Summertime memories

We still have quite a lot of (mushy) ice on the lakes. Nothing happening here.

Well, my so-called friends have been cheering me up with pictures of green banks and carp catch photos. Summer will come here, eventually. While waiting for the summer to come, the best way of getting my mood up is to browse through some old fishing photos! 

This beautiful common carp was caught from Slovenia (picture: David Primozic). I think I forgot to smile!

Blip. Blip. Bliiiiip!

Dear Readers,

It's been a while and the blogging break is now officially over. In the future you will be seeing shorter blogs, longer blogs, or whatever. So be prepared for anything. I thought about changing the name of my blog to somewhat more descriptive of my pointless ramblings. 

So in the future it's not going to be only about carp, but also about carp. So without further ado, I present you: Carp Of The Thousand Lakes!

Hello! It's been a while! (this carp was from Slovenia Photo: David Primozic)

So long and see you later! (this carp was caught from Smartinsko lake, Slovenia. Photo: David Primozic)

Slovenia Carp 2016 - part 2.

Hi all! 

I just wanted to post a couple of pics from the Slovenian trip I made. The lake was Smartinsko - a lake I can recommend. This was my second time there, and probably not the last. It's a lake, not a hole in the ground. :) The carp are from the little ones up to 30kg+.

If you are interested, just contact David Primozic for fishing carp in Slovenia! (http://www.fishing-guide.si/carp-fishing/)

A hard fighting common carp. A real beast on the end of the line!!!

David Primozics nice mirror carp!

All carp on this trip were caught with CC Moore bait. My common in the picture was caught with Odyssey XXX + Acid pear -pop up. I can't recall what bait David used for this fish, but it was CC Moore :) And finally a landscape photo from Smartinsko...

This is just one bay, not the whole lake :) The carp started to spawn in this bay while we were fishing.

Pike: Hungry Little Buggers

Hi all!

Some parts of the Baltic sea are already fishable, so some of my friends have already started their pike season. Alas, I just can't find the time at the moment to hit the waters. Hopefully, I will have more time in the near future.

Just a small suggestion to pike fishermen, who are more or less uncomfortable with bigger lures - don't be! Big lures can sometimes be the only lures that work - whether you are targeting small or big pike. Last autumn I read about guys using only small spoons for pike. Yes, these CAN work, and they are worth the try. But you can blank by using too small lures.

For instance, I was fishing with normal sizes softbaits (13cm), and was blanking. Then I switched to the 40cm Real Eel. You know what happened?

This happened. A smallish pike hit the 40 cm Real eel. It didn't want to bite the small 13 cm lure.

Yet again, this is not the ultimate truth. Only an idea that can sometimes be true. Be open-minded about your fishing, and sometimes you can discover something.

Pike: Sometimes Bigger Is Better

Dear readers,

I was fishing for pike last weekend. I wanted to test how paddletail shads work on my lake. Well, I went through several lures and I fished for two hours without any bites. After that I didn't change the spot, but changed the lure type. So I switched to a 20 cm Savage Gear Line-Thru Trout, and on the first cast I had a bite (but lost the fish). A few casts later I got a nice pike of 5,8 kg. It's not always about finding the right color, but the right action. You just can't be blind with one type of a lure, and think this is going to work 365 days a year. In my opinion, you will have more constant fishing with a range of different lure types than having a single lure type with all the color variations. You won't probably have the best color of the day, but you will have less blank days.

Oh yes - the topic of this blog was big lures. I found out that 20 cm lure is too small, so I changed it to a 30 cm Line-Thru Trout. And I started to catch pike with it. Even the small 2-3 kg pike were hitting the lure viciously. A 30 cm lure is just a snack for the big pike.

But hey, I'm just a beginner on pike fishing. Don't believe me :) 

A 20 cm Savage Gear Line-Thru Trout is in all kinds of trouble here!

Pike: Comfortably Fat and Spotted

So, you've never heard of spotted carp (besides some koi). Well there's no koi carp in Finland. This blog entry is again about pike. Fishing lakes, to be precise.

Some might say that my catches are rather modest considering the size of the pike I am catching. I don't actually care, because I am having way too much fun fishing. And that is what I want when I go out of my door.

I was fishing last weekend:

On Saturday I managed to catch some pike (up to 3,5kg) with Savage Gear Hard Eel 25 cm. I then switched to spinnerbait (Da'Bush) and headed up close to the reeds. Some 5-7 smallish pike from there (up to 2,5 kg), and after this I decided to head back for deeper waters. The big pike weren't hanging around the reeds (at least for now on this spot). I browsed through my lure box for something different that I could use on deeper water - and still have a strong swimming action on slower speeds. Luckily I had one 20cm Savage Gear Line-Thru Trout (Albino) in my lure box, so I decided to give it a try. I had two casts which were not producing anything. On the third cast, I had two strikes which I couldn't connect. I was devastated. The fourth cast was empty, but just next to the boat a pike struck the lure viciously! I was thinking that this is just another 3kg pike... wrong. The rod bent quite steeply and I started to think this was not a 3kg pike. After a strong scrap just below my boat I got the fish into the landing net. A nicely formed pike (you could see the belly from above the fish) Nice! The next cast I connected again. The scrap was still quite hard - and I managed to net even a bigger pike than the last one.

A different pike (and heavier) than the one on the picture below. Pike are absolutely magnificient creatures! Treat them with respect.

 

Well... actually you DO look a bit fat!

My trip on Sunday started quite nicely. First cast with the same line-thru trout resulted in 4,5 kg pike and the second cast (bite already on the drop!) got me a fat 5 kg pike. (These were smaller than the ones I had on Saturday, but they are still really nice fish in my standards.) I had some really fantastic pike fishing, changing lures from every now and then - catching totally around 25 pike in 4 hours of fishing. Cannot really complain. I must get some resin to fix all my swimbaits...

Long Time No See

I was fishing again - for carp - unsurprisingly. The weather was not actually really nice. Fishing alone when it rains can cause a bit of claustrophobia. Spending almost all daytime and nights in your tent is not my idea of spending my time in the nature. Enough with the whining and let's move on.

Of a two night session, I managed to catch just one carp. But luckily for me, I was more than happy. It was my biggest linear carp and also an old friend from my last autumn fishing sessions. You can click on this blog entry and compare it by yourself. Of course it's the same fish. Anyhow, now it was fatter than last autumn. Really happy about that. Also I noticed that no way this fish has spawned and would be in this condition in the middle of July! This particular carp had not spawned. I wonder if some of the fish are going to spawn at all?

I am really happy with my Prologic Commander Unhooking mat. Due to its folding stucture, it is compact to carry around. The side and end walls are high, keeping the fish safe.

Midsummer Carping 2015 (and The Small Issue of Bright Skies)

Hi all! 

It's been a long time without any carpy pictures, so I decided to go and take some new ones. Of course, it was not an easy task, as I was fishing a new swim. I once wrote to the Carp Core magazine about new swims and blanking, so I know quite a bit how "carpy looking" swims can cause you some hard times. Luckily, this was not the case this time around.

I managed to prebait the swim just once, so I wasn't really optimistic about catching anything. Luckily the weather was nice with some sunshine, wind and clouds. The night was also quite cloudy, so it wasn't too bright for carps liking. In Finland, June nights are so bright you can read a book outside even at 2 am. Sometimes that is more or less an issue when you fish a night lake (where carp feed only in the dark hours). So having the clouds up in the sky was a good thing for me.

My setup was this time again my trusty Okuma Trio 55 Baitfeeders and Prologic Fastwater 9'6" 3,5lbs. I just can't tell how nice it is to battle carp with this really compact and lightweight setup. I will not got back to using 12' or 13' rods. Casting distances are rarely a problem in Finland anyway, sometimes casting 10 meters is is enough. Doing that with 13' rods is really not easy :) Besides, I usually fish alone - netting the fish is so much easier with a shorter rod.

During the night I heard some carp jumping in my swim, so I woke up every now and then. It really wasn't a good nights sleep. So when I got a definite liner at 4 am, I was getting more and more excited about actually getting a bite. A couple of hours later I got a screamer run. Rushing outside the tent and grabbing the rod was as fun as ever! I can say the fight was really hard, and I was pushing my line (0,405 mm Prologic Interceptor Fluoro Carbon coated monofilament) to the limit. The fish pulled the line through some rocks close to the bank, so I was more than happy to have the fluorocarbon coating on my line. I think braided line would have snapped in an instant... 

I managed to net the fish and my new unhooking mat was tested for the first time. The fish was a great looking common carp. I was more than happy with the result.

Up Close And Personal

There are a lot of good guys making videos of true carp fishing. For instance, you can go and watch the work of Alliance Peche, short movies by Frank Pizon or the Vienna boys' production Metropolis Carp. Of course there are a lot of great videos made, but these few are mentioned just as examples. (Also worth checking out is a Finnish video made by team Siloneula).

For my part, I think that I want to keep my dearest moments and experiences to myself. Sharing something that you truly love is actually really personal. Also the work made by the people mentioned above is probably enough, as I really don't believe my version of "true carp fishing" would be better (or anywhere close :)) The feelings you have, the moments you live - they are something I find pretty hard to share. I remember a Ernest Hemingway quote "Somebody just back of you while you are fishing is as bad as someone looking over your shoulder while you write a letter to your girl." (Still don't know if Hemingway really said this. Internet quotes can be dodgy :))  Some things are just too personal to be shared. A part of my fishing is a piece of the essence of who I am. That part I am not ready to share.

You can be sure that I will write trip reports also in the future. It is nice to share some things from my trips, but you can be also sure that a lot of the stories will never be told. And I will never tell you the story how my backlead got stuck between rocks and I consequently ended up losing a fish. That would have been my first carp of 2015. Instead of a picture of that carp, may I present you a video full of carp runs... where no backleads get stuck!

All Fish Are Equal

Every now and then, I find pictures on the Internet where people are abusing/disrespecting their unwanted fish species or a fish below target/specimen size. I find this attitude disturbing. 

A fish, no matter its size or species, is still a fish. A fisherman should ALWAYS respect their catches, no matter what they catch. 

I always treat the fish I catch with the same procedure (of course I don't use unhooking mats for 20 gram roach, you silly). Fish welfare is a priority, even when I catch a small gudgeon while barbel fishing or a 600 gram ide while targeting carp.

Naturally, I oppose using livebaits. I don't know how many pike anglers would like me to hook a 10 kg pike from it's mouth and back ... just to "have a big bait". It is not just disrespectful and inhumane thing to do for the fish, but it is more like being in the stone age of fishing culture. It doesn't matter whether the live fish struggling in the hook is a 10 kg pike or a 100 g perch - it's still a barbaric thing to do. (Don't even get me started on the ethics of C&R predator fishing with livebaits. There is absolutely no point there.)

A true modern fisherman has a strong respect for every fish. All fish are equal.

Bream might be a nuisance fish while carp fishing. How we treat the unwanted catches define us as fishermen.

Middle of Nowhere

So, the season is just about to start. We had a spell of warm weather this year and we got rid of the ice cover a bit early (at least in Southern Finland). So this actually means two things: 

1) I must start making my boilies and rigs quite soon

2) I must plan what lakes to fish

Part 1 of my plans will probably fail miserably, and I will be tying the rigs just before my first session. Also, probably no self-made boilies either. But anyway, that's life. Considering how much you need to be organized to fully function in todays world, I prefer a bit of chaos in my fishing and preparations. Besides, a lot of people think that only the simple people need to have their surroundings organized. I must be very smart then :)

OK. Now to the second part of my "What to do"-list. Planning. More or less, I will be fishing a few of my already-familiar lakes and maybe doing some discoveries (if I have the time or motivation). A lot of the time my "discoveries" have been... well... more like disasters. I remember one time I was checking out a remote forest lake, which had very swampy banks. When actually getting to the bank (walking 1 km in very rough terrain and bitten by around 200 mosquitoes) I found out that a big animal had visited my swim as well. Checking the huge footprints and big piles of soft poo, I had a gut feeling, that it wouldn't be wise to fish this swim at all. The only reasonable thing I could do then was to walk back to my car and drive away. Of course, the markings were made by a bear. I am not afraid of bears, but considering all the goodies in my bait-bag, I am really not keen on fishing with bears. :)

Fishing in the middle of nowhere (around 2009). The place was actually quite nice (if you like deer flies)

Still, sometimes I have been very lucky, as some places I've discovered have been really kind to me (like catching carp on the first night on a new lake). Going to new lakes can be frustrating, but sometimes it is like getting to know a new friend. 

No matter the size of the carp, getting the first carp from a new lake is always happy time!

Pointless Ramblings - vol. 23

So days are getting longer here and I am reading fishing reports from my friends in Southern Europe... It gets me a bit jealous as it still takes some time before our season really starts. Weeks feel like years at this point - still eventually we will get rid of the ice cover on the lakes.

As some readers probably know, I have some experience in different fishing styles. (Two days ago I was fishing for zander on dropshot-lures, and I actually DID catch a nice zander!) Of course I always prefer carp fishing to other types of fishing, but every now and then I get distracted :) I can say that I started fishing probably at the same time I was learning how to walk. So being a fisherman instead of a carp angler has a time advantage of 25 years or something. 

What I will always do in the future is that I will try different fishing styles, approaches and target species. I will never be a 100% carp angler (I'm probably 95%), as life is too short to be narrow-minded. There is always new things to discover and fish to be caught. It's not just about aligning your 720 degree semi-stiff chod-roundabout rig. But trust me, carp is still my no. 1 species, and you will see this also in my future blog updates.

A small linear carp caught while doing some stalking somewhere around 2010. I remember catching this with Okuma Sheffield -centerpin reel and Prologic MP Specialist 12'. It was pure joy, even the fish was small.

If I remember my catches right, I have never caught this linear carp before. A nice catch in the autumn 2014 darkness. Here the setup was Okuma Trio 55 baifeeder and Prologic Fastwater 9'6" 3,5 lbs.

So my pointless rambling is coming to an end (this time). Maybe on my next blog I will have some interesting things to tell about my boilies or rigs. OR maybe I keep on talking b-shit. :)

Best regards-

Henrik

Fishing Plans For Season 2015

Hi all!

What is different this year is that I probably start making some of my own boilies. I experimented on some boilies a few years ago, but as I was fishing successfully with Prologic baits, I had no interest to go on with my bait production. Now the time is different, and I will start the long and winding road of baitmaking. Of course I have some ready ideas, mixes and flavours, so this will help me a lot. Luckily I still have some of my trusty old bait, so I don't have to depend totally on my own recipes. 

On another perspective, I am not totally sure how I will enjoy my long hours of boilie making, but I don't think I have an option. So this year you can expect some reports on my boilie development and possible catches. I hope it will be fun despite all the hard work.

One of the few carp I have caught from Finland that I can call fat. Most of the fish are long and lean. This fish is also in the photo below. (The net looks dry, but it isn't. Polarizing filter does wonders to reflections)

This beautiful common carp was really loving boilies (as you can see). Let's hope she will get obsessed with my own boilie recipes and I will catch her a few kilos heavier.

The Slovenian Expedition: Part II - The Mud Warriors

You can start by reading the Part I of The Slovenian Expedition here.

The first morning started with baiting up our swim and recasting our rigs. The game turned on as we caught our first carp during the first day. We got some nice pictures of that one as you can see in my earlier blog  (I am not really into using a carp sack to get better photos, as usually I want the fish to swim free again as soon as possible.) We got a fish every now and then, but nothing really big. I was actually having really good time by the lake, so slow action was not a problem for me. And comparing to the average time it takes to get a bite on a Finnish lake the action was quite good.

As you can imagine, there were a lot of people going out on Mayday, and the days before and after. A lot of commotion on the banks and on the lake. We experienced some minor disturbance on our swim, as our marker pole was almost taken by "The Cocta"-boat...

The Cocta boat nearly killed our marker pole - and caused somewhat of a minor disturbance... David was not really happy either. :)

We also had some rain... Which in some banks equals mud... On this particular bank, I started to feel like a swamp donkey. My leather boots still coped with the mud, but it was hard to do anything while slipping around in thick goo. :)

Muddy boots, no problem. You can trust these, they were made in Finland :)

The third night our baiting strategy paid off with some nice carp. First David got a nice 15kg+ then something even bigger. Well, I will let David tell his story of his carp... I also got some action in the form of a nice common carp. The fish was 15,2 kg and I was really happy to catch that one. I caught the carp with a single 20mm Prologic BK2S boilie.

A nice surprise for me. (Actually I was really hoping for this, as David just had 2 runs above 15kg...)

David was using the new Prologic C3 13' 3,5lbs rods. They were easy to cast and they were great for playing the fish. I experienced that there is a big difference between a 9'6" and a 13' rod. A lot of my moves on the bank would have put Bill Dance to shame. But I did NOT lose a single fish. All runs landed on these rods, so I was really happy with the result :)

All in all, I had some seriously good time in Slovenia with David, and I felt really welcome. What else can you ask for? I'll be back for sure.