Pic Or It Didn't Happen

Dear Readers,

Yet a few weeks has passed and I have something to say again. We are having an early winter and the temperatures have been even -10 Celcius. Now it's a bit warmer, but how long, I can't say.

The season 2012 was ok. Didn't fish as much as I would've wanted, but still I managed to get some good experience and some nice fish. Don't get me wrong, me and my fishing friends managed to land very nice fish. Only some of them have been portrayed on my blog.

I don't actually want to keep an accurate record of my catches nor do I want to share all of them with the rest of the world. Sometimes it's better to keep low profile even in the case of success. I can say I catch carp on a constant basis, which is somewhat of a miracle in Finnish waters. But I don't want to shout out too much of my catches. There is a fine line between writing a blog and showboating.

I mean if I just report every single fish I catch on every possible forum, it would eventually get attention from the wrong people. I like that carper number is growing steadily and slowly here. I don't want it to become a mass sport overnight. If and when people start carping, they would know the tackle better and take better care of the fish. I have read too many stories of catch & kill carp stories from Finland that I don't really want to cause a hysteria of carp angling. In my opinion, slow evolution is the way to go.

All in all, Finnish carp are smaller than their southern relatives and more rarely caught. Despite of that I think carp fishing in Finland is the best carping in the world.

By saying this, here's another pic of a carp (not)

Fishy Business

If something is not evolving, it's not going to grow into something better. I mean carp fishing is really fun and it has a mysterious touch to it, but looking how badly the over commercialization has impacted our lifestyle just gives me a headache. For instance, the UK based carp magazines are more like a 100-page adverts. Use this, buy that, not that (it's the last years model which is totally useless), go there, fish this way, etc. The most underlined feature is that a new product has given Ginormous results with carp, and this product is supplied by the anglers sponsored company (what a surprise!).

If we take a good look in the mirror and cut the BS-talking, there is very little under the sun in carp fishing. But the main question is: Is the commercial buzz advancing our lifestyle or eating it inside out? My opinion above was that it gives me an headache at least. Here in Finland it's not such a problem, as we don't have a market for carp tackle. But well, this problem with commercialization has brought some serious issues with it.

It wasn't a long time ago when I read about a group of carp anglers who caught ca. 700 carp in a period of few days. The anglers had statistics of how many 40 lbs how many 30 lbs they had caught etc. I mean I would have stopped fishing after landing about 20 fish. And it would have been over the top already. 

WE should adjust our fishing with respect of wildlife. Even if we start catching like crazy, we should consider for what reason are we fishing for. Is it that we want to spend time in the nature, catching fish? Is it for the outside demand for massive carp catches? Is it that we want to enjoy and experience the same thrill and the mystery as our ancestors? I mean tackle business will do just fine even without the massive carp catches and making every magazine an advert.

(PS. I tried to attach here a photo of my 400 carp catch, but I couldn't find the picture) :)