Tying....

Finally I´ve managed to tie a fly in which I´m very happy with.This time I had a plan and decided to take ONLY the materials that I planned to use.
As i wroted yesterday I prefer natural materials instead of syntethics so most of this fly is tied with natural materials.

First of all pink bucktail to give volym to the fly,then white icelandic sheep blended with pearl coloured ice wing,then again icelandic sheep white blended with pink and ice wing.
4 pieces of microbarb feathers,black icelandic sheep and steelgray polarfibre and red artic fox.
All this tied on a TMC 911s 3/0 hook,watch out pikes,this fly is a real piketeaser :)




P.S The background was also very carefully thought

Tying...

Almost have a bad conscience when I look at all those good looking flies on the other guys blogs,its just that I didnt had time to tie some flies due to the snowfalls in helsinki,at evenings I am so tired that I have often felt in sleep before 8.30 P.M.

Anyway,today I finally took a seat behind my vice and tied a fly,yes,only one.
Remember when Simon was to Espoo and held a lecture about flyfishing for pike,
he also gave us some usefull advices about fly-tying.

Today I was trying to follow one of his advice about blending materials,the aim is to smoothly change colours.
I started with white,then blended some yellow and white,then yellow with a dash of orange and finally some red colour on the top.
I´m not so happy with the result,could need some practice....
Think also the fly is way too bushy,but too late to complain now,cant help the feeling that the natural materials is in some strange way much easier to tie then syntethics or maybe its just need of practise,I dont know.....

Just relaxing.....

So,the X-mas is over,and at least I have eat a way too much of ham,turkey,carrot casserole and some different fishes ETC,ETC...
Santa brought to me a Navicons map card of of the eastern seashore to my navigator and all the same in paper way,and as a bonus a book of all the marinas from Helsinki to hamina so even if I planned to tie some flies today I have just lyed on the couch and study the map and the book and dreamed of some fishing trips to do after a couple of months,have even took some naps couple of times.

It feels so good just to relax and not doing anything,at least for now.
The forecast has promised a hell of a snowfall starting tonight and its expected to continue tomorrow the whole day so it might be better to get up steam before that.

Anyway,here´s a fly called Sofi Oksanen,if you dont know who she is so find her on Google and you propably know why I call this fly Sofi.

Merry christmas.

Merry christmas to all readers and followers.

A dilemma.

In Helsinki we have about 70cm snow now,very close to the record from 1970 ???
Thank god its getting colder..WTF !!!!
What am I saying,how can it be good with -15 degrees?
As the title says,this is a big dilemma,if its cold -->no snowfalls,but its also mean that the ice will not melt-->takes longer before any fishing
If it gets warmer -->more snow --> takes longer before I can go fishing,so what will be better?
Right now I´m physically so tired of snow plow from peoples backyards,balconys,ETC,ETC that I prefer cold weather for a while...BUT,not for too long.

Relaxing and tying

As i told you earlier so I have been very busy at work due to the snow situation in Helsinki,but it´s beeing easier day by day(until the next snowfall)so first I was going to tie some flies.
I dont know has it ever happend to you but for me a couple of times.
My head is full of ideas BUT...when you take a seat behind the vice you dont have a glue what you suppose to do,should I do this or should I do that?Raccoon,slinky,sheep..everything just flingering in front of your eyes.
It also happend when I was going to airbrush my jerkbaits,it felt scary at the first times,now I´know what to do:I feel so stressed that I need to relax.
-15 degrees so no fishing,second step is to watch some movies.

It felt so good to lying on the couch and watch my favorite movies.



Oh god I waitin for the spring and the first trips now with my new boat,have watched some good looking places where I will be waiting for the pikes until the spawning time has gone(I will try not to disturb them at spawning).

I didn´t need more than one movie before I took a new seat behind the vice and created this one.
The hook is a TMC 911s 3/0
Tail:Lateral scale and ice ving(waiting for some noise from lateral scale when casting)
Collar:Chartereuse&orange raccoon strips twisted around the shank.



So....I think its time for the second movie and see if I find a new inspiration.

Times changes.

I´m still remember 35-40 years ago fishing with my dad,ABU Atom 25-33 gr was the lure for the big ones,actually it was so big that I couldnt even use it with my Abumatic 220 and a 6 feet long glassfibre rod,I had to settle with Droppen and Relex spinners,and of course Toby spoons(the small sizes)and got some decent sized fishes anyway.

But sometimes when my dad let me try his ABU Cardinal 444 I always wanted to cast the biggest spoons he had,and even if I didn´t get any monsters I felt like the biggest fisherman in the world.

Well,now 35-40 years later I was here one day at the local shop "just to look around"
you probably allready now whats happend,yes,correct,I could need this,I could need that,I just have to buy it.
What i bought was 3 Storm kickin minnow wobblers.
10 inches long/150 grams.

I started to wonder what has happend under these years? I mean who would honestly anymore trust in a 4 inches long spoon if youre out for the big ones,even the pikeflies are about 8 inches long.

Hell,look at the difference between two lures for the big one.




Why?Is it the salesmen out there tryin to convince you that you need bigger lures for big catches or what?
Every year someone shows a bigger lure then the year before.Is it necessary ???
I dont know,I really dont know...
But one thing i know for sure,both lures can catch fishes,even big ones.

Some fly tying.

Have been so busy at work so I havent have time to write anything but today I have tied two flies.
The second one looks better in reality than in the photo,think I need some practise in photography.Anyway,the first one is tied on a Mustad 34011 hook,Bucktail to give volume and icelandic sheep(green and charteruse) on,3 microbarbs(finally)and a yellow collar of raccoon zonker.



The second one is some kind of a streamer with a body of red polar chenille.The "wing" is made of brown raccoon and the collar of black raccoon zonker,
and its also tied on a Mustad hook.
Its a shame that it going to take several months before i can test them in front the real judges.



Both flies are about 18 cm long,the streamer got a epoxy head.
It felt very good to tie again after a while,a BIG thanks to Simon and Steefan for the inspiration.

One thought+fly tying

One thing that came into my mind because my friend at work is accused for a stupid thing.
He was dumping snow from a balcony at work.The balcony is above a door so he blocked the door from inside and outside with booms and signs,everything should have been right,but.....an older lady didn´t care about any warnings and went out from the door and got hit by a piece of ice,and now the insurance won´t pay anything because the warning signs wasn´t officially!!!COME ON!!!!.
Where the hell is a NORMAL HUMANS responsibility?If there is a sign saying DO NOT PASS,everyone should know its there for some reason.
Anyway,when I started to think about this case a little bit more it feels that society "trains" people to always find someone else to blame.

The question is:what can we fishermen(women)do?
One example is the seatrout,its exteamly endangered and when you read the forums (in Finland)the conversation is all about net-fishing robbery,the professional fishing,
in that country they dont care about anything,Why doesn´t somebody plant more fish, ETC;ETC...seems that everyone just accuse each other,instead of that we should all take responsibility for what we are doing.

There is still plenty of pikes in our water but for how long if we don´t take care of our waters,take our OWN responsibility instead of waiting for someone else to do something.
By releasing the bigger ones,using barbless hooks,have the right tools to quikly off-hook the fish and keep them at hand so they are ready when its time to use them,not in the bag.
By some small actions we can at least carry our own responsibility to a bigger ensamble.

Even if it´s not time to new years promises i´ll tell you mine:I use to follow those "rules" above and + that I promise to stop using a landing net no matter the size of the fish.

This story was just a thought of MY OWN and was not mentioned to get anybody pissed off,I´m not judging anyone.

And something totally different,also tied a fly after I watched the second movie.
I used a Mustad 34011 3/0 hook.
To the tail I used big fly fibre+2 pieces of rabbit zonkker,lateral scale.
And to the collar yellow,orange and red raccoon zonker,all twisted on the shank.

Season 2010 summary part III

Still very cold outside but maybe I become in better mood when I write about trips from last summer and especially from autumn.
August was due to the HOT weather conditions a month when I tied more flies then fished with them,but at least one decent sized fish(90 cm around 6kg:s?).But the most memoriable moment of august was two trips in a row when i hooked myself,
first when my fishing pal get a fish on a Rapala wobbler and when I was to off hook the fish...actually I don´t now what happend but the pike went away And left me like this.


It was a hell to off hook myself because of the hook with barb,the hook was also thick enough so my pliers couldnt cut off the hook so I took a knife and made the hole bigger and ripped the hook off,it hurted.....A LOT!!!!!

On the next trip it was my own fly hook I got in my hand,off hooking a pike,not fast enough so the pike decided to "help" me little,this time I had a barbless hook so no dramatic here.


After August comes September and it started with a very bitter blank draw,I mean my friend Romo came to Lovisa and of course I hoped that he would had get a decent sized fish but after several hours fishing the result was crushing:not a single hit,not on flies,not on spoons,not on spinbaits,and someones says pikefishing is easy.
At this stage expectations were sky high.


But not anymore.



What else about september....Oh yes,I got my biggest pearch ever,about 35-40 cm and weight +500 grams.
One very strange thing in my opinion was that the august pikes were bigger then september pikes,Not sure but I think the biggest was 74cm.

One thing I also remember from september was when the nature slowly started to preper itself to winter after the hottest summer I can remember,I cant remember when I last fished in september with a T-shirt and shorts in sea conditions.





The rest of september was only tying new flies untill the last week I got the SMS to my phone from a shop called Spey Clave were it says that my new Hardy Zane rod and Hardy demon reel has arrived to finland.
It took a week before I could go to Lovisa and test it.

At the first trip testing the rod i get my new PB but enough about that.
The next step was to buy a new boat that i had dreamed of for several years.
God I was so happy to get a bigger boat so I was able to expand my fishing area.
Bought it on friday and next saturday morning it was in water at Lovisa archipelago.




With the new boat I was able to reach the places I usually only could dream of and it was really enjoyable to see the new places in reality,not only on a map,and almost immediately the size of my pikes become bigger,many 90-100cm fishes was caught in october,of course MOST of my fishes wasn´t that big.







So now I´m allready in november with my 2010 season and the only memoriable thing was the traditional Fly VS Jerk between me and my youngest brother,it was funny and exciting and I WON!!!We both get 3 pikes each but my 6.1kg secured a vin for flies.

With a photo of the biggest catch in our competition its time to end the summary of the season 2010.It has been a very memoriable season with lots of good wonderful moments,to fish with old friends and to meet new ones.
Now there will be a pause in fishing but there will be fly-tying and lure-building and other preperings for the next season so STAY TUNED :)

Complaints,complaints.

One thing I cant explain is how much I hate winter.There is fuckin -19 degrees outside and I work 8-18 hours out in the streets plowing snow,sanding the sidewalks,pickin papers and empty bottles from the yards and of course freezing my balls of me.

And....its going to take about 4-5 months before I can go fishing again,FOUR TO FIVE MONTHS!!!!!God damn it,I HATE WINTER !!!
Thank god I use to build jerkbaits and other lures not to forget tying flies in wintertime,I mean I would probably go insane if I had to sit on my couch with my flyrod in my hand and just wait for the spring to come.

I´m not in the right mood right now to write about my season summary part III because I´m so pissed off with these freezing weather conditions right now so I will just show you some flies that I tied this week.






I hope that tomorrow will be a better day :)

Season 2010 summary part II

Sorry that I havent wrote earlier but I have been very busy at work and also still feel it very shocking that my season ended all to soon.
Well at least I have good memories from the past season to remember like my 3 weeks at my cottage in Lovisa archipelago in the hottest summer I can remember.
My cottage is on a small islet and exept the weekends I was alone on the whole islet.
2-3 first days was just for relaxing and some small testing,also writted a little bit
Just to clear my head from everything that has to do with something called work.


Oh god,still remember the warm summer mornings,Walked with my camera and a cup of coffee on the shore,just enjoying the warm breeze,and the smell from the sea,listen to the common gulls,and things like that you know...



No hurry,even took my time to get my flyrod and other stuff with me,I love to get out with my float tube when the sun is shining even if there is no big possibility to get many fishes particulraly last summer when the watertemp was about 20 degrees in sea conditions.


This trip really cleared my mind and I enjoyed every minute of it.This trip was also a turning point in my "fishermans life" when I started to practise flyfishing for pike more seriously and after a week testing several rods and lines my casting technique was good enough that I dared go fishing without my spinncasting equipments.
After a several lost fishes I could finally land my first flyfished pike for the season,guess if I was pleased?


I really had a time of my life those three weeks fishing and testing lines and rods,and of course I tied some flies at evenings,nothing special with this BUT...I did these things with no hurry,I mean when you got a weekend you can`t test lines and rods,tie flies and enjoying the weather without hurry,everything must be solved before the weekend,in three weeks you can take your time to find out wich line suites to wich rod and things like that,sure you know what I mean.




There`s the rest of the summer and of course the whole autumn still unwrited so I guess there will be a part III of my 2010 season.
Feels so strange how many good memories there is when I seriously start to memorise my past season.
Thanks for reading,see you soon.Cheers.

Season 2010 summary part I.

Well,I guess it´s time to admit that season 2010 is over.Annoying a litte bit that I don´t made stats like Simon,it would have been nice to read them now not to mention what help they would have give me to the next season searching for pike.
That´s something to remember next year.

When I think of the past season I found out that there is many good memories to remember this winter.
First of all my thougts floats to a day 2 october when I was testing my new rod and reel.Had thrown hundreds of testing casts trying with diffrent lines,diffrent size of flies and suddenly,BANG...my new PB changed to 114cm/10.3 kg,my first and probably the last over 10 kg:s.


And to get my two daughters with me and fish.My younger daughter Maria is very experienced fisher due to her age (14 years)and has get some decent sized fishes allready but my older Daughter Nina (20 years old)was on her FIRST trip and I was lucky to get some Photos of her catching her first fish,a pearch not so big but,anyway,she looks pretty happy anyway and that´s the point,to enjoy.



It was fun to get the fish but to unhook it,well....it didn´t look so funny but it´s necessary to know how to do it,practice x 1000 and she can do it.



Then of course to take a photo of her posing with the giant.



Hmmm,maybe she need some practice in posing with the fish too.

The season opener with Lastu and Romo at Nokisenkoski in march,standing in a enormous snowfall and freezing the balls of you without getting any fishes and still enjoying it,unbeliveble.


And a meeting with a gang from Heittokalastus.info (R.I.P)at Kuusaa in Central Finland.
Also a blank draw trip,too little sleep,hot weather but oh so funny,Always good to meet friends.




The first fish for the season 13 May,remember how the pikes cast after cast followed anything I tried to feed them with and after many casts at last one of them was nice and agreed to be a part of a photo.



I just found out that there are so many good memores from this season that I decided to split them in two stories.
Part II will be released when I have returned from this shock that the season is over.

Waiting for the weekend

So,there were no fishing last weekend and now I´m burning for the next weekend when I´m suppose to go to Särkisalo for some serious pikehunt,just start to get a little bit scary while watching the forecast,looks like there will not be trips in december anymore.
In Turku -5 degrees/6ms wind wich means it will be better to put enough with clothes on,hopefully there will not be snow.

Even if I didn´t fish last weekend I did something that has to do with fishing....
What could it be?Well it means I worked with my fly-tying corner.


I dont know why but when I have a hangover I work like a dog,I just cant sit still.
I just have to say that to assemble furnitures is NOT my favourite species,especially on a sunday morning,after some beers and long drinks I asked Jack Daniels to help me and after a couple of hours it started to look good.



At first my friend Jack really helped me but what further I came he tried to ruin my job,the parts suddenly didn´t fit,the parts disappeared but with my ruthless willpower I finished this part of the project and now it looks like this:



I have to admit that I´m proud of my accomplishment so far,also have to admit that after this my hangover had turned into drunkness and I decided to not work on this project for a while.
Now I´m looking forward for the weekend to fishing in good company.
Cheers.

Not many trips left

20.11 I will travel to Särkisalo to meet two friends of my,and pikehunt will be the name of the game,before that I might go to Lovisa next sunday IF my hangover not ruin my plan.

After the trip to Särkisalo I think there will not be too many trips left for this year.
Just watched Simons blog and read about his 2010 stats,very impressive in my opinion.I just realized that I should also have wrote some stats but it´s too late for that now,well....next year a new try.

Feels a little bit wistful just to think that the season is soon over,also feels stupid to think the season is over when you still can fish.
Särkisalo trip will propably be some jerk or spincasting because we will be three persons in the boat and at least my casting technic is not good enough to that I can trust that the fly is not in someones ear or neck,anyway,these trips are more to meet friends then to take the fishing too seriously even if these guys are good fishers,they know the places and have catched big pikes this year so I woudn´t mind to catch a big one too.It would be a nice way to end this season...

Almost forgot,go and check Simon Grahams blog,there´s a competition going on where you can vin a Pikesaber flyrod.

Fly VS Jerk

Today was the perfect day for the final fight for this year because I was with my brother Janne in Lovisa archipelago.
Janne is not a usual lure maniac,he love to fish jerkbaits,and especially with Hellhound baits,and I can guarantee he knows how to use them.

Both of us had a small hangover this morning so we wasn´t so early out on the sea but we had a couple of hours to sort it out who is the master of the fishers :)

The weather,sunny,-2 degrees,wind 6ms,watertemp 4.8 degrees,not the optimal conditions for fishing but at least the same for both of us.

First spot:This was planned for jerkfishing,almost 3 m deep,tricky wind blowing from my right side.Janne started with a yellow/red combo Hellhound.I had faith in black/silver combo.After a while Janne screamed:FISH ON,and it felt big.
After a minute he landed a small pike 1.8kg,it felt big because the hook was locked in the back of the pike,unbeliveable.



So,1-0 to jerkbaits.I had to make my move and the first thing was to change the colour....Looked at my brothers lure,ok it has to be orange/black Replot Stinger.
Not too long before it was my turn to scream FISH ON,My fly was in the mouth so I knew it was a small one:1.8kg too,well....1-1.

Coffeebreak.

After the break we fished for a while by just enjoying the sunshine but suddenly when i was stripping the line I felt the familiar tug,and this time I felt it was a bigger one,and the mam was angry at me but this was a competition so I wasn´t to give up and after a couple of minutes I managed to land a pretty madam on 6.1kg and I took the lead in both size and number.God it felt goooooooood!!!!!



Usually I rather then take the weight use to just check the length but in these competitions we use the weight,and nothing else matter.

The second spot:This was ment to be the place were I was suppose to nail him and it started wery well,FISH ON for me with my second cast and it was 3-1 to flies,AND the biggest catch too,worth one point that too so far.
Then it happend again,I lost my concentration totally,When my brother had two pikes in a short time I started to change colour and pattern instead of fishing and a minute before time out Janne had a fish but he lost it.

The third and fourth spots didn´t work out for either of us so the final situation was 3-3 but my 6.1 kg was the biggest catch for today so flies were the better by 4-3 today.This was fun,hopefully there will be more competitions like these.

Those were the days.

My plan to go for a pikehunt this weekend went a little bit wrong,I´ll have to work on saturday so I guess I have to take a shrunk trip on sunday,Early on sunday morning with the boat to Loviisa and if the weather is okay I might be able to fish at least for some hours.
I dont know how I will be able to survive the whole fucking winter,I´m almost start to panic allready even if I got some projects to do.

Even if I categorize me to a flyfisher(PIKE !!!)I´m looking forward to start making jerkbaits after a long pause,guess i´ts some kind of variation to fly tying,who knows.
Here`s some older jerkbaits that I have made.


And some more.





And if someone don´t know I also making spoons for pike.
Length 13cm
Weight 40g




And to the last some kind of lures that I don´t do so many anymore.
These are made for seatrouts and suppose to be used from the shore.In my opinion these are the most difficult lures to make,very small marginals from success to a total disaster.
I recommend to make very precise notes with photos if you plan to make this sort of lures.



Sorry,I´ll just have to show you all something made just by whimsy.



I finding it very nice to sit here and watching my old photos and at same time share them with you,hope you enjoy it as much as I.

For the very last photo for today I´ll show you a photo of my very first lures ever.
Completely handmade from a piece of wood with a knife and file.....
Those were the days.