "Carp Of The Thousand Lakes" had its first anniversary. It's time for me for some celebration, as the reader number has exceeded my expectations. I even had some offers of getting money from writing this blog (!) I had to let these offers down, as I want to keep the commercial aspect as far away as I can. I think you, as well as I, are fed up with the UK-style buy this, buy that, don't buy that (it's the last years model, and because of that, it's crappy).

I really would love you to subscribe to my blog or leave comments. It's the fuel that keeps me writing this blog. Also, all the contacts I have received via email have been very interesting and I am very pleased receiving them.

Now some talk about carp fishing... I have learned about carp fishing a lot this year. The most interesting part was to have Enrico Parmeggiani (Italian carp angler) visiting Finland. We had some good debate about the behavior of carp. The conclusions were quite different, and there are some very big differences in Italian and Finnish carp. Like the biggest disturbance by the lake we fished was a woodpigeon cooeing 1 km away...  So at least the acceptable disturbance levels in carp fishing are quite different here and in more urban waters. Carp fishing is always a learning game for even the most experienced carp angler. And in my opinion that is the biggest reason I will keep on fishing for carp. It's not the record carp, it's not being famous, just the idea of something I will never master even how good I will be.

This Northern Beauty missed a scale.

Doing Good Deeds... Lifetime Patron of The Wye

Dear readers,

I FINALLY had the chance of repaying the hospitality of the Wye & Usk Foundation, Mr. Martin Bowler for giving a day of his time and Mr. Peter Drennan for letting us fish on his private waters.

I recently had my barbel fishing article published in a Finnish fishing magazine Metsästys & Kalastus (issue 6/2012). The magazine has around 40 000 subscribers and 400 000 readers. The article itself was 5 pages, with a full double page trophy shot of a barbel and me. :)

Anyhow, I donated the money from the article to Wye & Usk foundation. The sum was 500 GBP, which makes me Lifetime Patron of The Wye. Now send me the crown and I'll wear it every time I go fishing :) Don't get me wrong, I am not rich. I just wanted to do something to repay the hospitality.

Mr. Martin Bowler guided us to several barbel on the Wye. He is a true ambassador for fishing.

The Night Of The Living Mosquitoes

I had been prebaiting my swim for a week with DD Bait Feedermix and boilies. A few kilos of Freshwater Snail Feedermix and about 2-3 kg of boilies every other day. The boilies I choose for prebaiting were the Banana&Crustacean and Red Bull Guana. I was really looking forward to fishing the spot, as I have succeeded there almost every time.

The night of fishing came, but it was actually a night of terror, as mosquitoes were trying to take over the world. Literally, there were hundreds of them just waiting to feed on me. Taking some pain and around hundred mosquito bites, I managed to set my rods and my bivvie. So it was just a waiting game then. I managed to get some sleep, and around 4 am, I woke up to my alarm going off!

I hurried to my rods and saw the right rod going off in a good speed. But I also found out that my left rod had lost 100 m of line and it was pointing to another direction I cast it to… I took the rod on the right and landed a beautiful mirror carp. It was in really good condition after spawning, and by the looks of her, the boilies had been very tasty…

After that I started to work with my left rod. The rig was probably stuck in tens of waterlilies, so I pulled the line to cut off the lilies. One by one, I managed to get the rig closer. It took around 15 minutes, and I put very heavy strain on the Prologic XLNT Camo monofilament. Suddenly the rig was loose of the weeds, but I also realized that the fish was still on! My situation was quite tricky, as I had my landing net occupied with the previous carp… After some hectic (and not so educational) close quarters battle with the carp, I managed to get her also in my landing net. A landing net can get crowded… But to cut a story short, the lean and mean fighting machine common carp was 12,3 kg. Both of the fish were caught with a combination of DD Bait Red Bull Guana and Banana Crustacean boilie.