Indoor Carp Fishing

Hi all!

I might not be a big surprise that I am a keen gamer as I am a carp angler. So when I was approached by guys who are combining them, I was really interested in cooperation. Some of my blogs are on Dovetail Games Fishing -website. It is a fishing simulation, and at its current situation it is in development. It's on Steam early access, so enthusiastic gamers can go and check it out (link to my latest blog entry there).

http://dtgfishing.com/freedom-of-the-true-wild-arctic-fishing/

I have used some old texts, but will also publish something new there.

Best regards-

Henrik

Just Another Blog Update - With a Belly Rub!

Dear Readers,

It's been too long since my last update. Sometimes writing is easy, sometimes it isn't. Well, just to summarize my season - it was nice. Especially as I didn't have so many nights out on the bank. My fishing notes regarding this year however were quite good considering the seasons to come. I learned a lot of new things. I even managed to pull off a 4 carp night fishing alone. Considering the low number of carp in our lakes, it's more or less an achievement here.

Hopefully you will enjoy this picture of a very concentrated belly rub!

Sometimes it's good to have a landing mat with walls. Carp can get veeery active when you don't expect it.

Some product talk here. I started using the Prologic C.O.M. pod this season. It is really nice on tight swims, and its low profile is really stealthy, so you can stay below radar on waters where you don't want to be seen. The light attached to the pod is just to humor me, and to give me an indication where the pod is (in pitch black conditions).

My current set-up (Switching hangers to Prologic Windblades for 2015)

Rocky swims and RIGHT lines

Dear Readers,

It's been a while since my last blog entry. I managed to do some fishing since, and had some good experiences with new tackle.

As I have told earlier, the carp swims here in Finland can be rocky and weedy (a lot of these lakes formed during the last ice age, hence the rough banks). Normal monofilament usually ends up in the bin after a few fights with a carp, as the line gets "the rash" from the rocks. Braided line would just break almost in an instant. 

Now my issues with line have been solved with the Prologic Interceptor Fluoro Carbon Coated mono. It performs like a mono, with good breaking strain. It really doesn't get any scratches (because of the fluorocarbon coating) and after a trip it is as good as new. I am using 0,40 mm and it suits my needs perfectly. I can recommend this line to anyone who is fishing on rocky & weedy swims.

Ah - that will be it for my tackle related talk. 

The last trip I did was a nice two-night session fishing alone. I managed to catch a nice brace of carp, and I was more than happy being on the bank. I still had my fair share of misfortune, as my cameras remote controller died on a critical moment. Few good photos anyway, and here's a pic of my first carp of the session.

Big Fish Still Get Slaughtered...

Hi all!

This post will be quite grim, and I already warn my readers abroad:This post has a link to a big dead carp... Yet again, Finns have been skillful enough to fill lakes with all-killing gill nets. They are commonly using them to catch "trophy fish". This makes no sense at all - a fish caught with a gill net requires no skill at all. It just kills everything that swims in it. Even our Saimaa ringed seal.

That's enough of the almost-extinct endemic seal species - and on with the ramblings about carp. So a carp that was claimed to be the biggest fish in Finland was caught and killed. To the catchers excuse, he wasn't actually trying to catch a carp. To make things worse, the biggest tench in Finland was ALSO caught a few weeks ago with a gill net. This tench was caught and killed intentionally. Just to claim the record. What a sporty way of catching record fish! Yay!

Big fish are really important to the ecosystem in numerous ways. It is really important to release them every time it's possible. 

A nice common carp going back to do what he/she does best (that is being a big fish).

Ps. The carp in the magazine was claimed to be "closer to 50kg than 20 kg..." Yeah - right.

Midsummer Nights (and Jinxed Again!)

Dear Readers,

Midsummer nights in Finland are really different from nights in Southern Europe. It really doesn't get dark even at midnight, and time has less meaning. But as much as I love the bright night skies, I still prefer the embracing darkness of August nights.

Midnight "darkness"...

My brother caught a big carp on a trip with me. I seem to have been jinxed again! My trips with my brothers have been really good, but not for me. If my calculations are correct, I have blanked on nine (9!) consecutive trips with my brothers. My misfortune seems to be of a very personal kind, as all of my brothers have been catching quite good. I hope I can lift this curse...

Fishing Books Worth Reading

Hi all!

I just wanted to share a picture of my Chris Yates collection (plus a few quality books by other great writers). For all of you who are yet to read one of Chris' books, I can recommend strongly doing that. Chris has a good sense of humor and his story-telling abilities are beyond my reviews. He also has a lesson for those anglers "who know it all" [at least I learned something].

One of these books has my name in it!

I share the angling philosophy Chris states on his books but I still love to use new tackle and technological gimmicks. A guy like me in his 30's isn't very credible using old tackle twice his age. For now, maybe I'll just be quiet and go a-angling.

One Midsummer Morning

Dear readers,

I started my Finnish carp season a bit late. This year I am going to try to fish the season more on the later side (summer&autumn). Years before I have been struggling with May and June fishing, so this year I am going to try something different. I started the season just on Midsummer. 

The first rays of the sun were just hitting my swim when I had a run. (FYI - The sun rises 3:50 in midsummer... That's quite of an early morning.) I tricked the fish with Prologic Banana malt snowman 20mm+20mm (the swim was baited with PL Banana Malt Stick&Method mix). I was also using a new mainline, Prologic Interceptor Fluoro Carbon coated mono (0,40mm). The line performed really well, and despite playing the fish around the rocky&snaggy swim, the line didn't have any scratches. I am really happy with this.

A nice start for a (hopefully) successful season...

The long & lean common carp had some marks from spawning, and it was not really on its prime condition. Anyhow, the carp put the scales to 12 kg. A nice start for the season.

[For all the smart people who are asking why I am wearing a beanie in midsummer, I would like them to watch this video about Finnish "summer"..]

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.