Holiday plans.

So,holiday mode will be on for three weeks now and it will surely include a lot of fishing,paddling and explore some or shall we say one big area for forthcoming fishingtrips.
Usually there have been long evenings behind my vise but this year I have hardly tied anything at all because I really got flies more than enough.
The main focus has been on my kayak and fishing stuff so that fishing would be the only thing to concentrate on.
For fly fishing there hasn't been much new things,two lines,RIO Outbound short,a intermediate and a sink 6.
Two rod holders for fly rods to my kayak and that's all.
Rods,reels all in perfect condition so no need to upgrade here (it wasn't easy to not buy something ).

And as at least some of you know I use to do some spincasting too,mostly at summertime when pikes lying deeper in water or when the wind ruin fly fishing plans.
Spin casting is also a good (faster) way to explore new waters and with a echo sounder it's also very effective.
Moving with a boat  allow you to have almost anything you want with you but with a kayak with much less space you need to have only things you need with you and in good order too.
As I told you I bought rod holders for my fly rods because they are 9 ft long and difficult store anywhere else in my kayak but if I want spin cast rods with me too it would be a mess so I bought two Team Daiwa rods 14-56 gram lure weight,one 6 ft and one 7 ft long,much easier to handle then my old 8 and 9 ft rods.

So to my kayak which has been my main target for a while now.At midsummer I decided to do something for safety,so I installed a orange flag back on it.Hoping people with boat seeing me much before it's too late,haven't been any dangerous situations yet but you'll never know...

Also will be a light later on for Autumns twilight conditions.
And because I'm a C&R man into the bone but would like to have a nice memory of all big fishes I got and still remember the shitty pic from last weekends big guns I decided to install a camera stand I already got on my boat to get some good looking photo shootouts,cheap and easy to mount and do it's job for sure.

My plans for the forthcoming week is to paddle around in a big area and do some fishing too,not the best weather to do it but can't just wait for better conditions,they might not come soon.
It has been very warm here in Finland with temps nearly 30 C degrees and even water temps over 20 degrees has made me even to think of pearch fishing until the water cool down a bit but this area i planned to fish includes a lot of deeper water too so...we'll see what happen,really looking forward to next week.
Finally at least some late ties for summer fishing.

Midsummer trilogy

                                                           Day one 21/6

Went to the shore about 7 am and didn't like what I saw,sunny and a totally calm surface,this is not going to be a memorable day  in my fishing career.
Decided to spent the day to explore new waters for later one.Paddled slowly further out until I arrived to a range of rocks with a lot of reed around it,never fished here before but started to fish anyway with open mind.i just let my kayak drift and fished all the time but nobody home here,arrived to a small islet were my echo sounder told me about a depth of 6.8 m,also saw some symbols on it in less than two meter down.

Second cast and BANG ! Fish on,a really strong one too,it took me a while to even get an eye contact with it,a nice one close to 100 cm,
after some minutes the fish was ready to surrender and I got it close to my kayak and took it in a nice chin grip,just when I had it unhooked it shake it's head strongly And I decided to let it go before somebody get hurt.
Nice start for a day from which I didn't expected anything :)
Let the kayak drift along the shoreline of this small islet and landed two XS sized buggers.
Throw the anchor on a place outside the islet I thought looked fine but nobody home anymore.
took me a sandwich and some coffee before I lift the anchor and drifted through a narrow strait,had just passed the strait when I felt a heavy hit in form of a slightly better sized fish,not a giant but...anyway :)

Let the kayak drift close to a large shoal and of some reason I decided to try my luck here also.
Not much to tell you about at this spot,took some pics anyway.

While fishing I figured out my next move and very close to where I was now was a strait were a friend of mine landed a nice 13 kilo fish years ago and telling every now and then about landed fishes from that place.
I have fished there many times but not lately because I have not landed a single fish there never ever.
Because I had act like a explorer all day with good results so why not continue with it,into the strait and start fishing in a nice sunshine,after about 10-15 minutes I destroyed the curse of this place by landing my first fish from this spot,not a big one but man it felt good,have probably never  fished a spot for so long without a landed fish before.
Time to go ashore and have a real break with something to bite  and coffee of course.
Paddled to the other side of the island where I knew there would be a good place to take my break.

The clock was ticking and I had some other duties to take care of too so next step was to paddle back and fishing some spots too on my way back.Landed some fishes now and then and was in a really good mood when I arrived to the shore,felt totally relaxed,this is what it's all about .

                                                       

                                                               Day two 22/6.

Woke up 6.15 am still in good mood from yesterday but a quick look out the window and WTF.....
Forecasts promised nice sunny weather with a wind max 7 m/s and without any knowledge they have I saw it was closer to 15 m/s and a heavy rain falling down....Thank's a lot fuckin twats....
Tried to call a friend who lives near the place I had in mind for this days fishing but cause of the early morning I wasn't surprised nobody answered.
Coffee...more coffee and some sandwiches too while stearing out from the window and looking on that fuckin rain
Decided to drive that almost 100 km anyway,what else could I do.Had drove for 30 km:s when my friend called me and confirmed my suspicions: to much wind for a kayak,but I already had a plan B.

Took of the main road to a smaller road with a intention to find different places to launch my kayak and of course take some photos of our Finnish landscapes.
Cleared both missions,in fact I found a superb place to launch my kayak without I have to paddle to the end of the world to get to some hot fishing spots,this place looked so nice I think that if weather is fine I will try this thing out already next week,but hey...the photos I promised.

Day 3 23/6 Final fight.

Had a late dinner(including alcohol) with my oldest daughter as a visiting star yesterday so no way I could be 7 am on water but 10 am I was,had a small hangover so I decided not to go for a marathon paddling today.
A nice warm sunny day with a small breeze made me soon forgot my headache and tiredness,slowly paddling to a well known place close to the dock,I don't know why but I had a good feeling about this even if the weather wasn't best possible for pike hunt.
The area I had decided to fish today was formed like a U letter with some reed at the edges and water plants in the middle of it.Water depth around 2 meters and 5-12 meters outside the bay.Also including some range of rocks both inside and right outside it too,a very nice varied spot.
Started to fish a bit outside round the rocks and with my third cast I had the first bugger landed,the wind was pushing water into that bay so I had a feeling there could be more and hopefully bigger pikes but still decided to fish precisely the whole area instead of rushing in.

When I came inside this bay there was so much water plants that a Spinnerbait was the only thing that you had a chance to do some clean runs with and with no reed on the hooks I also got some fishes.

I drifted deeper and deeper into the bay and suddenly about 3 meter from the kayak a train attacked my lure and in a second it was 30 meters away,I knew it was a better sized fish this time,I had this feeling ever since I woke up.
The pike was strong and aggressive too and it took me almost fifteen minutes to get it close enough to get a chingrip,and when it finally came it rolled around,it was totally exhausted,FUCK !!!!
Quickly got it unhooked and just snapped at least some photos before I returned it to were a beauty like this belong.After two,maybe three minutes resuscitation I felt it went stronger and stronger and soon it disappeared in a huge cascade of water,oh man it felt good...no...fantastic...

As I thought the photos was shitty quality but at least I got some memories of this battle.

At this stage I had a deja vu feeling,not caused by the fish but a quick peek at my hand made me get the "oh no,not again " feeling.

This time I decided not to stop fishing,Wearing a first aid kit always with me when I'm fishing but after a hour or so the bleeding didn't stop and I was happy with this feeling I had so why not take a slow paddle back to the dock and pack your car and end this midsummer trilogy the best possible way.

Fishing 15-16.6 2013

So,couple of trips more made with my kayak and also some tuning between fishing.
Tomorrow I will go fishing again,and two days after that too.
Have no big expectations  because looking at forecasts with sun,no wind and the wind blowing from north everything seems to be against a good fishing day but it's not so important at this stage,just nice to be out on sea paddling around.
Was last weekend on Saturday out fishing from boat because of the very strong wind (13-15 m/s) and no chance to do some reasonable fly fishing so lures was the name of the game.
Tough fishing,at least we found some active fish a bit outside of the reed but in bays were wind was pushing food into it.About 15-20 fishes were landed on Saturday.

As you can see the wind was pretty strong.
Sunday was dedicated to fly fishing from kayak because it was only 4-5 m/s blowing from same (north) direction.
Even if I fished my biggest aim was to test and hopefully learn something from my new echo sounder.
got also rod holders assembled and they are nice to have,probably there will not more tuning on this boat,need some free space too to fly fish,maybe some kind of a dashboard for my tools (pliers,scissors,knife and my unhooking plier) but no hurry with that.
Anyway,fished on almost same spots that I fished on Saturday and I found a place that will almost suddenly be hot later on autumn.

Now three days fishing in a row,one week at work and then Vacation :) two first week will be fishing and perhaps some.......fishing :)

Commander feelings

Now some trips done with my new buddy and some thin opinions made about my kayak VS floating tube.Biggest advantage in my opinion is that you travel with your face forward,it really mean a lot to me.
Also you can have more stuff with you,food,reserve rods and reels ETC,ETC...
Stability is good but I feel that floating tube is slightly better in this point.to get your kayak or floating tube in right position has been a bit difficult for me but I have built an anchor system to my kayak so I think this problem should be solved,not my own solution,snapped it from different fishing forums and Youtube.

Also a Dashboard had to be added.

Last trip I stepped on one of my rods which broke (luckily I had two rods with me) and decided after that to add two rod holders for fly rods (they are too expensive to broke ) and soon I wanted a echo sounder too,today's situation looks like this.

I'm still in middle of mounting,still need to mount a battery,need to solve how it fit under the front panel.
and of course it needs a transducer too,got a plan to mount it under the bar you can see on the photo above.
Also made some temporary solutions like this.No hurry to solve this out :)

Tomorrow it's Friday but still living in a hope that I will be able to test everything on Sunday,Saturday it will probably be boat fishing IF the forecast promise of a wind 12-15 m/s will hold true.

A day to remember.

Have to say that I've been lucky to do business with many companies from where I have left with a smile on my face,so even this time.
As I told you in my last post I was buying a kayak,a WS Commander 140.Luckily even if I live out in the country we still have a local Wilderness system dealer here http://www.bearwater.fi/ and I have to say that I have never ever been treated so  kindly at any shop,warmly recommend it.
got all advice I needed and tips how to start this hobby.

Bought it on Thursday  and today was the big test,and what a test it became to...
7.30 am at shore and after some struggling I managed to get down the kayak from the roof of my car in the water and after some packing I went out paddling,it sure looked funny.
after some training I was ready to go further out to do some fishing.
very soon I found out I need to pimp my kayak a bit if I wanted to enjoy fly fishing,my line was under the seat,under my foot.so i decided to go for lures today but I got some small plans how to customize this boat for fly fishing.
I did not have any kind of expectations because training to handle the kayak was my main mission today but,you know,out on the sea...of course there was to be some fishing too and right at the first spot on first cast I landed a small jack and after two or three cast a beauty round 85 cm:s.
It was crazy fishing,had hits many casts in a row and soon my softbaits looked like this :

I wasn't prepared for this kind of fishing so I didn't had much lures with me but found a Zam wobbler which I decided that has to do the job,and it did.
Landed several pikes before I thought it could be more useful to train to paddle so I moved on to next spot and started to fish again and even there I landed fish after fish.They were so aggressive and strong it was totally insane.
At some stage I noticed that my GoPro cam battery was empty and when I came home I found out why,once again I took a 45 min vid clip from inside my bag so no need to wonder why...
Anyway 7 pm I went back to shore and packed my stuff in my car and I was a happy man driving home.
total amount of 37 landed pikes and some dropped.
Biggest was measured to 104 cm,Two 98 cm and a lot around 80 to 90 cm:s made me forgot my last weekend disaster.
Still loading videos from my GoPro.Hope to see any of the big guns,anyway,here's at least one ready:

And some photos from southern parts of Finland archipelago

This was a day to remember,hoping for days like this to come soon again.