Fly tying.

I have been very lazy tying new flies lately,or lazy is wrong to say but just haven't felt for it so mostly replacements have been tied lately except for some XL-sized poppers which I also made a tutorial of which you find on my youtube channel  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ibn-5YSEExo
Here's some ready made and tested too.

Funny to fish with except cast them,it's a shitty job.

Some new flies inspired from Niklaus Bauers Articulated pike has been tied too and have to say that even if they are big they are easy to cast,still no hits on them but had in mind that next weekend they will be more fished with so,we will see.

And of course some traditional ones too.

I have been a bit confused in my tying because I simply would like some new challenge instead of these three latest shown here,watching this ---> https://www.youtube.com/user/kanalgratisdotse  will usually help me to find my lost inspiration.
Due to that Articulated pike I have also started to tie something on hooks again and due to my...not so good lately fishing I have also downsized some flies a bit but man it feels hard to tie "normal sized" pikeflies in 15-20 cm:s even if I know they work just as fine as the bigger ones too

 And finally a totally new thing for me which is still not even tested,a small 12 cm baitfish pattern that is tied on a Gamakatsu 5/0 offset hook just for fishing among all reed were the pikes seem to have sit lately.

On the forthcoming Saturday I'm gonna go out with my Italian friend who like to test most of my whimsy stuff  and now when we have the whole day time to fish I'm living in a hope all of my untested flies will see some water (and pikes) too...(vink,vink Pietro...)

Midsummer fishing

Because of the bad weather and northern wind I was out fishing only on one day of four possible.
Northern wind has traditionally been a synonym for bad fishing and the one day I was out that myth was securely confirmed.
Had in mind to test my poppers more seriously but clear water,sunshine,cold weather and hard wind made me leaving them in my fly box and fish with more traditionally flies instead.

Had me a clear plan were to fish to avoid my last disaster trip,places for today was "safe" places with not too much wind and close to shoreline because in Midsummer there use to be a lot of boats out cruising and while celebrating a low camo colored kayak can be hard to see.
Fishing close to shoreline made it possible to fish all the way to my planned spot but all from beginning I saw what was comin,took me about an hour before I had my first bugger landed,not good but expected fishing.

While paddling to my final destination I had some phone calls from friends reporting of heavy rains and even hails combined with hard wind gusts here and there but so far I have had pretty good weather except for some heavy wind gusts.

My final destination was a place I had fished so many times before but always from boat so I knew there was a lot of  inscrutable areas left and no better way to explore this large area than with a kayak.
Fished here last weekend but run out of time but that was not a problem today,had plenty of time.
Outside the reeds there was no active fishes at all so I moved in among the reed instead,found some fishes now and then but still my fishing was far from good,anyway,it was exciting to fish here on places I had seen but not fished before.

I fished this area very carefully for many hours,had eat all my food I had with me,have had some rain showers over me and now the wind has turned to pretty hard,clock was tickin and I honestly didn't felt that fishing could make a total turn so I decided to start paddling back same way as I came here.
On my way back I met couple friends out with tubes and heard their fishing had been even worse than mine,not a single landed fish.

We had some coffee and talk together here and soon they also found out there was no idea to go on and we all started to go back to shore making some casts here and there,landed some buggers more and took some photos more.
Oh man it was cold at the moment I arrived to the shore,was freezing a lot and we were in middle of June,felt very good to get in a warm car and start driving back home.

Fishing 14-15.6 2014

All trough last week I was dreaming about forthcoming weekend fishing because of the previous weeks excellent fishing,the only question was:boat or kayak.
Most of you know that flyfishing for pike from a yak is my favorite method  but the wind....forecasts said 5-7 m/s and observations was a bit more.
Had so difficult to decide that just before starting from home I dropped the boat at my parking place and went on with my yak on the roof for some fishing,also I could test my ship in tough conditions.

Arrived to the beach around 9 am and noticed that forecast makers 7 m/s was heavily wrong,at least 10 m/s was more correct,open my Ipad and checked it out.....well,well,well....check the difference between forecast and observation yourself.

At least I knew that I was going to do some more tests with my Ride 135 in rough weather,no big hopes for fishing today.
Loaded my ship and went out on a rocky ride,tried some fishing on windy side but it was a real pain in the ass in that wind,my casts "died" in every backcast so I thought only way was to find some shelter place to fish,places were I knew fishes would be hard to find....
After some very hard paddling I arrived to to a bay which was calm enough for fishing and started to swing out some fluff.fished for a long time and finally I managed to land a small jack,was mostly annoyed about the wind which was not strong but gusts came from different directions which made my yak spinning around which made my casting pain in the ass.

Was slightly irritated when I after some heavy paddling arrived to next possible place and it didn't help the situation at all when that my fly stuck to the new reed in almost every cast and finally it happen,once again I got stuck and when I tried to pull me loose my fly line just snapped in two pieces.THAT'S IT...I have seen enough of this fuckin shit and packed my stuff and decided to paddle back to the shore and go home and get drunk.
I had a hell of a ride to paddle against a wind with gusts up to 17 m/s and sometimes it felt that how much I was paddling my kayak didn't move forward at all.
I had to get into a sheltered place for a rest which I thinking afterward should never had done,never fished here before so I thought I could give it a try,nice looking place to test my poppers on.
Had to put a new line on my reel and when I reached for my reel bag I thought I heard/saw something fell in the water but didn't gave it much attention.
Guess it's no surprise I didn't got anything and after some minutes I paddled back to shore while I put a curse on forecast makers.

Sunday looked far more better day to wake up,cloudy but saw a sunshine every now and then,wind but more reasonable this time.
Eat some breakfast and jumped in my car where I had all my stuff from yesterday ready
After 45 minutes driving I came to the shore in good mood,no hurry,planned my route for the day ready and packed my kayak when it hit me like a hammer...Now I knew what it was I thought I saw/heard I dropped in the water yesterday,nothing more or less than my GoPro camera,couldn't find it anywhere so it has to be so...
Nothing I could do about it anymore so even if I felt a bit irritated I went out.

Fished for almost eight hours with only few landed fishes,god I hat wind from north,very difficult to find active fish here so I took some fuckin landscape photos instead.

I was so close to give up and go back and try to forget this weekend as soon as possible.
Decided to try out one more place,maybe wrong to say place,it was a big area with some sparse reed.
with three casts I landed two fishes,not big guns but at least some action.Paddled in among the bed of reeds and the following three hours saved much of the weekend to be remember as a nice one.
Had to go after my daughter so I could not continue fishing as long as I would have liked to do,had a strong feeling that sooner or later I could have had that Jackpot I was looking for.
So,no big guns landed but you can't always win,not even every time .....here's still some photos of fishes landed.

So,after thirteen hours out fishing it finally was time to start paddling back to the shore,the wind direction had changed a bit so I had some tailwind all the way,on weekends like this even that felt like life is worth living :)

Fishing camp 7-9.6 2014

A bit late with this post as usually because of million things to do but every now and then couple of lines.
Anyway as the title says I was at a fishing camp named as one of the leaders and our main target was to give some youngsters thrills in pike fishing and also learn them proper handling of pikes,that's why I didn't expect too much of my own fishing.
Went out late on Friday evening so I didn't have to wake up so early on Sat morning,when i came to the shore I noticed that I could go fishing on my own couple of hours and so I did.
Also a good chance to test my Big Mama rod in boat fishing.
Oh man,a peaceful evening out at sea,no wind,twilight,really got my mojo rollin.
two hours and seven jacks later I decided to drag my ass to my brothers cottage for some food and sleep before next days marathon fishing.

Looking at these views you might understand the feelings and mood to get away from everything.
It was close to midnight when I had finished my coffee and sandwiches but still decided to go and on the dock for a while just to enjoy the view.

Well,even if I could have spent the whole night watching this view I knew I really need some sleep and it was time to crawl under a blanket and say hello to Mr Sandman.

Four hours later i woke up to a sound from my phone which said it was time to wake up for some breakfast before our marathon begins.
While eating I study the map and forecasts and decided where to fish this AM.Had me two nice youngsters in my boat.
Forecasts promised some wind later on but this morning was sunny and calm so I had no big hopes if I don't find some windy area.
I knew that some breeze was on it's way but while waiting for that we went to a large bay with plenty of fishable area and not long,third or fourth cast and I had my first jack landed.
Not too long for the youngsters to land their first fishes too.

Fished this spot for a while with surprisingly much action IMO even if the increasing wind didn't reach here into the bottom of the bay.
While I was looking out from this bay I saw there was some nice breeze and suddenly I got an idea,let's go out and see if the big guns is outside the bay on the windy side.

A bit risky to leave a place where we had so much action but I was missing the feeling of a heavy hit on my fly and hoped the same for the youngsters too.
Also a risk because I had never fished this shoreline before but with my first cast I landed a jack and not long from that we all started to get fishes and I think the size went bigger too,and on this place I had a feeling that it could be possible to get some big guns too.
After we moved position some meters I managed to get a cast two ft in among the reeds and for a second I let the fly sink when I felt a hit I had waited for,a very heavy "train hit".
Immediately felt that this was more then a jack ,after a while I got an eye contact with my dance partner and saw it was an "okay" size but soon I realized it was not just okay,it was an L-size IMO and after some battling I managed to land a real beauty.

We continued to fish this long shoreline landing some fishes now and then,until we decided to go back to the cottage to something to eat.
We had us some food and also we took a power nap before we went out again and continued from were we last quit.
We found a nice weedless place among the reeds and had some cool top water action here

Not much more to tell you about from Saturday,fished until the sun went down,11.00 pm and all of us had have a good day with over 60 landed fishes in my boat so we thought it would taste nice with food and some sleep.

Don't know if I'm gettin old or what but on Sunday morning I was tired,so fuckin tired....But some coffee and sandwiches made my inner engine run and after a while we were out again.
it all started well for the youngsters,they landed fish after fish while I just dropped one.
first plan was to fish some places we didn't fish yesterday but in seek for the big guns I felt completely lost.
At some stage we went back to the same places we fished on Saturday and now even I had some fishes landed,youngsters continued to land fish after fish,nice flow on...

Youngsters had some very good fishing but not before last spot of the day I managed to land a nice ma'm which really made my day,a ma'm that looked just like the angler,short and fat.

Well,it was already afternoon so we had to end fishing in middle of the day because we had to eat and clean the cottage,also to pack everything takes time but a total amount of over 100 landed pikes,all C&R and to see the new generations proper pike handling without boga grips and overall respectful handling made at least me happy generally,will go fishing with these guys anytime. CHEERS.